Privacy Invasion

Part of what initially attracted me to New York was the idea of being anonymous. It was nice to think of starting over in a place with eight or nine million other people I didn't really know. While I love my friends up here and have enjoyed making new ones, I also like the idea of keeping things private and when I want to, disappearing. What I am finding by watching the news, however, is that "disappearing" and "privacy" seem to be things that are becoming past events. It used to be that essentially everything was personal. You couldn't find someone's criminal record or bank records or phone records unless you were a cop or a lawyer investigating with a warrant. Now you can simply click on a website, pay a fee, and find out who your boyfriend has really been calling.

I remember the days before caller i.d., when you had to pick up the phone to know who was on the other end. It makes me nervous how much I depend on the caller ID on my cellphone now. I'm always screening my calls, and while I'm glad to know which calls I missed, I wonder if it's affecting my way of dealing with people head on. Instead of speaking to someone and throwing them off using my witty banter, now I just screen my calls and if I suspect it's a telemarketer or my mother, ignore it. I have to wonder what effect this is going to have on the next generation, a generation that's always had access to knowing who's calling. They will never have to deal with people, at least on the phone, that they don't want to deal with and I don't know if that's a positive thing or not. Some forms of stress are positive and i worry that the children we are raising are being taught that they don't have to learn how to deal with it.

Another thing I remember is the days before the internet. I mean, I'm sure it was already in existence, but certainly not for the average citizen. Then I remember trying it out for hte first time and waiting for forever for an email to go through. It has changed the way we do everything. It has also made it easier to find out who we are and what we are doing. Which is an invasion of privacy that we have allowed and is now coming back to bite us in the ass. President Bush and his posse are attempting to get Google to release over a million random websites to find out "what kind" of American uses them. Their position is that they are trying to protect us. Google's position is that even though they aren't asking for specific people's names, in time they will, and if they give into the first battle it's only a matter of time. On top of that, they would also be giving away some of their trade secrets about how they organize information for consumers.

This is worrisome on a variety of levels, but the most amazing thing to me is how little we've heard about it. The attorney general just came back and said that Bush tapping into phones without a warrant was perfectly legal since we are now dealign with "terrorism" and a new form of war. What's next? Maybe going to an operator system that will send us to approved numbers only. I hve to wonder how many people out there were tapped and what information they were specifically looking for. How did they pick the people? Is it possible that they based it on past phone contacts? They said they looked for international numbers, which in a country like America, a country full of immigration, seems wrong. Could you calling your grandmother in Brazil be overheard by CIA agents? On Saturday Night LIve this weekend, they did a spoof of a conversation being overheard. IT was essentially two old ladies discussing everything from back problems to their "holy terror" grandchildren, ages 9 and 11. The joke was that because of their language and references to the Big Day, Bush felt it neccessary to tap in on their conversation. I laughed but at the same time was worried that this would in fact become true. That everything we said the word "bomb" we would be recorded and it would be used against us. What's next, Chinese water torture? Will people find themselves forced to confess to crimes they may not have committed because of things they said?

America was supposedly founded on freedom and supposedly we help other countries find their own freedom. But right now it seems that some of our most important rights are being breached by a Connecticutt Texan who claims to have our best interests at heart and yet only seems interested in a personal agenda.