Be Afraid. Be Very Afraid.. All Eyes Are on You

"Tollbooths, ATMs, doctors' offices, online chat: You leave critical personal data behind wherever you go. Let's follow one American as he scatters his digital DNA.

First, Meet Mark, a graphic designer in Chicago. Like most of us, Mark knows his boss can read his e-mail, insurers can access his medical data. but he's blind to the bigger truth: personal data is collected, and sometimes shared, at a fantastic rate." [Popular Science]

A day in the life picture of the tracks we leave behind as we live our lives." [Privacy Digest]

And this article doesn't even mention the FBI tracking your reading habits. Definitely worth your time to read through this.

Addendum: you can pick up the Slashdot commentary here.

[The Shifted Librarian]

8:53:46 PM    

But who would want to try to disappear underneath Disneyland? OK, so the novel is a bit predictable. Lawyers who write and all that shit...

Wired News - How to Disappear.

Your inbox is awash in spam, your boss is chuckling over your credit report, and you've got a sneaking suspicion that Uncle Sam counts how many Löwenbräu you chug. Yes, your privacy's shot to hell, and you're tempted to shrug and settle for an open source life. But privacy isn't like virginity, forever lost after the first trespass. With some work, "reprivatization" is possible. Use this three-tiered guide to pick a level of solitude. But be warned: Going all the way off the grid is more Ted Kaczynski than Howard Hughes.

[Privacy Digest]

8:04:11 PM    

Minority Report...

These errors in execution don't matter too much because the storyline is so strong and central to our current struggle with terrorism. No one probably wants to hear that Dick wrote this story just a few years after the Supreme Court finally decided that it wasn't really legal to lock up Japanese-Americans on the off chance that they might take their orders from Tokyo. The movie theater where I saw the film is only a few miles from the prison that held much of Baltimore's City Council during the Civil War.

Despite the uncomfortable fact that moments like these happen again and again in history, there's no way to escape wondering whether Spielberg is some kind of pre-cog being who gets his version of the zeitgeist delivered early. The timing is just eerie. [Slashdot: News for nerds, stuff that matters]

7:48:18 PM    

Miasma

San Francisco Gate - FBI checking out Americans' reading habits / Bookstores, libraries can't do much to fend off search warrants

For the first time since the Cold War, the FBI is visiting public libraries to keep tabs on the reading habits of people the government considers dangerous.

The searches of some records kept by libraries and bookstores were authorized in an obscure provision of the USA Patriot Act, quietly approved by Congress six weeks after Sept. 11. The act, passed virtually without hearings or debate, allowed a variety of new federal surveillance measures, including clandestine searches of homes and expanded monitoring of telephones and the Internet.

Section 215 gave the FBI authority to obtain library and bookstore records and a wide range of other documents during investigations of international terrorism or secret intelligence activities.

Unlike other search warrants, the FBI need not show that evidence of wrongdoing is likely to be found or that the target of its investigation is actually involved is terrorism or spying. Targets can include U.S. citizens.

Nearly everything about the procedure is secret. The court that authorizes the searches meets in secret; the search warrants carried by the agents cannot mention the underlying investigation; and librarians and booksellers are prohibited, under threat of prosecution, from revealing an FBI visit to anyone, including the patron whose records were seized.

[Privacy Digest]

3:55:32 PM