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FBI Turns To Private Sector for Data
MSNBC is running a nice piece about a private company that aggregates data about you and sells it to the government. Things like this are why I just don't understand the typical Libertarian babble that government data collection is bad, but corporations should be allowed to collect and sell whatever data they want. Hey, guess what: if a corporation can collect and sell your information, it's available to the government too. Ten billion records! That's more than 30 lines of data - each line could have dozens of pieces of information - about every man, woman and child in the United States. The mind boggles.
Um. When you say, "Corporations have an innocent and noble aim, to make money", you're right; although I wouldn't really consider this either innocent or noble, but nonetheless, their goal is to make money. However, you then go on to say that they have our (our being consumers, etc.) interests in mind.
They don't. Not at all. Their goal is to make money. Period. Not to make products. Not to benefit the consumer. To get the consumer to give them as much money as they can, while doing as little as possible in return (because the more you do, the less profit you make). This is how business works today.
You can further see this by looking at all the silly patents and lawsuits that come up; these corporations have figured out that they don't even need to make anything to get money, they can just sue the pants off anyone who has an idea they've claimed. It's pretty sickening.
The information collected by corporations is simply to find where they can make the most money, not, as you assert, to "give us the products we want". If you were right, the RIAA would be donating music and money to napster for us all.
(This is not to say that some people in some corporations have more noble goals. It's just to say that this is not the corporate goal.)
Now the government is rather the opposite situation. Their goal is not to make money. It is to govern the people. Unfortunately, you have the opposite problem you had with corporations; the government as a whole might have a (somewhat) noble goal, but you get individuals and groups who struggle for more and more power.
Now claims of privatizing everything, without any thought as to the current state of the system, and what implications there would be for moving to a privatized system, and indeed what implications at all a privatized system would have, are just silly. (CA, power, deregulation.) Now, to put policing power in the hands of a corporation (whose goal is to do nothing but make money) just smacks of abuse.
You miss the point, as well. The government is owned by people, too. (Unless you think it is owned by aliens or something.) Just a lot more people. Each one of us. Corporations abuse us just as badly, just in different ways and for different goals.
"That is all we need to know" sounds like brainwashing or stubborn blindness to reality, too, if you ask me.
Don't think of it as a flame---it's more like an argument that does 3d6 fire damage
I find this excerpt from the linked article to be interesting: Although ChoicePoint says it has records on nearly every American with a credit card, it doesn't always provide access to that data. The company's Autotrack service is popular with many agencies and businesses and is also used by reporters at The Wall Street Journal. But entering the name of FBI Director Louis Freeh into the Autotrack database produces an error message. A company spokesman says ChoicePoint intentionally blocks Mr. Freeh's records as an act of good corporate citizenship.
Translation of the last line: "A company spokesman says that the publicly held firm, ChoicePoint, is not so stupid as to endanger its stockholder's investments by providing information on the man heading one of ChoicePoint's biggest client organizations." Apparently this comment by the ChoicePoint drone is intended to make us all feel better, as if we all hobnob with politically heavyweights of Freeh's standing.
How can anyone work for these evil, evil companies?
"What did you do at work, sweetie?"
"Invaded the privacy of millions!" [Sparkling grin]
"Wow, that's swell. Pass the potatoes..."
How? It must take an army of underpaid monkeys to do this evil thing. Government employees I can see, but these are normal people not looking for an agenda.
Truly mind-boggling.
-grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
I'm a Libertarian (card carrying) and I don't see how this is a problem. It is only a problem that the government has the data, I could care less if a corporation has it. If they do, its my own damn fault. If the government has it, then its as good as permanent. But I try very hard to keep my personal information out of corporate hands. I don't use my health insurance for anything but dire emergencies, pay cash for as much as possible, and am very careful to opt-out of everything I have been put on. Sure, once you're on a list, you're probably there for life, but what bad is it doing? I have to admit, almost every list I am on I was put there because I allowed it. How many people read the fine print when they put their names down? Like that 10% savings at the grocery store when you use your frequent shopper's card? Ever think where that data goes? I don't even have a card, but I always ask the person behind me in line for theirs, and they always give it to me. Big corporations aren't the scare, its the government that's the scare. And the government bought this list because we allowed them to. End high taxes, and I think you'll end government programs that are allowed to purchase this information. Opt-out of all you can, and stop putting your real name on the dotted line just to save 5% or get something for nothing. My magazine subscriptions don't come in my real name either :)
That is why the Fourth Amendment exists, and why your ignorant and blithely submissive attitude about the government spying on anyone and everyone brings us that much closer to living in a place where dissent and nonconformism are punished for their own sake.
OK,
- B
--
http://www.bradheintz.com/
- updated
Firstly, there is nothing wrong with corporations collecting data about people. Corporations have an innocent and noble aim, to make money. They have no interest in advancing political agendas or using that information to harm people. They use data to benefit people - through focused marketing. With information, they can give us the products we want.
Secodndly, the government is completely different from this. It exists to advance a political agenda and control every detail of our lives. It has a moral outloook, and if your morals are different you are screwed.
In short, we should live in a society of limited government. If the functions that government presently executes, such as defense of the realm and policing the streets, were carried out by private corporations at the behest of out citizens, everything would be much fairer. Look at the rioting in Cincinati. If policing were private, that would not have happened.
Data being available publicvally is good, as long as it is not abused. Corporations have a record of non-abuse, and are owned by the people. The government does not and is not. That is all we need to know.