Does privacy still exist?

[ziggy]

https://patrioticviralnews.com/arti...cret-on-youand-they-dont-have-to-tell-anyone/

I'm not sure what to make of this. I never fly, but does TSA know all about me anyway?

 

[Ruffnek]

I really, truly, deeply wanna say that this is just some paranoid Alex Jones-esque rambling. But anymore, I question whether he, among many other "crazy sensationalists", is really that crazy...

 

[Spear Dane]

No, Ziggy. And quit peeing in the shower. That's gross.

 

[miguel]

Some day, all the dirt will come out. When the DDR (aka "East Germany") folded, and the depth of the Stasi infiltration into normal life was fully realized, people were gobsmacked.

Come 'a time...

 

[JeepHammer]

I'm sure there will be all sorts of tinfoil hat types ranting on & on...

The fact,
Everyone assumes FBI, TSA, Homeland, NSA, etc. keep detailed files on everyone.
The government can't keep deep information files on citizens since the J. Edgar Hoover fiasco.

Another fact,
The 'Credit Reporting' agencies are the ones that keep your deep files, data mining, from every phone call they can connect to you, every purchase they can connect to you, etc.
These are not government agencies, but make everything available to the government on demand.

The third fact,
While 98% of Americans have 'Smart' phones, they are the most sophisticated surveillance device anyone can think of, and YOU paid for it, and YOU pay for it to broadcast your location, listen in on your conversations, give meta data, even turn on the cameras/microphones if they want to.
We 'ASSUME' a warrant is needed, but then again you wouldn't know about a warrant now would you...

Even 'Burner' phones can be traced by the phone numbers you call most and talk to the longest.

Now, as for TSA,
I carry a commercial driver's licence, and I hold a TWIC card. (Transportation Workers Identification Card)
I bypass the lines at the airport with a TWIC, already have the TSA, CBP, Homeland, FBI, NSA & National Registry (no fly list) background checks verified.
Since I often fly, I got the CDL & TWIC done, it was worth the trouble.

--------

Just a little story,
I had a few small military (sub) contracts, and I needed a deep background checks.
By oversight or mistake, the contractor sent me the entire 2,700 pages of my background check.
This included virtually every phone, electric, water & sewer bill, every phone number I've ever had.
I lost a phone on the road, bought a burner & minutes for cash until I got home, and they had that number.
My military background checks, my declared taxable income, how much taxes I paid, my handgun & BATFE paperwork, virtually every monthly statement on credit cards, and even what 'Savers Clubs' I belonged to (the little tag they give you at the grocery & parts stores they scan for discounts).
My medical codes from billing where in that mix.
Every bank loan was there, from the first one in the 70s on.
Even a stereo I bought on '90 days same as cash' and paid off in less than 90 days was there.

I also found out they call us '16's, every person on Earth they collect data on has a 16 digit ID number.
Average people are called 16s, and people that pay bills, refinance for lower rates, etc they call 'Dead Beats' because they refuse to excessive interest, fees, and don't use credit for junk...

 

[Kutnupe14]

Lost me at....

[FONT=&quot]The previous administration made George Orwell’s “Nineteen Eighty-Four” dystopian novel look like a Disney fairy tale.[/FONT]

 

[Cameramonkey]

I'm with Kut. (shocking, I know)

I'm not saying the cameras dont get turned on when you show up on their radar and they want to dig deeper. But to feel like you are always watched is silly. Even with AI they dont have that power. (yet)

Though I do find something odd. Every once in a while the camera record light in my smart monitor turns on for no reason. The upload traffic on my router also spikes about that time. Then I go and change into this, and the light/traffic both inexplicably shut down.
(nsfw)
https://proxy.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=...ro.com/2243/I/816/2/borat-mankini%201.jpg&f=1

 

[churchmouse]

HHhhhhhhhmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm........brings "Person of Interest" to mind....

 

[Cameramonkey]

Oh, and worth mentioning, I forget who it was, but somebody pretty high up in intelligence admitted in a Q&A after a speech that he tapes over his laptop's camera.

... but you and I have nothing to worry about because things like that just dont happen...

 

[churchmouse]

Oh, and worth mentioning, I forget who it was, but somebody pretty high up in intelligence admitted in a Q&A after a speech that he tapes over his laptop's camera.

... but you and I have nothing to worry about because things like that just dont happen...

Bravo Sierra. It is not hard to do.

 

[Cameramonkey]

Bravo Sierra. It is not hard to do.

Not saying its not hard. Its the numbers.

There are exponentially more of us than those who would monitor us. We gotta be a blip on the radar before it happens.

And there are telltale signs they can't avoid due to physics if/when they decide to turn your cam/mic on:

-Battery life will plummet
-Device will run hotter than normal for an otherwise idle device.

Running audio/video and sending it out to a remote viewer takes MANY more electrons than are used normally when the device is idle.

 

[HoughMade]

It’s more than a little narcisstic for any of us to think that we have anything going on that anyone else cares about.

