“If you’ve done nothing wrong you have nothing to worry about.”

Have any of you heard, " Let them look , I don't have anything to hide!"

I hear this line all the time. I have gotten to the point where I start to ask some of these people as personal of a question as I can think of at the moment. I once ask a guy who his wife was dating now. This will usually get some people start to think; it is not that they have nothing to hide. It is just the case of some things just not being anyone's business.

Over the past few years, I have cut-off those things which tie me to the various ways which can be used to trace my, or my families, locations or movements. I do use this computer at work, but have no internet at home. We do not use credit cards and make all transactions as cash. I will admit to my wife having a cell phone, but it is a pay as you go unit and I change her simm card at intervals. No, I do not wear a tin foil hat, I just like being cautious.

I have nothing to hide, but my life is nobody's business. If I have done nothing wrong, they have to find me first.

reply to post by onecraftydude


Thanks!

Yeah there's a few places around here that your likely to get stabbed (or the s$1t kicked out of you by some copper) whilst wearing a hoodie, baseball caps are still OK but over here there are LARGE amount of rsoles that wear them. I have actually tinkered with mounting them on glasses using the smaller surface mount LEDS on a flexible strip that sticks to the top of the glasses. Also tried them on the collar of a t-shirt at the front, not as good but still obscures most of your face. Really all I want is not to be recorded 200 times a day walking, talking, buying coffee, going for lunch, being on the phone, scratching my arse, looking for bellybutton fluff and the list goes on... Petabytes of data on people living their everyday lives. I don't know what the stats are but I'll bet the catch rate is still pretty low for actual criminals.

If your gonna build one make sure you get 6 or 8 of the highest power infra red LEDS possible. CPC or RS Electronics sell good stuff.

Originally posted by kdog1982
The best thing to do is totally drop off the grid.

I agree. So did the American Colonists.
Does anyone actually think the USA can be fixed?

Another factor not mentioned in the OP is the stress induced by constant monitoring. We used to go about most of our day not having to worry about putting on the face of the perfect citizen. There used to be huge gaps between the times that we had to act exactly the way someone expected us to act which we could use to regroup and de-stress.

These times are shrinking and soon to disappear. We can no longer go to our office, put our head in our hands for a minute and groan after a stressful meeting with the boss for fear he will be watching. We can no longer vent to our wife about a disagreement with the best friend or the government for fear it will be recorded and later exposed. we can no longer escape ourselves for a while and unwind by becoming an anonymous voice of social dissidence on a conspiracy website without the fear of blowback.

We now have to posture like a perfect person 100% of the time without the opportunity for that de-stressing that is so nessassery for our mental health.

When people say to me that they have nothing to hide I always ask them if they would feel comfortable living in a glass house. After they have a moment to think about it I tell them that technology, marketing and laws are slowly turning everyones house to glass and soon we will all be living in one. Usually at that point they get that Stepford Wives look on their face and that's the end of the conversation.

I'm tired of seeing police, security and cameras appearing everywhere. I love going to the parks to hike and watch wildlife. It used to be a place for me where big brother wasn't around and I could relax and enjoy some seclusion. Now I see more cops on Segways than I do deer. That is not how a wildlife area is supposed to look and it really detracts from the experience when suddenly you have to be on your social guard.

Regarding Facebook and social media, I think the general approach should be think before you post, because its going to be there forever. You can't stop other people putting up pictures of you, but in reality you can't stop people talking about you offline either.
"if you don't like it don't use it": IMO you can sign up and not get left behind, you don't have to constantly update or reveal everything about yourself. I've less the 5 updates in 2 years on Facebook, which suits me fine, I only use it for certain things.

"Right to present different faces to different people": This is one of the problems Facebook has I think. There's a good speech about this subject and anonymity on the internet by Christoper Poole, the founder of 4chan, where he spoke at TED here, and another interview here

I do think going forward, we're going to have less and less privacy, which isn't a good thing. Be interesting to see how people balance it, and if they want to

I have to say that the OP didn't really convince me. Not saying that you should place full trust in TPTB but some of the points are rather weak and others are nothing new.

Personally I would prefer a video showing the guy that held up the local gas station isn't me than there being no video and someone picking me out of a line up.

"Mistakes are often made, even by those with the best intentions. The system can grind up innocent people in all sorts of ways. The more power you give to the system to do this, the more you increase the chance that mistakes will happen with increased frequency and severity."



