Is anyone worried about privacy issues?

The mantra of the government every time they gather information was that it was to be kept separate and not shared with other branches of the government.

Obama's mandate basically attempts to remove these firewalls and allow all databases to interact with each other and share information.

Does anyone else see a problem with this? Basically the federal government will have a dossier on every citizen in the USA... Your financial info, your health info, your criminal records, and all the census info you filled out (how many toilets you have).

This is about as big brother as it gets yet nobody is really addressing it...

Obama isnt going after our guns, he is going after our privacy...

Nothing new here. Since 9/11, since the era of crime being the number one enemy we have been being convinced that if we have nothing to hide, where it the problem with government (and private industry amassing information about us?


My only problem with your lament is that you think that government is the only problem when it comes to privacy issues.


Remember that dead document that we revere as our ultimate and benign charter? Nothing in there about privacy - and you don't have anything to hide - do you?

You think no "dossier" exists on you already? Your SS number - that one never to be used for ID? - is used for ID. No SS#? No services, no contracts (private deals here and not government), your medical records, your bank . . . . .? Go for it now if it means any real chance of keeping wackos from being wacko on all of us. Right now the mentally ill enjoy more privacy rights and protection than non-mental cases.

canndo said:

Nothing new here. Since 9/11, since the era of crime being the number one enemy we have been being convinced that if we have nothing to hide, where it the problem with government (and private industry amassing information about us?


My only problem with your lament is that you think that government is the only problem when it comes to privacy issues.


Remember that dead document that we revere as our ultimate and benign charter? Nothing in there about privacy - and you don't have anything to hide - do you?

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Do you think there might be some traction should a Privacy Amendment to the Constitution be proposed and campaigned? cn

cannabineer said:

Do you think there might be some traction should a Privacy Amendment to the Constitution be proposed and campaigned? cn

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None whatsoever. See the post above yours. "it is too late, they already have everything, what's the difference, we are all watched anyway and - my favorite - they have no interest in what i do anyway - there is too much information for them to take an interest in me"


People know very little about their privacy, they do not distinguish between private data and public data, they do not know that so far there is no universal key (no, not even your SSN) and until that key is established and the barriers between one sort of information and another comes down (you know those firewalls,the ones the right were so upset about, that kept us from capturing the 9/11 perps before they managed their task).

And of course there is my favorite, one i have already spoken of - "if you have nothing to hide". Never mind that those who say such a thing are the first to point out how inept (while at the same time brutaly efficient) the government is. So it doesn't realy matter if they have nothing to hide (even though everyone does), government is capable through neglect or intent of embroiling an individual in hideous Kafkaesque situations ESPECIALLY if that individual has nothing to hide.

canndo said:

Nothing new here. Since 9/11, since the era of crime being the number one enemy we have been being convinced that if we have nothing to hide, where it the problem with government (and private industry amassing information about us?


My only problem with your lament is that you think that government is the only problem when it comes to privacy issues.


Remember that dead document that we revere as our ultimate and benign charter? Nothing in there about privacy - and you don't have anything to hide - do you?

Click to expand...

Era of crime? I thought we were at war with terrorism?

Read the Fourth Amendment.

"If you aren't doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about" Probably the most tyrannical, authoritarian phrase ever uttered.

canndo said:

None whatsoever. See the post above yours. "it is too late, they already have everything, what's the difference, we are all watched anyway and - my favorite - they have no interest in what i do anyway - there is too much information for them to take an interest in me"


People know very little about their privacy, they do not distinguish between private data and public data, they do not know that so far there is no universal key (no, not even your SSN) and until that key is established and the barriers between one sort of information and another comes down (you know those firewalls,the ones the right were so upset about, that kept us from capturing the 9/11 perps before they managed their task).

And of course there is my favorite, one i have already spoken of - "if you have nothing to hide". Never mind that those who say such a thing are the first to point out how inept (while at the same time brutaly efficient) the government is. So it doesn't realy matter if they have nothing to hide (even though everyone does), government is capable through neglect or intent of embroiling an individual in hideous Kafkaesque situations ESPECIALLY if that individual has nothing to hide.

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I think you're spot-on with this. cn

canndo said:

Nothing new here. Since 9/11, since the era of crime being the number one enemy we have been being convinced that if we have nothing to hide, where it the problem with government (and private industry amassing information about us?