 

[Spear Dane]

It’s more than a little narcisstic for any of us to think that we have anything going on that anyone else cares about.

You were saying?

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/5603...or-aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups

 

[BugI02]

Although I believe 'privacy', if not dead, is on life support; I think the report the OP posted is overblown. I believe the 'special powers' of the TSA and CBP only apply in the special situation of wishing to cross an international border

That's not to say if you decline a warrantless search of your cell-phone contents domestically that you won't end up on the no-fly list, it just means you might have legal recourse. If you're that worried about it, just have two iPhones - one for all your anti-government activities and one for all the normal stuff. iPhones because at least you have to acquiesce to a search, whereas a Google/Android device will cheerfully 'cell you down the river' at .gov's behest (because you don't have any secrets from Google anyway)

IMO anonymity/Grey Man/being uninteresting is the best you can hope for in the information age

 

[HoughMade]

You were saying?

https://www.npr.org/2017/10/27/5603...or-aggressive-scrutiny-of-conservative-groups

Yeah...that's based on tax advantages people want for their group and therefore have told the government all about voluntarily, not violations of "privacy" as mentioned above.

...and being concerned about privacy, valid, but in the OP linked article, there was a lot of talk about the gvt. and our social media accounts...our SOCIAL MEDIA accounts. there's a pretty easy way to keep this from being a concern.

 

[BigRed]

If you want to do some reading on how it works and what are the objectives.....


https://www.amazon.com/Numerati-Stephen-Baker/dp/0547247931

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Numerati



Oh, for when he reads this, Big Brother you can go straight to Hell.

 

[trailrider]

It’s more than a little narcisstic for any of us to think that we have anything going on that anyone else cares about.

Until they want to care about it. I agree most likely unless "they" decide they want to know about us we're ok, but it's still kinda creepy that they can.

Life today does kinda look like the book 1984. Ain't much you can do about it. I don't do any social media(except INGO of course), and keep my location, etc turned off, but I doubt that matters.

 

[Hoosierkav]

It wouldn't be hard to have a modern day "Red Scare"--there's enough metadata to connect us in all sorts of ways.

I would imagine "they" not only notice when we are doing something, but also when we aren't doing something. Suddenly stop using credit cards, email, and your phone--the lack of normal traffic becomes an abnormality. Now, maybe for one person, it isn't a big deal, but if a group of "connected" people have the same pattern, it becomes interesting.

 

[JeepHammer]

With digital data storage being so cheap, anyone can store a TON of information.

I'm not saying anyone is listening in full time, or in real time.
It's just to easy to pull every credit card purchase, every check you write, and at least the meta data (which the NSA already admitted to doing) on every phone call nation wide.
You should also remember the CIA occupied the floor below AT&T in the World Trade Center, they also occupy the floor below AT&T on the west coast.
(Presumably to monitor every intentional call on land lines)

I can't imagine recording every phone call, simply too much volume.
What's probably being done is the same thing the government was doing in the 80s, the phone call is temporarily recorded, *IF* a key word is recognized by speech recognition software, then it gets flagged/kicked for a human to listen to.
When some soccer mom says the kids bombed out at their game, it got kicked, key word 'Bombed'.
Back in the 80s it took a human to know it was nothing...

Since the number of every phone call, on both ends, is recorded (look at your detailed billing) both numbers & duration are on the bill, it's easy to get information.

I'm sure (insert eyeroll here) they have warrants for everything they collect in the US...
That's why 'Echelon' got rolling way back in the 70s, we listened to everything going on in Canada, England, etc, While Canada & England listened to everything transmitted in the US on microwave or satellite and the governments in the Echelon program simply traded info.
It wasn't illegal that way since a foreign government collected the recordings.

Now for the folks that weren't wasting time on the tinfoil hat websites, the PM of Canada & the government of France have both complained publicly about their phones being tapped...
English MPs & PM have complained from time to time, but quickly got shut down.

Also, keep in mind the 'Average' home computer has 244 spyware programs running at once,
While the 'Average' "Smart" phone is running 30 or more.
Most of these you download with porn, games, clickbait, etc. and no one can tell you where the info collected goes...

 

[eldirector]

Privacy is "dead", only because we have willingly led it to the gas chamber. The .gov is only part of that. They are too incompetent to make good use of the data (currently). I mean, hell, folks called the FBI about the kid in Parkland, called the local sheriff, and called the school, but they all sat on their hands. The .gov may have a mass of data, but bureaucracy prevents them from doing anything remotely effective with it. Sure, certain agencies can mine it looking for a specific person (a background check), but mining it for "patterns" and finding Joe-Schmoe in Podunk, Indiana is still not terribly likely. Not that they aren't trying...

Private parties are a different story. The credit industry, internet providers, and social media providers probably understand your behaviors better than your spouse does. They are motivated to collect and USE that data, and they do... well. Facebook as made billions buying and selling user data. Even if you don't have an account, they know who you are (in a technical sense).