Ever since this cockamamie war on Terror has begun, our own government has been reaching out to corporations to feed them information to feed their national security supercomputers. Last year we found out that the National Security Agency has been secretly collecting the phone call records of tens of millions of Americans, using data provided by AT&T, Verizon and BellSouth (tons more from Truthdig).
Sen. Patrick Leahy said last January that at least 52 federal agencies use data-mining technologies and at least 199 data-mining programs are operating or planned throughout the government, including 14 within the departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and Health and Human Services. Those do not include programs run by the National Security Agency.
Data mining is a growth industry and bound to grow larger by the year. Americans who have been using credit cards or subscribing to magazines have been leaving a financial identity trail catalogued by database companies and then resold to the U.S. government. Federal and state governments pay about $50 million annually to comb through the databases of one such company, ChoicePoint, which compiles and sells personal information on U.S. residents gathered from sources such as motor vehicle and credit records, car and boat registrations, liens and deed transfers, and military records. There are many others.
People for the American Way says:
Data mining is not an issue only at the federal level. The Multistate Anti-Terrorism Information Exchange (MATRIX) is a pilot program currently underway in eight states – Connecticut, Florida, Georgia, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Utah. The MATRIX is designed to pull together sensitive state, local, and federal law enforcement data and intelligence, as well as information from other public databases such as motor vehicle and property records – including biometric identifying information like digital photographs – into a single system. Private databases that maintain information on individuals would also be included. In addition to being searchable by law enforcement, the MATRIX database could be used to automatically analyze these broad categories of information for “anomalous” or “suspicious” activities and patterns.
So here's my idea. Since our privacy is a matter of public record, maybe we need to find a friendly corporation that will protect our privacy. Basically for a fee, this company will search and purge or store all known data that is out there about us.
Of course, the first place the NSA will get a subpoena for will be this corporation. So, what we need is a sort of a witness protection plan that creates a false identity for us, so that our real information can't be tracked back to us.
Of course, this might raise suspicions and land us in Guantanamo as a enemy combatant.
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