Boy, ain't that the truth! About 15 years ago, I was pulled over for a taillight out. When the cop ran my license, it came back suspended. Come to find out, there was an outstanding warrant for me from Colorado. Seems that 'I" had gotten a DUI and didn't appear in court. Luckily, upon seeing my reaction, he knew something had gone FUBAR. [His term actually.lol] Instead of arresting me, he took the time to run my social security number, find out it wasn't me and had the problem straightened out. Took about half and hour, but was well worth it.

Everybody makes mistakes. Life is a learning experience. Unfortunately now those mistakes are etched permanently into a public database at everybody's fingertips and we are judged by them as people tend to do.

reply to post by silent thunder




And that was all that I have to say...

That saying has always disgusted me, and I've never supported it.

In today's society you're guilty no matter what. If you seem guilty, you're guilty, no matter what.

Look at Michael Jackson. He was acquitted in a court of law of the charges of child molestation.

But people still declare him guilty because he looks like a freak.

It's just all too easy to be made into a guilty party these days. Things said can be very easily taken out of context. And if you're critical of anyone group such as women, minorities, or homosexuals, then you must be guilty of being a hater.

It's shameful, and it needs to stop. Alas, I have no clue how to stop it other by using draconian measures, and using draconian measures really accomplishes nothing but builds up more resentment.

It's all too easy.

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


You have leapt totally off the deep end into utter and absolute nonsense.

You seem to believe you still have rights. You are imagining things, dear friend. I don't know what your particular situation is but if you're somehow better off than others, in a more protected situation or something, please don't assume that everyone enjoys that status. Very few do, in fact. And no one can even think that the next time they are pulled over for whatever minor offense or infraction that that time may be the one where their luck ran out completely.

There are plenty of cases of people being denied their fundamental rights, in the US as well as any other nation on the planet. You make it sound as though because you *know* your rights that they will somehow be honored when you're stopped by the authorities. You seem to innocently believe that it matters at all that you have these rights. You really don't understand the state of things in the world right now. Open your eyes and look. It's going on everywhere, all the time. Pay attention. It's all playing out right before your eyes. You can deny whatever you like, but that's not going to change the fact that the laws are being changed so that you no longer have those "rights".

How can you even assert that you have these undeniable and inalienable rights when you have only to read the news - even just the Sunday news - and you will have case upon case of those rights being "revised" and naturally it's for your own good and safety.

Denial is something you're really good at. Fortunately it's not contagious. At least not this far.

Tonights guest on Coast to Coast is speaking on increased surveillance and threats to Freedoms.
Coast to Coast AM

reply to post by silent thunder


I want to get me a black shirt with white lettering that says...I am a threat to national security or I am being tracked by a surveillance drone.

I'm going to highlight your points because if I try to copy and paste them I wont have enough room for my replies.

“Who defines what is “right” and what is “wrong”?

I'll give you that. The first thing I thought of was the Salem witch trials. Maybe not the best analogy, but the first thing I thought of and it is relevant.

“Good” governance (both corporate and national) tends to be the exception rather than the rule.”

I'm going to change the wording here to “intelligent” I don't look at people as being either good or bad, but rather intelligent; or not so much. I always have and I think it's because I never really took too much stock in our elected officials. The first bit of political news I remember hearing was about Nixon. And I don't remember thinking he was a bad guy because he didn't come across that way to me. He came across as dumb. The only leader we ever had in my lifetime IMO who could be construed as smart was Clinton and that was only because he shared his life with a woman who always came across to me as smart. I always figured it might rub off on him. I guess this is why I'm not too concerned with jackbooted thugs kicking down my door. Almost every common man and woman I've ever run across and socialized with seems to have more common sense than our leaders.

“The system can grind up innocent people in all sorts of ways.”

Just like it did 100 years ago. I don't think that's a valid argument against all the security we have. The cameras aren't malicious. Some of the people behind them are.

“Malicious individuals exist within every organization.”

See the response above.

“A teenager making a stupid You Tube clip may find it hard to get a job ten or twenty years later. I say this is not fair.”

If he or she doesn't have the foresight to see that, that's their problem. Don't blame the system for what stupid people do. That's like blaming the way small towns work (everybody knows everybody and you can't pick your nose without everyone knowing about it the next day) for the fact that Johnny was a greaser, did stupid greaser things, and now can't get a reputable job. Let me put it this way; that kid who did stupid things on You Tube.....I wouldn't want him manning the cameras you posted in your OP. Would You?

