@marian g.  I never inferred that people should not have the choice to demand respect for their privacy. The fact is, there is no privacy on the Web, period, and if you want to bare your soul and all of its intimate details you are silly to expect that you can’t get burned. How long have we had the Internet in our lives now? If you are ignorant of the powers preying upon you as you navigate the Web, perhaps you should not have a smart phone, or a computer and start reading books for a change.

Mr. Sirota, I offer my apologies. I generally like what you write. But with this one you rolled to the dark side in seemingly blissful ignorance. Make that the trivial side.  You took what could have been an insightful article and made it dolt fodder.   
Let’s look at where this dead-end article could have went. 

“Can I have your phone number?” 

“Would you like a Coal credit card to reduce your purchase by ten percent?” 

That’s really creepy and it’s something we should all consider. 

The software exists right now and it is in use to track every single purchase—and therefore every move—you make. Buy gas, get a hair cut, buy clothes, every move you make is traceable throughout the day.  And, when you use a credit card and give the monkeys your phone number, they know exactly where you live. That’s why you get junk mail. And if there ever is some sort of tragedy in this country during which the violent whackos seize power, woe to us progressives.  They know where we are and what we do. 

As far as social networks are concerned, I’ll go on record saying this:  Facebook is a load of crap.  Get real. Think about it and get over it.  All data you enter—whether you elect for private friends or not—is permanent and accessible to those who care to work for it.  Forget the Bruce Sterling sci-fi world where all permanent computer data is lost.  Welcome the real world, the cyber dungeon, where everything you’ve ever posted, said or did is forever—and held against you. 

Right now you have no more online anonymity than a monkey in a zoo.  Anytime anyone wants they can track you down easily and quickly. It just a matter of pointing the magnifying glass in your direction. 

Do you post information on Facebook about when your grandchildren are born?  Bing.  Idiot. 

Do you twit about your kids?  Bing.  Moron.

Do you blog about your job?  Stupid. 

Do you put your address on your resume?  Wow.  Seems unfair to call you stupid, because people so rarely think about it, but consider yourself warned now. Anyone can get to it. And they do. 

Every micro-brain point in Mr. Sirota’s article overlooks one salient fact:  Our constitution protects our right to privacy, our right to not have our personal effects—and our personal information—searched and seized.

Of course, if you voluntarily give up that right, you lose it, as we are in the process of doing. 

It started full force with the drug war, perhaps even before then with the permanent state of war of the cold war, with social security numbers intended only for the federal government that are now shared with virtually everyone.  And now with the war on terror and the strip mining of our personal lives for profit, our privacy is falling away like so many layers of melting skin. 

It would be a good move for a progressive, a third party, a libertarian, a democrat with balls—anyone—to reach back and try to retrieve some of our privacy, make it a campaign issue. It would require great strength and courage (x-ne on the democrat then), a change of the way we do commerce; it would require consumer privacy rights; it would require enlightenment of the people who really don’t understand what they are giving up to the cybergods and credit cards.

But it could be done.  Give the people a real goal, not the delusions of the Republican Tea Party that will simply destroy our nation, but a real goal to bring dignity, integrity, and privacy to us all. 

Again, Mr. Sirota, all apologies. I’ve enjoyed many of your articles.  You missed the point on this one.

Zing

On the other hand, as Timothy Leary once pointed out,“In order to maintain one’s reality bubble, it is necessary to surround oneself with tribal reassurance. Most human communication is embarrassingly primitive, consisting of endless variations on “I’m still here. Are you still there?” (hive solidarity) and “Nothing has really changed” (hive business as usual)

If people are demanding privacy for this level of communication, there is more than a little narcissism involved here.

@maani   Right on comment! And yes, not only are these incredibly lifeless lives posted all over the social networks, but you have to endure this even waiting in a grocery line, listening to someone who can’t even stand still having to call or text someone to tell them that they are standing in a grocery line.
Freaking fascinating!!!

Uh…excuse me?!  While I am obviously against any and all government intrusions into privacy, how exactly can someone who posts every meal they eat, every time they take a dump, every boy/girlfriend who dumps them, every date they go on, every single detail of their (almost always) toally boring lives on Facebook or Twitter or whatever really argue for “privacy” and “anonymity?”

In a society where trust and justice have been destroyed, one man’s privacy is another man’s Trojan Horse.

I started reading science fiction novels back when I was a kid in the fifties. Even then, it was evident that several notable authors (Asimov, Heinlein, Farmer, Harrison and others) made it painfully obvious where humanity was heading. One of the things most of the novels of that genre shared was a prediction of the total loss of anonymity as we charged forward in our race to become “modern.” The more we electronically communicate, the less anonymity we have. Most of us would be shocked and horrified at the sheer amount of information that’s available on us. We will be watched, recorded, and documented until nothing about our lives can be hidden from view. Yes, it’s going to get worse. Much worse.

Just remember:  Secrecy is power.  The more government agencies and personnel can keep secrets from citizens, the more power those agencies and personnel have over those citizens.

All in the name of Al Qaeda this assault on our freedoms has taken place.

Booga, Booga terrorists under your bed, no they can’t be there because of the camera and 24/7 monitor.

A campaign against cyberbullying is the perfect cover for tightening control and surveillance. Cyberbullying is an overblown phenomenon to begin with, but it’s the perfect straw man to justify the installation of an internet panopticon. Still, I think Sirota nails it when he suggests the real reason is financial. Perhaps user profiles and navigation histories will become a commodity as neuromarketing evolves, with companies paying for info about individuals susceptible to their particular brand names/products.

Problem is, the loss of anonymity is a one-way street. It permits the Powers-That-Be to destroy the privacy of citizens while maintaining secrecy of their own manipulations and perversions.

One might consider this to be a great success story for the corporations and their government lackeys, to get we fool citizen/taxpayers to not only accept, but pay for the tools they need to hide and protect themselves from us, while revealing everything about ourselves and thus make ourselves vulnerable to them, all in the name of ‘National Security’.

Makes it hard to believe this nation was founded on the concept of being ‘Of, by, and for the people’.

Brilliant article!!!!!