Deep Data Mining & Personal Privacy: The NSA has NOTHING on BIG BUSINESS

Much ado about nothing.

That’s how I describe the recent ruckus & hullabaloo made about the recent UK news story that “revealed” the U.S. National Security Agency is “spying” on American citizens at home.

The reality is, that the information the NSA is creating is called “metadata,” is a set of data that describes & gives information about other data. Phone numbers called, dates, times & length of calls is NOTHING by comparison to what BIG BUSINESS knows about us already.

Why do you get certain junk mail?

Ever got junk mail from the AARP?

If you’re near age 50, or older, you probably already have.

Ever gotten junk mail from Social Security, Medicare, FDIC, or even your Congressman or Senator?

I dare say you have NEVER.

When you bought your car, if you borrowed money to purchase it, the bank or credit union which loaned the money to you performed a background credit check on you before they loaned their money to you.

Where do you think they got such information? The federal government?

Please… don’t insult my intelligence.

When you applied for a credit card, did you happen to list your age or birthdate on the application?

What about the life, health, auto, or house insurance policies you have? Did you mention your relationship status, number of children, their ages, specifics of your health including medicines, treatments, surgeries, income & source, length of residency, height, weight, or even the size, color & consistency of your last bowel movement?

I would imagine the answer to ALL those questions – at one time or another – has been “yes.”

And yet, unless you’ve served in the Armed Services, or as a

THE SKY IS FALLING! THE SKY IS FALLING! Or… maybe not.

Believe it or else, there were opponents to air bags, seat belts and child safety restraints.

Some time, someone will oppose everything… even vanilla ice cream and Mother’s Day.

There are, I suppose, several ways to consider the following.

One could presume the psychotic Chicken Little, paranoid delusional “the-sky-is-falling” approach, or, one could suppose the device is only an extension of someone who cannot tell a lie… or, at least is very difficult to deliberately fabricate falsehood.

And then, there’s something in the middle.

I would imagine that’s where the truth resides.
—

A Black Box in Your Car?

By Sam Favate, April 23, 2012, 1:40 PM

If you thought having EZ Pass in your car would make it too easy for the government to track you, you ain’t seen nothing yet.

The Senate passed a bill in March that calls for “mandatory event data recorders” (or black boxes) to be installed in all new passenger motor vehicles, starting with the 2015 models, and which would record data before, during or after a crash, according to KurzweilAI.net.

The bill, which can be seen here, has a privacy provision but gives the government the authority to access the black box in a number of circumstances, including court order, consent of the owner, an investigation or inspection, or to determine the need for emergency responses.

The same bill would allow the IRS to