“We can observe behaviors used to assert dominance and superiority in the pecking order in our fellow primates, as well as other mammals, suggesting something deep and possibly hardwired into the human psyche.”

You kind of shot yourself in the foot with that one. Again, don't blame the system, blame the people manning the system.

“The right to present different faces to different people at different times”

This argument I don't understand at all so I'm not qualified to debate it. Whether I'm at work, home or on the computer.....what you see is what you get. It just seems like hard work to me to try and be “different people at different times”. I've never understood people who do that and I never will. Maybe that's why I've always been misunderstood: I'm real.

“When you surrender your own narrative to Facebook, you are giving them the power to “define you” in multiple ways.”

Now I think you're bitching just to bitch. You tell a story on Facebook, thereby willingly giving up that part of your privacy. All Facebook is doing is expounding on that the same way the person who got your story will. Do you think the recipient of your story will just stop at what you told them and think no further about it? Have you even talked to people lately? People draw their own conclusions from what you say all the time, what Facebook is doing is no different except they're doing it on a more business level. They are a business after all.

“Don’t you simply want to be left alone sometimes?”

Yes. And I know the place I can go to do just that. The privacy of my own home.
“It is psychologically stressful to have this feeling going all the time, twenty-four hours a day.”
I'm sorry you feel that way, but I don't. I for one don't have public cameras in my home and I certainly don't feel like I'm being “watched” 24/7. You're right. That would be stressful.

(Continued)

“When technology sets in, those that refuse to adapt get left behind.”

I'll agree with you on that one. I for one though don't worry about what people say on places like Facebook or whether they're saying it about me. People have been talking about each other behind backs for........forever. All places like Facebook does is get the word out faster. It doesn't bother me in the least because, as I said in a previous point, I've been misunderstood most of my life anyway so chances are that what people are saying is wrong. The way I live my life proves people wrong 8 times out of 10 and time does a good job of making sure that happens.

All in all, I think you have a valid point. You could have argued it better, but that's just my opinion.
I think the biggest problem is not the technology itself but it's the fact that we haven't grown as humans to the point where we can use it in our favor. Our creation has outgrown us in other words. Think of all the technological advances we have, and then think of the 20% unemployment rate in the U.S. You're worried about privacy? I'm more worried about the financial state of this country and I don't see any of our technology doing anything about it. Pretty useless if you ask me.

I agree.
2

Originally posted by yurichan
Great Post OP.

I would like to add that not only are most people extremely naive they also forget that most of those involved in surveillance are convicted criminals, pedophiles, perverts, Psychopaths.

The regular old-fashioned jokes used as advertising in professional CCTV journals show that manufacturers and suppliers are among those in the surveillance industry who are perverts.

reply to post by CosmicEgg


I think you might have misunderstood him, understandably. His position was more or less something like: just because your rights are trampled or ignored, doesn't mean you don't have rights

Originally posted by EvilSadamClone
That saying has always disgusted me, and I've never supported it.

In today's society you're guilty no matter what. If you seem guilty, you're guilty, no matter what.

Look at Michael Jackson. He was acquitted in a court of law of the charges of child molestation.

But people still declare him guilty because he looks like a freak.

It's just all too easy to be made into a guilty party these days. Things said can be very easily taken out of context. And if you're critical of anyone group such as women, minorities, or homosexuals, then you must be guilty of being a hater.

It's shameful, and it needs to stop. Alas, I have no clue how to stop it other by using draconian measures, and using draconian measures really accomplishes nothing but builds up more resentment.

It's all too easy.

Yep. If you are charged or even arrested for any reason, and you were completely innocent, that will follow you forever. Imagine being charged with molestation or something else terrible, but you are totally innocent? Everybody who has ever heard of you will think of those charges whenever your name is brought up. You're right...it is too easy.

Originally posted by chericher
reply to post by CosmicEgg

 

I think you might have misunderstood him, understandably. His position was more or less something like: just because your rights are trampled or ignored, doesn't mean you don't have rights

What's the point of having rights if they are ignored? Ignored rights is equal to having no rights at all. Am I right? (pun intended)

It's called rights for a reason.

Peace out.