Destroying Privacy Legally and COPPA

jibeho posted the following thread on ATS - Now Obama targets your FedEx, UPS packages. A good thread and I recommend people read it. Basically he explains how the Federal government is requiring UPS and FedEx to examine packages and make sure that illegal pharmaceuticals are not being mailed. It is merely one example of how our privacy doesn't really exist.

Phone Calls. Your phone calls were protected when land lines were used. In order to tap your phone or listen into your conversations the government had to get a warrant. Those laws do apply to any communications using the airwaves and never did. The FCC regulates the airwaves and it was determined that because of the limited bandwith, the use of the airwaves was a privilege and nothing that went over the air was protected. Now that we all have cell phones, no right to privacy and they can listen in on anything they want, as can your neighbor.

The Internet. The internet was created and is controlled by the Federal government. Look up the history of ICANN too. Nothing that is transmitted over the internet is protected, nothing. People applaud Wikileaks and Anonymous for hacking people's e-mails and are then outraged that the government can read all our e-mails.

Goodbye Post Office. Back to jibeho's thread. Your mail was only protected because of laws effecting the U.S. Postal Service, those laws don't apply to private companies that can be held accountable for what they ship. Why do you think the post office is intentionally being made bankrupt? Once it is gone, you will have no choice but to use e-mail or UPS or FedEx or whoever, private companies. Want to know how suspicious it will be to use UPS as your mail service when you can e-mail?

Electronic money means we can see what you bought. Have you noticed these articles about people on food stamps buying steaks? How did they know what these people bought? People indignantly ranted about what foods people should be allowed to buy with foodstamps and never asked why and how what they were buying was being tracked.

Geo Positioning Technology (GPS). The government can legally track any GPS you have, your computer, your car, your phone, anything with GPS. Well, the government owns all of the GPS satellites so they can track what they want. Heck, how many people already track their kids or monitor their internet usage?

COPPA is a law to protect children who are online. It requires websites like Facebook and probably ATS to verify that they are not allowing children to see adult information. Who defines what adult information is, is the government. I wrote a thread a long time ago about how in the future you would be required to use your real identity online, COPPA is how they are going to get there.

Finally, lets talk about Google Glass. Lots of people are beginning to argue with people being able to wear Google Glass, what do you think the next step will be? It is a technology many want. The next versions will look just like regular glasses so you won't know they have them on and are recording everything you do. I am sure many of you have noticed how the police have been saying you cannot record them. Some of the first people to buy these glasses will be protestors so that they can record the police.

The point is that all of these things are legal now because the governmental infrastructure that used to support privacy has been destroyed. Lets not forget books, more electronic books were sold year than physical books, how did you download that book, did use the internet?