Archive for the Privacy Category

Cashin’ In Cash (October 26, 2015)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Privacy on October 26, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

D          “You’re kidding?  I can’t withdraw all my money.  I could swear this looks like a financial intermediary.”

. . .

D          “I can’t withdraw my money and you want to monitor my deposits of cash on behalf of the government?”

. . .

D          “The government does not need to know everything.  If you protected our privacy when we sought to deposit cash, you might attract more deposits and have enough funds to allow me to withdraw $3000 or $3500.  Just a thought.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Monitoring The Masses: The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

In November, we’ll begin requiring a valid identification (ID) for cash deposits made with our tellers.  Bank of America

In November, cash withdrawals are limited to $2500 in a business day.  Local Credit Union

Profile In Courage Award, 2015 (May 11, 2015)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, Courage, Global Climate Change, Privacy, Profile In Courage Award, Society on May 11, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Former U.S. Congressman Bob Inglis (R-SC) who recognizes that the Earth is not flat and that the Earth is getting flattened by global climate change received this year’s Profile In Courage Award.  The right person and the right issue.”

J          “Fitting.  I still say that they just cannot stomach giving it to the individual who undertook the most courageous act of the past decade.”

K          “Agree.  Awards for intelligence are rarely given to the most intelligent.  Awards for creativity are rarely given to the most creative.  Awards for courage are rarely given to the most courageous.”
. . .

[See the e-commentary at Profile In Cowardice Award (May 12, 2014).]

Bumper sticker of the week:

Edward Snowden – Profile in Courage Award recipient, May 2027?

Preserve Cash; Preserve (Some) Privacy (May 4, 2015)

Posted in Airlines, Banks and Banking System, Gold, Privacy, Taxation on May 4, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

L          “Over the decades, the private sector has addicted us to plastic with little reflection or resistance by us.  One irresistible inducement of the credit card is the prospect for person to accumulate miles on an airline mileage program.”

M          “The public has embraced plastic.  You have embraced plastic.  I have embraced plastic.  I read that the government considered requiring airlines to issue an IRS Form ‘1099-FF’ (Frequent Flier) statement declaring the market value of the airline ticket provided to a taxpayer.  The public regards the free or discounted tickets as an entitlement and off limits from the tax man.  The proposal was shelved.  For a time.”

L          “Those without a credit card likely have an EBT card.  The transition to 100 percent dependence on plastic was effortless and seamless.  We tossed the ultimate plastic explosive in our back pocket.”

M          “Plastic and electrons in the service of the government and the corporations.”

. . .

L           “There is a campaign to eliminate cash from society.  JP Morgan Chase restricted the use of cash for selected markets and restricted clients from using cash for credit card payments, mortgages, equity lines and auto loans.  Customers also will not be able to store cash or bullion in their safe deposit boxes.”

M          “The most safe safety deposit box may be under your bed or in your safe.  I read that the authorities were able to confiscate gold from one’s bank safety deposit box after Roosevelt banned the use of gold as a currency in 1933.”

L          “The real goal is to eliminate the ability of individuals to transact business without the knowledge of those in power.”

. . .

M          “Can you imagine the joy of transacting business with a Saint Gaudens Double Eagle gold coin.  An artwork crafted by the government and available to the public for decades for daily use.”

L          “Sure would be nice to undertake a few transactions that are not monitored by the government and companies even if we only use fiat currency.  With cash, we can also store some money in the Sealy Posturepedic Credit Union.  I like that freedom and privacy.”

M          “Without cash, the banks end run the possibility of a bank run.”

. . .

M          “The airlines no longer trust underpaid flight attendants to take cash for the food that was once free.  A few more bytes logging what you bite at 35,000 feet are now available.”

. . .

L          “In five to ten years, the IRS or its successor will send a statement via e-mail or its successor to each taxpayer proclaiming the amount that a person earned and spent during the year and dictating the taxes electronically debited from one’s account.”

M          “And the IRS will tax the market value of all frequent flyer airline tickets provided to a taxpayer.”

. . .

[See the e-commentary at Monitoring The Masses: The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

He who has the gold makes the rules; he who makes the rules has the gold

Who would have thought that we would one day cherish worthless fiat currency?

