Please check in if you oppose the massive surveillance being conducted on American citizens

[jtuck004]

300. Do you mean the secret surveillance of the federal police, or the surveillance done

by private firms for profit that bring us, say, the pop-up ads on DU, but is also used for more nefarious things?

That secret one I have real trouble with on several levels. And I have a fair amount of concern about the other one as well. Not so much where it results in ads on DU or any other site, or which movie theater is closer, but the fact that private companies with no controls are amassing so much data about our behaviors and using it to manipulate us for profit, and power, with no oversight. None. (Companies like JP Morgan Chase or Walmart come to mind). I could use such data to determine whether I could sell more alcohol into your neighborhood, or perhaps ways to sell you and your neighbors more loans that will go bad while you go bankrupt, leaving the taxpayers on the hook to the banks while I walk away with the profits from fees, to design propaganda programs, etc. There are a thousand other nefarious things that could be done today, and a whole lot more we haven't figured out yet, but people are working on it.

Both programs are using circumstantial evidence to draw conclusions and take action, and whether that process results in something good or bad for us, or you, is highly dependent on the situation and the trustworthiness of the people involved.

What I oppose is any of it being conducted in secret. The biggest problem is that the federal government is perhaps the easiest to make more transparent, but we may well have more to fear from the other.