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Originally Posted by Mike AI
I hate big government. However, right now I am more afraid of terrorists then I am over Big Brother. I think most American's agree with me. Over time this will change.
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I didn't want this one to slide by. This is actually the important issue.
What is being done now is being done in the name of something that few want to either debate or delve into too deeply. "Make us safe from terrorists" is as far as the thinking goes.
Later...the public will discover that you can't unring a bell. "Rights" and "privacy" will have long been evaporated; the data has been collected; the people working the data will be loathe to give it up; the technology will have advanced so that data collection has become more and more simple and invasive. Would anyone be foolish enough to trust a "we're not doing that anymore" statement?
My husband likes to look at the grocery receipts, mention the use of the "savings card" and inform me that there is a database listing all of our purchases somewhere. A little thing? Perhaps not. Suppose we purchased large supplies of liquor at the grocery store...and my husband wasn't hired someday because the prospective employers assumed he was a drunk? It wouldn't be such a "little thing" then. Or if we bought cigarettes at the grocery, and they didn't want to hire a smoker. Or someone who so obviously over indulges their pets, for whatever reason.
As a writer, conspiracy plots abound with something as mundane as the receipt from the grocery store.