Big Brother is Watching.

Look busy…

Your privacy is going away so you might as well deal with it. Me, I have no problem whatsoever with the Government tracking my movements or companies watching what I purchase. Who cares? If someone somewhere wants to actually sit down and monitor what I am up to, then I say, “Have a blast.”

I have a FastLane pass on my car for paying tolls. I use my ATM card for everything possible. I have a RFID key fob for buying gas and I buy as much stuff as I can online. I am an open book. If the powers-that-be really did sit down and analyze the “digital fingerprints” I leave around, they should be able to paint a very accurate picture of my life. And it would bore them to tears.

SETTING: A secret, underground, government bunker. In a vast “war room” hundreds of uniformed men busily work on computers. In the center, a large round desk where several military officials and undercover CIA operatives look at a briefing:

“It shows here that on Saturday afternoon he withdrew $100. That same Saturday, at 3am he used his credit card to buy $30 worth of Chinese food.”

“If you look at page seven, you will see that he bought several items at CVS, including some shampoo, a package of razors and some half-off Easter candy.”

“All intelligence indicates that I this could be a terrorist sleeper-cell.”

This type of information gathering is a joke. Why do I care if FastLane knows if I went through the Allston/Brighton tools at 5:15pm on day and at 4:45 the next? Why do I care if Star Market keeps a record of me buying a frozen chicken potpie and some Cheerios? Why should anyone care? I admit that medical and financial information should remain private, and that identity theft is real. But I am not so sure that tracking our everyday electronic transactions really is, in fact, giving up some of our privacy.

Try to imagine living “off the grid.” Try to provide yourself with food, clothing and shelter without opening any kind of account. How do you get a lease/mortgage? How do turn your water on? It would be impossible to be an active member of society. You could go live in the woods, cut off from the outside world, but what does that prove?

Once you accept the fact that you cannot really hide, the question becomes what people are doing with all of your information? I honestly do not think the government or corporations have the time and resources to data-mine down to individuals. No yet anyway.

Do they keep all of this data for some master Orwellian plan? Is it simply that they cannot throw anything away? Is your information being used to protect you from fraud? If so, who is watching the watchers? The Bush administration has been defending illegal wiretaps and using our vast intelligence gathering capabilities on American’s own citizens. I am on the fence on this one. It is time we woke up and realized that the enemy does not have a uniformed army with tanks and planes that we can spy and keep tabs on. We need to change. I am not sure how, but I am pretty sure that keeping a record of your video rentals does not matter in the grand scheme of things.