SHOULD THE FEDS ENFORCE CONSUMER PRIVACY???

Simply having this debate shows how uneducated our society has become. Sounds insulting? Just think about it. The Feds have as much or more information about you than any online entity ever thought about having. Would you let the fox guard the hen house???

According to recent surveys, most people are clamouring for FED intervention, which means the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the National Security Agency (NSA) will receive more tax dollars to protect you.

Protection starts with a filtering box watching your email on your internet provider's server. This system exists, is being used today and in it's most well known form is called CARNIVORE! Sooo, how do you like sleeping with Janet Reno and whoever else is at the party??? At least you don't have to worry about her smashing into your house with a tank because of some email your kids sent......or do you???

Fortunately, these agencies have to answer to the President. of the United States and there's someone we all can trust! By the way, isn't the impeached president the same guy that just pardoned Rostenkowski (who was sentenced for misusing public funds for personal expenses)?

Seriously though, due to media magnification of negative internet experiences to the public, FED internet laws (at least three big brother laws exist as I write this) are inevitable. They bring more control to the government and increase funding for government agencies. They love the terrorizing headlines and readily assist the media by providing them with gut wrenching incidents to fuel the fire. If you were to listen to all of this, you would think that over 400 million people a year experience identity theft. Of course the knowledgeable realise that there are only 249 million people in the U.S.

Ask yourself, why is it that the technically literate use the net without abandon. They are the first to utilize all of its "gee-whiz" technology, especially the online banking, etc., while many unskilled AOL types remain paranoid? By the way, if you are an AOL user, you might as well have pasted "computer illiterate" all over your email, etc. which is okay if its true. By the way, AOL gets hacked more than any other online service provider I know of. It has always been a prime target even if your user name is rostenkowski225.

Remember, it is the government agencies that leak your identity most and make it the most difficult for you to get it back despite the fact many children have been finger printed by now. The next most generous distributor of your secret self is the people you get credit from and the government protected banks and credit bureaus, all of whom make errors on a daily basis. Once, while applying for a job, they confused me with someone that was currently behind bars in Folsom prison. It was a miracle that they didn't cart me off there upon discovering my theoretical escape? In fact as a youth, I almost went to jail because I wore a shirt similar to the actual criminal and everyone Id's me by the shirt. The face above the shirt didn't seem to matter. Just remember, none of it happened online.

As for credit cards? They are doing record businesses online and opening their own online shopping malls. They love online business and are willing to insure the identity of your online purchases. Most likely, if you lose your identity, they will be the first to help you get it back!

In short, it is Government that makes this problem, promotes this problem and then inevitably when and if you are the unlucky one to experience the problem, makes it impossible for you to solve the problem. Yes, this all means you pay more taxes "for those of you from Rio Linda" as the infamous Rush Limbaugh would say. As evidence of this, the FBI's Reno has already requested an additional 40 million to handle internet coverage expenses at the time of this writing.

If despite my article, you're still going to give the FED the green light, it will probably mean they will be at least as successful as they have been at handling the drug war. In fact the only group that will disguise their identity and can afford L5 security (the highest level of security as I write this) will be the criminal organizations, the FBI and the NSA. You will lose your privacy, but instead, now you will pay to lose it. Don't be surprised if the Fed comes to take your computer, your desk and your house because they found some "bomb threat" data on your hard drive of the computer you bought on an "out of the box" special at your local computer supermarket. Worse yet, you might have bought it from an ex CIA agent's garage sale. As always, the nerd community and myself hope and pray that you'll get smart, but we certainly aren't going to hold our collective breaths!

So when will society get a clue that the safest security is that which grows at home? Reality tells me that will be the same day public education or indoctrination (by the Federal and State Governments) ends and we pry the VCRs from everyone's cold dead entertainment obsessed hands.

Maybe I should just give in like most of you will and simply write in suggestions to the FED to improve the situation. For example, lets make "law making" more fun. Perhaps a reality game show on TV like Truth or Consequences??? Seriously though, the best and cheapest thing we could all do is to write all of your congressmen and senators and send them on a long all expense paid vacation to the Cayman islands where they can stay close to their offshore accounts. That will stop new internet privacy laws from getting started in the first place. By the way, when you send them on vacation, don't send them up river. As Rostenkowski will attest, that simply doesn't work.

Michael P. Murphy 1/11/01

Author - The Greens

Watch for the upcoming novel - The Corporation

Send comments to the author: mmurphy@smallbusinessman.com

* errors: my spell checker thinks words like organization are spelled organisation, so watch out for "s" and "z" replacements in all my articles. I try to check the checker, but????