Keep currency in circulation

Transact in dollars; protect your privacy

Net Neutrality (April 20, 2015)

Posted in Consumerism, Digital, Google, Internet, Less Government Regulation Series, Net Neutrality, Privacy, Society on April 20, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

A          “The business model is built on two pursuits:  the profitable and the prurient.”

B          “The prurient is the profitable.”

. . .

A          “The first image from the ‘Gaggle’ search revealed pictures from her ‘Spring ‘Show Us Your Tats’ Break ‘77’ revelry.  The announcement of her Nobel did not surface until page 3 of the search.”

B          “There is no profit in Nobels.”

A          “I just cannot ‘friend’ Gaggle, because Gaggle is not a friend.  For a decade, Gaggle allowed access to the site.  Then Gaggle blocked access to the site likely because Gaggle was not making any money by providing access to the site.  Even if I used the full HyperText Transfer Protocol address, namely http://www.myinsignificantwebsite.org, Gaggle still revealed nothing.  Darkness.  Only the honest search engines such as ‘Ixquick’ and ‘DuckDuckGo’ reveal what is really there on the Internet.”

B          “And those two search engines do not track your searches.  Hard to develop search engine optimization (SEO) when Gaggle calls the shots and practices website nullification.”

A          “The Internet is a collection of monopolies and is in effect a ‘public utility’ that needs to be regulated by the public.  Net neutrality sounds like a sound idea.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

If Google does not allow one to access a website, does the website exist?

Net Neutrality Soon

Monitoring The Masses:  The Card And The Chip (January 12, 2015)

Posted in Banks and Banking System, Boycott Series, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Crime/Punishment, Cyberactivities, First Amendment, Freedom / Liberty, Gold, Guns, Our Future?, Plastic, Pogo Plight, Police, Privacy, Silver, Society, Technology, Terrorism on January 12, 2015 by e-commentary.org

. . .

X          “Failure to present The Card, even when there is no cause or provocation, will result in immediate incarceration and summary disposition.  If The Card is not physically maintained within a fathom of The Chip, The Chip will transmit a warning signal to Headquarters and trigger an unwelcome visit.”

Z          “I hear you.  Coming to a country near you.  Everyone is now familiar with a credit, a debit or an EBT card, so the transition will be unnoticed and unchallenged.  All movement, travel, purchases and sales will be monitored at all times by The Chip implanted at birth without permission.  Cash will be non-existent and free movement only a memory.  A few rebels may barter surreptitiously, yet bartering will be more than a mere failure to report income and will also result in immediate summary disposition.  Possession of any precious metals such as Fe, Pb, Au or Ag will be strictly prohibited and swiftly prosecuted.”  

X          “Plastic cards have encouraged excessive over-consumption to date, yet they could also be used to ration scarce resources in the future.  Market the idea to the public with unrelenting fear.  ‘We’ need to adopt the system to protect us from The Terrorists.” 

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s science fact.

Today’s science fiction is tomorrow’s political and economic fact.

Are your papers in order?  Is your plastic in order?

When the big boys make a run on the bank and demand a repatriation of their gold, should the little guys make a run on the bank and demand a return of their fiat dollars?

Nous sommes Charlie?  Is the concern freedom of expression for all or only for some?

Boycott TurboTax:  See Internet

Ebola: The Halcyon Days Of The Panic-demic In A “Peak” Health Care-less System (October 13, 2014)

Posted in Book Reference, Bureaucracy, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Ebola, Health Care, Military, Pogo Plight, Population, Privacy, Public Health on October 13, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “Who can you trust?  Events are moving so quickly.  Fraud and deception work effectively in finance and politics, but Mother Nature is indifferent to and immune from the shenanigans and machinations of mortals.”

2          “The government and the public are still mired at Stage 1.  The government is denying the threat because it has no plan.  The public is denying the threat because it has no idea.”

1          “I am collecting the quotations of the major players to document the response in real time.  Dr. Frieden with the CDCE and Dr. Fauci with NIAID/NIH are not prepared and have not been candid.  A test patient, Dr. Nancy Snyderman with NBC, agrees to a voluntary quarantine and then brazenly violates the quarantine, refuses to accept responsibility and escapes accountability.”

