Reforms V. Privacy.

The US is far behind Europe in enforcing privacy rights for people. I suppose that's not surprising, as European people have borne much suffering from totalitarian regimes like Soviet Russia, Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy. They (or at least their parents) know that totalitarianism needs to know who is thinking and doing what. Thus in Europe a company like Google faces strong, enforced prohibitions on gathering data about you.

Here is the US, we have almost no protection. Congress is in the pockets of the banks and marketing companies and simply requires them to notify us with long, wordy inserts to things like our credit card bill to "opt out". Of course we all get many, many of those and they are always changing, making us "opt out" over & over again.

Why is the rule not, "opt in"? After all, that's how Nielson gets it ratings. They arrange for a certain number of homes to "opt in" and let Nielson monitor their viewing habits. And when those people want out, they simply quit the programs.

I don't want to be in ANY company's database, but get forced in by wanting to use simple services like credit cards, banks, and store cards to get discounts (that used to exist a sales in newspaper inserts). Sooo I pay cash and don't use my store card anymore. That works. When a company wants to give me a "rewards" card, I decline. I concentrate most credit card spending on one card and then keep track of its privacy policy, making sure I'm on the "opt out" list.

But why do I have to do all this to keep my privacy?

Because the US Congress is in the pocket of the Ruling Class: some of the big corporations and their wealthy lobbyists make money off collecting data about us. And the US government wants to have files on all of us, too.

We need real privacy. No data files at all on us ... anywhere. I want the privacy of a common man who was a pioneer in America. Just pure privacy. I don't want to be a number in a corporate database. Leave me alone!!!

The people need to demand privacy laws - strong ones. Laws the prohibit any company or person or government from maintaining data about you for any reason. If a data file about you needs kept - such as medical records - it should be YOUR property. Period. They have to ask YOU for permission to access it, everytime. You can then give it to your doctor, but NOT to some drug marketing company.

Privacy is essential to a free people. Without privacy, innumerable ways exist to extort or tempt you. We should all demand strong privacy laws from Congress. Our lives are OURS. We are free people! Get out of our lives and homes and stop spying on us. Just leave us alone!

Word of the Day

"Verily" - adverb [$10]
Verily means really, truely
Sentence: The Ruling Class verily sees each of us as a serf whom they want to tattoo with an identifying number and watch ... everything about us: what we eat, buy, use, do, say and think. Demand and value your privacy and everyone's privacy; it's a barrier against totaliarianism and a bulwark of freedom.