Privacy is important to us, and it should be important for any American who does not choose to be in the spotlight.\u00a0 To paraphrase Ben Franklin, \u201cAnyone that would give up a little liberty to gain a little security will deserve neither and lose both.\u201d\u00a0 His quote is as timely now as it was two and one-third centuries ago.\u00a0 In the private sector as well as the public sector, citizens are casually relinquishing more and more information for the faux sake of safety.\u00a0 Information about you is your personal liberty.\u00a0 The more personal information you give to someone (or something) else, the more freedom you surrender.\u00a0 Governments and corporations are gaining uncharted ground in this tug-of-war over what personal information is necessary to relinquish and what\u2019s icing on the cake for them.\u00a0 It\u2019s like trying to find the perfect employee, and the perfect citizen.<\/p>\n
If you want a benefit from the government, you have to comply with the requirements of the program.\u00a0 That often includes providing the government with certain personal information, such as Social Security numbers, birth dates, and combinations of other identifiers that no one would give to their next of kin.\u00a0 For instance, no one may obtain a driver\u2019s license without providing the aforementioned information.\u00a0 And now, it\u2019s getting worse.\u00a0 Under the guise of protecting your identity, the government (Iowa Dept. of Transportation) no longer takes your photo and allows you to leave the driver\u2019s license renewal facility with a license or permit in hand.\u00a0 You are given a piece of paper and told you will receive your new driver\u2019s license in the mail.\u00a0 What you may not know is that the photo they\u2019re taking of you is not so much a photo as it is a facial recognition portrait.\u00a0 Serving as a protective device for your identity is a rue, a red-herring, a second-hand smokescreen.\u00a0 The only benefit you can receive from this service is knowing that the government \u201cmay\u201d catch someone who has used your identifiers.\u00a0 The invasion of privacy now becomes diluted because the government has in its database a computerized blueprint of your face.\u00a0 Not even your family physician has such personal information.<\/p>\n
Try to find employment in this current market and you\u2019ll hand corporations more personal information than your parents know about you.\u00a0 Some companies conduct psychological tests on prospective employees; most firms require a pre-employment drug screen (pee in the cup); and a few have even gone as far as analyzing your handwriting to see if you might be some sort of closet crazy waiting to go berserk at your desk on a future Monday morning.\u00a0 If you won\u2019t comply \u2013 don\u2019t bother to apply.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat have you got to hide?\u201d\u00a0 \u201cIt will be kept confidential.\u201d\u00a0 And \u201cEveryone does it\u201d, are all phrases you\u2019ve heard before.\u00a0 Ironically, the same company that requires so much information from you spends thousands and thousands of dollars preventing company information from being disclosed to the public and the government.<\/p>\n
We don\u2019t fly.\u00a0 We drove to a conference in Washington, DC, in May of 2005.\u00a0 We rented a car and drove to Seattle at Thanksgiving time in 2006 to visit Stephanie\u2019s ailing sister.\u00a0 One of the reasons for not flying is the intrusive and useless process of boarding a plane.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s physically safer to fly, we admit that.\u00a0 On our way to DC we traveled through the entire state of Indiana with a severe thunderstorm carrying numerous tornadoes at our back.\u00a0 Returning from Seattle we drove through a treacherous snow storm in the mountains in which we could barely see the road.\u00a0 We acknowledge that statistics the show flying to be safer than driving.\u00a0 However, at our discretion, we sacrifice safety for the sake of privacy.<\/p>\n
When are we (citizens) going to demand equal rights with companies?\u00a0 When are we going to tell the government that we want and need much more transparency than it is willing to give?\u00a0 When will the day come when a private citizen feels that personal information will be just that \u2013 personal?<\/p>\n
Fawkes-Lee & Ryan is dedicated to working toward protecting individual freedoms, with a strong emphasis on privacy.\u00a0 We invite you join<\/a> us.<\/p>\n Copyright \u00a9 2010 Fawkes-Lee & Ryan.\u00a0 All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Governments and corporations are gaining uncharted ground in this tug-of-war over what personal information is necessary to relinquish and what\u2019s icing on the cake for them. Continue reading