My only problem with your lament is that you think that government is the only problem when it comes to privacy issues.


Remember that dead document that we revere as our ultimate and benign charter? Nothing in there about privacy - and you don't have anything to hide - do you?

Click to expand...

Based on that the police should be able to enter and search your house anytime they want. Afterall, you dont have anything to hide do you?

And that dead document or supporting documents prevent unreasonable search and siezure... And I assert that allowing all branches of government to share your information is a violation of those rights.

cannabineer said:

I think you're spot-on with this. cn

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As you may surmise, I am pretty much the same in person as I am on these boards. I have engaged in long arguments with those in your face signature gatherers who spout the same old platitudes to people who are more than willing to accept those same old platitudes. "If you sign this it will do away with frivolous lawsuits - you know like the Mcdonalds coffee lady" - whereupon My description of the true incident surrounding the poor unfortunate calded woman draws crowds of people who knew nothing but what they were "informed". Like my challenging the fish and game agent who boarded our boat on dry land ilegaly performing a search without a warrent ( I was utterly wrong about my rights on that one and it is one that sticks in my craw).

I was once asked the golden question by a roving police officer "may I open your trunk" - "no sir, I respectfully decline to give you permission to search my car" "Why? if you have nothing to hide then you should have no trouble letting me look, you will save us both a lot of trouble and things will go badly for you if you do not give me consent".

Being the dumb ass I truly am, thinking that I am smarter than everyone else, rather than do what I should have done, simply refused, asked permission to leave and left, I posed a question to the officer.

"have YOU anything to hide officer? anything you would wish, even though your actions or posessions are legal, that no one else know"

"I have nothing to hide" the officer stated and I replied - "then why are you wearing clothing?"


That got me the ticket I originaly might have avoided and the animosity of a normaly courteous officer.

My point was simple, our privacy is not a function of hiding something illegal, it is a function of human propriety and dignity. We all have drapes not to hide anything untoward but to keep our lives separate and out of the public view, to keep misunderstandings to a minimum and to minimize temptation of all sorts. Privacy if a very valuable right on any number of levels.


And smartassedness toward police officers gains you nothing but an assinine heroic sounding story to recount to one's fellow drug users. - if you are lucky and if not, it could put a K9 car on your bumper and a quickly planted bag of swag under your driver's seat.

NLXSK1 said:

Based on that the police should be able to enter and search your house anytime they want. Afterall, you dont have anything to hide do you?

And that dead document or supporting documents prevent unreasonable search and siezure... And I assert that allowing all branches of government to share your information is a violation of those rights.

Click to expand...

There is nothing in the Consittution forbidding the sharing of information between one body of government and another.

And yes, based upon "nothing to hide", and our national fear of 'the enemy", criminals (only the lowly street sort - we tend to love the truely sucessful criminals), terrorists, rapists, rabid drug users and the like, a number of polls taken have shown that the majority of Americans with "nothing to hide" would welcome unwarranted police officers into their home for a search if it would help these officials make us "safer".


The specifics of the story are too long to recount here but there was an incident where a singed man began banging on a neighbor's front door. The man was quickly handcuffed to a gurney and taken away where it was supposed that he was a victim of a meth lab fire at a local hotel. The woman who's front door it was, was asked if she would consent to a police search of her home being assured that if she had nothing to hide, no harm would befall her and, the woman knowing that she indeed had "nothing to hide" allowed a massive search of her home, upwards of half a dozen officers combed through her home as she sat on the curb. I asked her the particulars and how could she ever EVER allow police officers in her home without even the benefit of legal representation and she said "I have nothing to hide from the police".

Many months later she was arraigned and finally convicted for the manufacture and intent to distribute PCP spending 9 months in a federal prison. Regardless of what the woman did or did not do, regardless of what nefarious opportunity her husband found in the incident, the woman didn't even know what PCP was, let alone how it might have been profitably manufactured in her home.

She did not know that she indeed DID have "something to hide".

judging by the number of threads started today and the tone, obama derangement syndrome is back in full force.

NLXSK1 said:

Obama isnt going after our guns, he is going after our privacy...

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Privacy of US citizens was taken along time ago. The surveillance programs that the US public think were commissioned after 9/11, were actually already operating in the early '90's.

Remember all you Facebook fans - you make it too, too easy for them....