2          “We as a society need to move through the stages from denial to anger to bargaining to depression to acceptance of a plan more quickly than the virus is moving.”

1          “The health care-less system will peak after it fills the nineteen available beds.”

. . .

2          “Easy to say that everything reasonable must be done to contain and eliminate the menace in West Africa.”

. . .

2          “Viewers of Fox tv are yelling at the tube for the government to do something.  The Republicans who advertise on the network cut funding to the CDCE and other programs.”

1          “If the Democrats had provided an additional five billion dollars in funding to the CDCE, what would have happened?”

2          “The CDCE would have lobbied for another five billion dollars.”

1          “Or ten.  And yet the Democrats cut funding, as if any amount of funding matters.  Some researcher who sent repeated e-mails to those in power warning of the dangers of Ebola is not happy.”

2          “I can forward some of the e-mails.”

. . .

2          “A communicable disease is communicated by public transportation.  Even if the disease is not transmitted at this time via air, the public is transmitted via air.  Ebola is small enough to fit in a ‘carry on’ bag.  Ebola will hitchhike and stow away.  Air travel must be purposefully restricted.  Restrictions are costly, but the costs of limiting air travel must be weighed against the costs of not limiting air travel.”

1          “All costs should be calculated.  We need to address the resulting deprivations of privacy and limitations on constitutional rights before the public is too terrified to think.”

. . .

2          “One of the bench marks will be bleach sales.”

1          “Or overflow patients camping in tents in parking lots.”

. . .

1          “The female RNs are underpaid to do the work while the male MBAs who make the decisions take almost all the profits.  The RNs are underpaid to care for the sick and the dying and are not paid anything to get sick and to die in the process.  When a nurse is called in to care for someone sick with Ebola at an institution unprepared for the challenge, she or he should in good conscience call in sick.”

2          “She or he will get there and then be blamed for the negligence of the hospital.”

1          “The American military personnel being deployed to Africa are not being provided combat pay.  The ‘charge of the blight brigade’ should occasion charges against those giving the orders.”

2          “No one gets it.”

1          “Everyone will get it unless all of us get it.”

. . .

[See http://prosperouswaydown.com/category/subtopics/healthcare-subsystems/ebola-healthcare-subsystems/  Five stages of grief and five stages of collapse in a dire scenario.  http://cluborlov.blogspot.com/2014/10/ebola-and-five-stages-of-collapse.html#more.  Consider Earth Abides by George R. Stewart.]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Be clean

Get a flu shot

Wash your hands

Take your kids to the park

Prepare to hunker down

Be calm and panic (but do so with poise and dignity)

Profile In Cowardice Award (May 12, 2014)

Posted in Awards / Incentives, Cyberactivities, Judges, On [Traits/Characteristics], Press/Media, Privacy, Society on May 12, 2014 by e-commentary.org

. . .

K          “Brooksley Born and Sheila Bair courageously challenged the kleptocracy in America.  The Committee did not delay too long waiting to gauge their hipness or political correctness.  For good measure, they also awarded themselves the award in 2009.  Yet the award for 2014 is devoid of . . . courage.”

J          “And integrity and vision.  The Committee went craven this year and should receive a special Profile in Cravenness Award.  There is not a scintilla of doubt that Edward Snowden should have won hands down for standing up courageously this past year.”

K          “The Profile in Courage Award suffers from the same myopia as the awards for most Rhodes, some Pulitzers and the Nobel in E-con-omics.  The pool is constricted and confined at the outset to a small number recipients who can be counted on not to do or say anything really imaginative, creative or, with an award ostensibly celebrating courage, . . . courageous.”

J          “Failing to acknowledge true talent is a tremendous lost opportunity and only heightens cynicism.  Society is giving the wrong signals.  Only those connected need apply.”

K          “Those in power candidly admitted that Snowden did not go to the right schools or belong to the right clubs.  Those who make the decisions did not aspire to play squash or go yachting with him.”

. . .

