politics + internets = ?

Yes, the first thing you think of when you read about GPS systems outfitted to public sector vehicles revealing misuse of government resources is “Big Brother”! Or perhaps, “Big Brother watching Big Brother”. This is one of those examples of (surveillance/geo-locative) technology that is at once a testament to the improvement in efficiency brought on by the free flow of information in the public sector, but it also demonstrates what COULD happen if this information were used in nefarious purposes.

Given the acceptance of the gradual but consistent shed of our traditional notions of privacy, we should be really thinking about what the lack of standards or an open dialog about who has access to these datamining databases will mean in the future.

Why not call a spade a spade - we all know that all of our data is being gathered and centralized online- everything from our economic interactions, to biometric data, physical location over time, to communications and information searches, political/social or religious affiliations, and eventually health, driving, and other civil records - why not ASSUME this gathering is taking place, that it will continue to take place, but that in the future our data should belong to us as our intellectual property and cannot be used by any group or organization without either express consent or a court order.

Without any discussion about it, big business is free to craft policy surrounding personal information in cahoots with the government to suit a surveillance agenda that is a one-way street. Personally, I’d like to see an information policy that states that the higher up you are in the world of power (either political or economic) the more beholden you are to the public scrutiny to ensure there is no abuse of that power - your entire history should be viewable to given watchdogs and other designated institutions.