Loss of Privacy

It’s good to know that the border with Mexico isn’t really a problem.  It’s those pesky Canadians that we have to worry about.  Fear not, my fellow Americans.  The cities of Detroit, Michigan and Buffalo, New York are about to get their very own surveillance towers to protect us from the hordes of Canadians trying to bust into the USA.

The U.S. Border Patrol is erecting 16 more video surveillance towers in Michigan and New York as part of its plans to use technology to help secure parts of the United States’ 4,000-mile northern border with Canada.

The government awarded the $20 million project to Boeing Co., the same company responsible for the so-called virtual fence along the U.S.-Mexico border that has come under criticism for faulty technology.

Eleven of the towers are being installed in Detroit and five in Buffalo, N.Y., to help monitor water traffic between Canada and the United States along Lake St. Clair and the Niagara River.

At present, Border Patrol agents are posted along the river to keep an eye on water traffic.

Of course, we all know that Canadians aren’t scampering to get across the borders. What they are doing is sneaking pot into the country.  From what I hear, it’s some good weed too.  Just think, instead of decriminializing marijuana and racking in billions of tax dollars, we’re going to blow $20 million on a virtual fence that isn’t going to do a lick of good.  If the pot dealers can’t sail across the rivers, they’ll find other ways to get it across the border.

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The GSh-18 pistol, the world’s most lightweight handgun, is capable of piercing any body armor. Weapon designers at the arms developer and manufacturer KBP Instrument Design Bureau in Tula say it is a next generation side arm, replacing the legendary Makarov pistol.

Watch the video here.

British ISPs BT, Virgin Media, and TalkTalk are seriously considering using Phorm, an Internet tracking system, to track all page views of its 11 million customers.

The potentially lucrative system creates an anonymous profile of a surfer’s interests which is then used by retailers to target them with relevant adverts.

Phorm insists it is far less intrusive than the existing tracking and profiling of surfers by internet search engines such as Yahoo and Google. It says there is nothing to link a name or address to the profile and customers can also opt out.

This is deep packet monitoring and they are lying to you when they say that the profile is anonymous.  If it were anonymous, they wouldn’t be able to track you and target ads at you.

Sir Tim Berners-Lee believe that this is an invasion of privacy and it shouldn’t be allowed.

It reveals huge amounts about people’s lives, their loves, their hates and fears. People use the web when they are in a crisis.

‘It is very important that you can use the internet without a thought that, when we click, a third party will know what we clicked on in a way that might effect how our insurance premium changes, whether we can get life insurance or another job.’

BT has already conducted three secret tests of Phorm without informing its customers.  While it may have violated EU law, BT felt free to conduct the tests and, now, plans to fully implement Phorm.

Many users already use some sort of adblocker and this will only increase their use.  People will learn to use proxies and confuse companies like Phorm.  There are already programs that you can use that will randomize your surfing so things like Phorm will be thoroughly confused.  After using such programs, people will also switch to ISPs that don’t practice such invasions of privacy.

You can also petition the UK government to stop this from happening.

While perusing reddit today, I came across this comment that made me actually laugh out loud and I had to share it.

I flew to a different state with my daughter. I had to pee right when we got off the plane so I told her to sit on our suitcase and wait outside the men’s room. She knows the whole bit about screaming bloody murder if someone is scaring her with words or actions. So I pee and start washing my hands when I hear her screaming. I run out the doorway and security is trying to pull the suitcase out from under her and telling her to get up.

There’s no worse feeling in the world than knowing you will get tasered, gang-tackled, and/or arrested for reacting how a normal human being should react in that situation.

I said “what are you do to my daughter?!”. One of the officers replied “this bag was unattended so we need to inspect it”. I said “Unattended?! You can’t even get it away from my kid. This is the most fucking attended bag in the airport!” At that point, they questioned whether she was even my kid or not (she’s adopted and has different skin color).

Fortunately they didn’t drag us back into their dungeon and finally told us to move along when the crowd grew bigger. Some lady in the crowd was ranting about how they were dragging a little girl around the terminal (they only rolled her a couple feet when she was sitting on the suitcase).

I’ll be flying again in a couple of months and this sort of idiocy is really starting to scare me. Do I actually have to start flying with a leash attached to my luggage or should I just shove my luggage up my ass to keep the TSA from taking it?

A mom let her 10 year old son walk, in broad daylight, to his soccer practice 1/3 mile away from home.  It was a route they’d driven many times before.  He’d walked around the neighborhood many times before.

I had to be at the field myself 15 minutes after practice started, so I gave him my cell phone and told him I would be there to check that he made it and sent him off. He got 3 blocks and a police car intercepted him. The police came to my house — after I had left — and spoke with my younger children (who were home with Grandma). They then found me at the soccer field and proceeded to tell me how I could be charged with child endangerment. They said they had gotten “hundreds” of calls to 911 about him walking.

The rampant hysteria that everyone seems to be possessed with today is appalling.  While we should ensure the safety of our children, there is no need to be so over-protective that children can no longer be children.  Fortunately, this mother spoke with the chief of police and received an apology, but it never should have gotten that far.

You can read more at Free Range Kids.