J          “Those who criticize him for departing the United States fail to understand how much courage it took to take a stand in the face of the venal and vindictive federal criminal justice system in America.”

K          “What if the United States gave him asylum from the United States in the United States?  Strength in response to courage.  That will never happen in a nation debilitated by fear and motivated by hatred.”

J          “No matter how things stay the same, they stay the same.”

. . .

[See the article on the impact of political ideology on First Amendment decisions at http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/06/us/politics/in-justices-votes-free-speech-often-means-speech-i-agree-with.html and the commentary at The Supreme Court On Drugs (June 25, 2007) (“The Court’s new First Amendment test is two-fold: 1) who is making the expression and 2) what is being expressed. That is not what the Founding Fathers intended.”)]

[See the commentary on courage and truth at On Courage and Truth (March 17, 2008).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Pardon Edward Snowden

Free James Risen

Award James Hansen

Pusillanimity is bad form

Bulk Collection Of Telephony Data. Again. (December 16, 2013)

Posted in Book Reference, Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Constitution, Courts, Due Process, First Amendment, FISA, Journalism, Judicial Arrogance, Law, Newspapers, O'Bama, Politics, Press/Media, Privacy, Republican Federal Judge Syndrome on December 16, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

L1        “You never know what a Monday will bring.  A federal judge ruled that the NSA’s bulk collection of Americans’ telephony records likely violates the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.”

L2        “You did not hear the word ‘telephony’ in polite parlance two dozen years ago.  The courts must now address the interplay of law with technology far more sophisticated than a pair of soup cans and a string.”

L1        “Most federal judges were ‘Arts and Crafts’ majors in college who may understand Tennyson but really do not understand technology.  Listen to the techs who install IT systems in the state and federal courts.  Some of these judges are still looking for the rotary dial.”

L2        “The government’s reliance on a case from the prehistoric days of telephony – way back in 1979 – is proof positive that the issue must be addressed anew in light of the new technology today.”

L1        “They will need to refer more often to Newton’s Telecom Dictionary than to Black’s Law Dictionary.  That will be fun.”                  

. . .

L1        “Within a fortnight of the Democrats’ decision to require the Senate to ‘advise and consent’ and vote on O’Bama’s appointments to places such as the District of Columbia Circuit Court of Appeals, the decision will have consequences.  One or more of the new appointees could be assigned to the reviewing tribunal.  If there is en banc review of the three panel decision, there are now more Democrats than Republicans.”

L2        “But will the Democrats defer to their benefactor?  Is there another Republican appellate court judge who may be a fan of the Constitution rather than unchecked federal intrusion?  And we always have the five Supremes who will get to chime in.” 

L1        “Who just don’t get it.  They do not even want to admit that the NSA exists.”

. . .

L1        “Judge Leon (Bush II) overcame the always pernicious ‘Republican Federal Judge Syndrome’ that almost always plagues Republican appointees.  Yet the judge once again displays the occupational hazard of these imperial federal judges.  His opinion is snarky, arrogant, condescending, intemperate, and sloppy.  The screed deserves a B+ for intuiting basic truth, a C- for style and an F for arrogance.”

L2        “When you are going to be courageous, you must be flawless.”

L1        “There are more than a few good women and men who are concerned that collecting the metadata is constitutional and may prevent a great catastrophe.”

L2        “But in the final analysis, there is the Constitution.” 

. . .

[See the “e-ssays” titled USA PATRIOT ACT (April 4, 2005), Less Government Regulation Series: Google (Nov. 30, 2009), Boycott Facebook? (August 2, 2010), Brave 1984 Farm: The Best Of All Possible Worlds (March 19, 2012) and Hero or Traitor? (June 10, 2013) and I Spy, You Spy, They Spy (October 28, 2013).]

[See the “e-ssays” titled Judicial Activism: Rogue Republican Judges (January 28, 2013), The Paradox Of The Republican Federal Judge: Republican Federal Judge Syndrome (September 23, 2013) and Past Time: Exercising The “New Clear Option” (November 25, 2013).]

