The " Privacy " myth !

When we log onto Facebook or place a tweet on Twitter we are using an open forum that invites the whole world to be our witness.   When we pick up the phone or send an email to a member of our family or a close friend, we have an expectation of privacy - or so we thought !

Declarations of war are very much " last century " stuff these days.   We and most of the rest of the world are in an undeclared war between terrorist elements who are prepared to kill and main to force their religious agenda to supplant our democratic forms of government and systems of justice.

The number one target of this war is the country with the most powerful military force in the world - the United States of America.  As a result of terror attacks, the American National Security Agency ( NSA ) has implemented a system called PRISM to collect and collate electronic data between US citizens - and those citizens in contact with people in other world countries.

The development of the computer has seen an ever expanding integration of communication systems and there are few people on planet Earth who do not use in some form Apple, Microsoft, Yahoo, Skype, AOL, tumblr, or YouTube.    The moment your phone connection or computer server makes a call connection that involves these networks, a US government sponsored  data collection agency scoops up the call and puts it into storage.

What happens next is something of a mystery.   Information gathering is one of the " dark arts " and we know that computers sift through conversations seeking " key " words or phrases, which then lead to a more detailed investigation of the matter discussed.   That is the only way the mountain of calls can be mined for information.   The sheer volume is too great for any other option to be applicable.

So - it all boils down to the fact that personal privacy no longer exists.   Whenever we pick up the phone or sit at the keyboard, whatever we say or type is being scooped up by an electronic sensor - and becomes an item in a vast data bank.

The security people tend to deny that this is so, but then security is usually  secretive about it's operational methods and the computer gurus openly admit that the technology exists to make it happen.    We are also told that a loss of personal privacy is a price we have to pay to keep our society safe from those who wish to do us harm.

Welcome to the world of the twenty-first century.   We now live in an age where our way of living must fit within the bounds of " conformity "with that of our fellow citizens, or we risk being declared  a possible " enemy of the state ". Mysterious things can happen if we innocently cross some hidden boundary and bring ourselves to the attention of the ever watching " security " apparatus.    We may find we can no longer travel on an airplane.   We may find that job opportunities are closed to us.  We may find work colleagues avoiding us and social doors closing.   We may be treading the path to become an " un-person ".!

We are told that no innocent person has cause to fear from such surveillance, but gone is the way of life when we could share our thoughts with others, safe in the knowledge that what we said and do in private - remained that way.

" Big Brother " was supposed to arrive in 1984.    It seems he suffered a delay of a few years !