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Desensitization And The War On Privacy & Property Rights
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Red Blade
May 5, 2013, 8:59:07 PM5/5/13
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http://libertycolumns.com/2013/05/05/desensitization-and-the-war-on-privacy-property-rights/
About a week ago, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released "Who Has Your
Back?" A traditionally libertarian and anti-regulation civil liberties
organization, the EFF is now making ridiculous and ludicrous claims about
social networking companies and search engines. Facebook and Google are
supposedly fighting for your privacy rights in Congress, Twitter requires a
warrant for access to the content you publicly post, and AT&T, who was
granted immunity by a bipartisan Congress after the EFF successfully sued
them for illegal collusion with the NSA, is now fighting for your privacy
as well.
Claims that companies like Facebook and Google, which require you give them
your real first and last name and (in certain cases) your phone number, are
protecting your privacy, provide a glimpse of a key weapon in the war on
privacy and property: desensitization.
We often see fictional "anti-"malware programs and "Nigerian spam" make
these same requests of us. Yet legitimate companies are engaging in these
same tactics - a different group of unknown people, doing the exact same
thing, and "it's all OK".
The EFF's report also commends cloud-based and other remote backup
services, an ongoing threat to private property rights being forced upon
the public. If a phishing message offered to take care of your banking,
will, estate, and other personal data for you, would you fall for it?
Desensitization is a very useful weapon in Washington's fight against
personal and economic freedom. With desensitization, you can make sexual
abuse and manufacturing pornography valid airport security procedures. You
can make plastic into money. You can make private property the
"intellectual property" of someone else. You can support the Second
Amendment, but "assault" weapons don't count.
Through repeated advertising by these privacy-invasive companies, America
has become desensitized to loss of privacy rights. Many of these companies,
such as Facebook, serve no useful purpose - a phone call, e-mail, or simply
waiting until you see the person again can do the exact same thing, and
without putting a carbon copy of your life into the hands of unknown
people. (It's true - think about it!) We need to start examining the
violations of freedom we have allowed to be acceptable. If we do not, there
will be no freedom at all, and there will be no need for a "Who Has Your
Back?" report, because no one will care.
--
Red Blade
President of alt.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, & talk.politics.misc
Fanfiction Committee Chairman of alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead
www.libertycolumns.com
www.danq.co
About a week ago, the Electronic Frontier Foundation released "Who Has Your
Back?" A traditionally libertarian and anti-regulation civil liberties
organization, the EFF is now making ridiculous and ludicrous claims about
social networking companies and search engines. Facebook and Google are
supposedly fighting for your privacy rights in Congress, Twitter requires a
warrant for access to the content you publicly post, and AT&T, who was
granted immunity by a bipartisan Congress after the EFF successfully sued
them for illegal collusion with the NSA, is now fighting for your privacy
as well.
Claims that companies like Facebook and Google, which require you give them
your real first and last name and (in certain cases) your phone number, are
protecting your privacy, provide a glimpse of a key weapon in the war on
privacy and property: desensitization.
We often see fictional "anti-"malware programs and "Nigerian spam" make
these same requests of us. Yet legitimate companies are engaging in these
same tactics - a different group of unknown people, doing the exact same
thing, and "it's all OK".
The EFF's report also commends cloud-based and other remote backup
services, an ongoing threat to private property rights being forced upon
the public. If a phishing message offered to take care of your banking,
will, estate, and other personal data for you, would you fall for it?
Desensitization is a very useful weapon in Washington's fight against
personal and economic freedom. With desensitization, you can make sexual
abuse and manufacturing pornography valid airport security procedures. You
can make plastic into money. You can make private property the
"intellectual property" of someone else. You can support the Second
Amendment, but "assault" weapons don't count.
Through repeated advertising by these privacy-invasive companies, America
has become desensitized to loss of privacy rights. Many of these companies,
such as Facebook, serve no useful purpose - a phone call, e-mail, or simply
waiting until you see the person again can do the exact same thing, and
without putting a carbon copy of your life into the hands of unknown
people. (It's true - think about it!) We need to start examining the
violations of freedom we have allowed to be acceptable. If we do not, there
will be no freedom at all, and there will be no need for a "Who Has Your
Back?" report, because no one will care.
--
Red Blade
President of alt.politics, alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, & talk.politics.misc
Fanfiction Committee Chairman of alt.tv.beavis-n-butthead
www.libertycolumns.com
www.danq.co
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