AOL offers disturbing glimpse into users' lives

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AOL's disturbing glimpse into users' lives

This is a PERFECT example of what privacy advocates are concerned about. This pathological need to data mine subscribers is chillingly Orwellian. What business is it of AOL (or any one else for that matter) to monitor what search subjects its users pursue? Taken out of context, one could conclude from the subject matter that a crime conspiracy was being planned. And now with the government's "One Percent Doctrine" having been executed abroad, how long will it take for it to re-focus that doctrine inward on its citizens? How many arrests to "prevent" will occur if this doctrine is applied to ths U.S.? Don't tell me that nothing like this would EVER happen in America! The USPATRIOT Act should have NEVER occurred. This is AMERICA! Domestic spying by NSA should NEVER have happened. This IS America! Yet it happened! Now they are applying the PATRIOT Act to all sorts of "common" violations of the law. It's a new tool to further oppress americans, their freedoms and liberties and attack privacy. And this will become a tool of an overzealous law enforcement culture. As depicted in the movie "Minority Report", you won't even need to do the crime to be arrested, charged and sentenced. You can stick your head in the sand, put your fingers in your ears and recite encantations of "it's not happening", but it IS! And it WILL!!! History has shown that when a civilization places too much power in the hands of its representatives, they WILL abuse it and the people will suffer! This kind of data mining must be outlawed before it can't. The arguement that is makes Law Enforcement's job easier is a poor rationalization at BEST! The whole idea of placing strong, rigid limits on power is to prevent abuse and support the uniquely american concept of "Innocent until proven Guilty beyond a reasonable doubt"! But that concept has been rapidly degraded thru the years resulting in convictions of dubious doubt! How many convicted rapists have had their convictions overturned because of DNA evidence exonerating them? Patent proof that law enforcement and the american legal system is NOT infallable and innocent people DO go to prison, sometimes for lengthy periods, possibly life! Ever wonder how many executed prisoners were actually innocent? We may never really know because prosecutors and the government would rather hide their mistakes than come clean and admit their errors. One need only look at the current quagmire and fiasco in Iraq to see this mechanism in living color! If we continue to allow the likes of AOL, Google, Yahoo, Jeeves and others to collect, store and share (thru court subpoena)americans search patterns, it becomes academic at some point that this will be used for prosecutorial purposes based on an incomplete picture gleaned from the subject matter selectively focused on by authorities! China is a prime example of how this works. In the U.S., look at the sharing done by AT&T recently! Call me paranoid if you like, but just because one is paranoid doesn't mean that they AREN'T out to get you! Wake up, resist, protest, write your representatives, toss AOL and get another internet provider that WON'T collect information! America is the shining light of freedom and the world's last, best hope. If we allow it to be degraded to a form of totalitarianism then we are no better than the rest.

Posted by: DocCFA   Posted on: 08/08/06 You are currently: a Guest | Members login | Terms of Use

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