Do you drive a car?
Do you own a cell phone?
Do you use email?
The government and private
companies want unlimited access to this data!
“Right now we’re in an environment where there are no
rules, there are no limits, there are no consequences and there is
no transparency,” said Lillie Coney, associate director of
the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a privacy advocacy
group.
On Thursday, the Senate Judiciary Committee is going to vote on
Sen. Al Franken’s (D-MN) Location Privacy Protection Act, which
would require companies to get a customer’s consent before
collecting or sharing mobile location data. Franken says the bill
would put an end to “GPS stalking” by companies.
“Every smart phone out there is a personal tracking device that
transmits our location,” Franken said in a statement. “What most
people don’t realize is that the law allows companies to collect
and disclose our location information without our knowledge or
consent – and that a lot of companies are doing just that.”
We are seeing consistent encroachments upon our personal
privacy.
TEXT MESSAGES – Law enforcement groups and the Justice
Department want the Senate to require wireless companies to retain
your text messages for at least two years…so they can access that
information later, if they so choose.
LICENSE PLATE DATA – Law enforcement is fighting to obtain a
“trackable” database of your license plate information.
EMAILS – Senators were considering a bill amendment to be able
to obtain your emails without a warrant! And, the Department of
Justice argues that they have the right to read your emails that
are more than 180 days old without a warrant.
VEHICLE BLACK BOXES – The National Highway Traffic Safety
Administration is expected to propose regulations requiring auto
manufacturers to include event data recorders in all new cars and
light trucks. Actually, automakers have been quietly putting them
into most new cars for years now, using sensors to record data 5 to
10 seconds before an impact occurs. But the NHTSA proposal wants to
expand the data it collects, and there is no opt-out, and no limits
to how the information can be used. Car owners cannot disable the
devices.
The argument seems to be that without access to this
information, investigations could be hindered. That is the claim
law enforcement made when arguing for text retention; and that is
the same argument they gave when they put pressure on Senator
Patrick Leahy to waive requiring a warrant before reading your
emails. It is also the reason they gave when they successfully
convinced the Justice Department that our cell phone data could be
tracked because, American citizens have “no privacy interest” in
that realm.
Do you remember where you drove your car last week? What about
last month? What did you say to your friend three months ago in
that email? Who did you text yesterday? If we do not remain
diligent, Congress is going to allow themselves access to this
information and law enforcement is going to be able to come in and
take a look at everything you have done, without due cause or due
process.
Rep. Bill Shuster (R-PA) will become chair of the House
Transportation and Infrastructure Committee in January. He says,
“Many of us would see it as a slippery slope toward big government
and Big Brother knowing what we’re doing and where we are. Privacy
is a big concern for many across America.”
It is not the government's business to decide whether or not we
have a “privacy interest” with regard to our personal data.
Clearly, with the rapid development of new technology, privacy is something
that needs to be looked at, carefully.
Congress is considering an update to the 1986 Electronic
Communications Privacy Act, written before we had such things as
cell phones cloud computing. A coalition of groups is
fighting for a rewording of the law to address the freedom and
privacy of all citizens, while law enforcement is fighting to keep
this information completely accessible to them at any time. Groups
including the ACLU, Americans for Tax Reform, the Bill of Rights
Defense Committee, Citizens Against Government Waste, the Computer
& Communications Industry Association, and the Electronic
Frontier Foundation have organized a petition to Congress urging
them to defend our rights:
The government should
be required to go to a judge and get a warrant before it can read
our email, access private photographs and documents we store
online, or track our location using our mobile phones. Please
support legislation that would update the Electronic Communications
Privacy Act of 1986 (ECPA) to require warrants for this sensitive
information and to require the government to report publicly on the
use of its surveillance powers.
There should be no debate. We are guaranteed privacy, and
we are guaranteed due process. Members of Congress and the
President of the United States need to govern by the Constitution.
And We, the People need to stay on top of the debates our
representatives are having about the accessibility and openness of
our personal information, especially as these questions relate to
our Constitutional rights.
Sincerely,
Tony Adkins
Conservative-Daily
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3 comments:
Okay, private people, solve the problem by deleting your e-mails or moving them to a private server.
Public persons (ie. individuals=corporations) are under some code or provision that keeps them from deleting e-mails for a certain amount of time.
There is a lot a corporation=individual can do to interfere with our right to have life free from theft and trespass, and a lot of times when they are scheming up ways to manipulate energy prices, or sell a worthless product that they plan to bet against, or to hire some business to counter bid against them in a project so they can win -- there's a trail of e-mail discussing that.
So let the DOJ go read the e-mails they can't delete.
And we delete our e-mails.
Why do we hold on to e-mails anyway. We've already said what we wanted to say. If it has a picture or a document we can detach and save the image, picture, or document and delete the e-mail.
This is much ado about nothing.
Not everything is a problem.
The problem comes when something has no remedy.
We have a remedy for that plan.
Businesses and corporations do not and there are people running them, including banks, that will do a lot of things and mark their e-mail confidential to try to keep government prying eyes out of their nefarious activities.
Two worlds. Our world of free people we can delete them or move them to our private space.
Their world, they are stuck with the rules they made for their selves.
Good life to those alive.
Good business to artificial persons and false creations.
They may be deleted from your computer but not the server.
Well, they would certainly be bored with my emails wading through all those purchase receipts, food and recipes, health & beauty or clothes promotions, cooking recipes and articles, and the occasional super PAC promotion. No one lives here but a girly girl.
I also do not own a cell phone and never will. My friends have shreaked in shock that I do not have a cell phone. "What happens if you get stranded?" Well, I drive a 17-year-old car and in all that time I have had plenty of breakdowns but have never been stranded anywhere. God has always made sure that I have reached my destinations in peace, joy and safety. I also owned a money pit of a car before this one. It was always breaking down and, yet, I was never stranded anywhere. I was always able to reach every destination in safety and never stranded along any road or highway. Placing myself in the hands of my Divine Father Creator has always been safer than any cell phone--and more interesting, too.
If privacy is a great concern for you, continue to use the U.S. Postal service.
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