Bumper stickers of the week:

Free Edward Snowden

Pardon Edward Snowden

Bestow a Presidential Medal of Freedom on Edward Snowden

Quash the sub poena issued to James Risen

Free the Press

In a dozen plus years and without a debate or a vote, technology has deprived us of privacy.  With little debate and many hasty votes, Congress has deprived us of privacy at every opportunity.  We as a society should create a rebuttable presumption in favor of privacy even if it appears to sacrifice security.  Our personal insecurities are actually creating greater national insecurity. 

I Spy, You Spy, They Spy (October 28, 2013)

Posted in Civil Rights/Civil Liberties, Cyberactivities, Due Process, FISA, Google, Government Regulation, National Defense Authorization Act / FY 2012, Perjury, Perjury/Dishonesty, Privacy, USA PATRIOT Act on October 28, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

A          “Remember back in the halcyon days of 2002 when everyone proclaimed that surely the government was not spying on fellow Americans.”

B          “September 11, 2001 may have been the pivotal day.  Ineptitude and incompetence gave way to fear and folly.  Increased spying is no surprise.  And yet now everyone is surprised.”

A          “And I was deemed paranoid because I knew they were gathering data on us.”

B          “It is not paranoia if they are really after you.”

A          “They were after us.  Every instinct informed me that we were being monitored.”

B          “So many government officials in the know knowingly lied in various forums including some under oath and averred that there was no spying.  Many of those who testified agreed to tell ‘the whole truth’ and did not tell the whole truth.”

A          “I realize that we as a people have always been placing an ear up to a door to snatch a snippet of conversation, yet now there are no restraints.”

. . .

A/B       “Are we safer?”

. . .

Bumper sticker of the week:

“Snowden is a traitor.  Stop spying on me.”

Digital Deception (August 5, 2013)

Posted in Consumerism, Digital, Economics, Perjury/Dishonesty, Pogo Plight, Privacy on August 5, 2013 by e-commentary.org

. . .

1          “I mentioned to a close friend privately that digital is holding its own against analog.  However, digital has some downsides.”

2          “I call it digital deception.  Digital allows for so much more deception because nothing is permanent.”

. . .

1          “I clicked ‘add to cart’ to add a product on the ‘Styx’ e-commerce website, jotted down the price and noted the free shipping on a sheet of paper.”

2          “Which gets us back to the need to make a written record that is permanent.”

1          “I minimized the site on the screen, called a local store for comparison and then maximized the site on the screen.  The price was the same, but the free shipping was changed to a much more substantial cost.”

2          “Bait and switch transcends technology.  You may find that the shipping is free, but the shipping date is in a month or longer.  That may prove to be an unprofitable stratagem because it goes against the all-consuming desire for immediate gratification.”

. . .

1          “Now it is offering free shipping and delivery in a week.  It is almost as if the system detects that I will purchase the product if the shipping is free.”

2          “If you leave the site for a period of time and then return, the algorithm may reset to bait you with free shipping.  Switch from the site for a while and see what happens.”

. . .

1          “The ‘Fly By Night’ travel web sites provide the best price for a flight and then in a subsequent visit to the site a few minutes later increase the price or offer less appealing routes.  Once they have gotten you, they have got you.”

2          “Unless you don’t let them get you.”

. . .

1          “The ‘Pillow’ real estate website regularly changes and updates information including what it represented to be historical data.  The predicted price for my house in 2007 is now materially different.”

2          “I can predict the closing price of the Dow last week.”

1          “Taking a screen shot requires a clever workaround.  I filed a printed screen shot of my property and then compared it a year later.  The figures and historical graph were different.  I printed the subsequent results to keep a record in a printed format and then check later.”

. . .

1          “I checked on the availability of a website address and was shocked at this late stage of web address homesteading that it was still available.  I then checked the availability of another more general website and discovered that it was already staked.  When I returned to purchase the first website, it was not available.”

2          “If I find that a website address is available, I immediately purchase it.” 

. . .

2        “You could use another computer and search for a product or flight without revealing your identity or propensity until you sign in to make a purchase.  However, the dubious real estate data appears on every computer screen.”

. . .

Bumper stickers of the week:

Clio needs to clutch the parchment scrolls tenaciously

Let the buyer be aware and be wary and be weary

Mano-a-mano with a machine