protect your private parts

"Privacy" is just another word like "Freedom".

Money, and the need/desire to have as much of it as possible, determines the parameters of one's "human rights". We have it on the say-so of the current POTUS that even one's own body is not off-limits to the rich and famous boss types.

So, it's not surprising that Trump values the Internet only insofar as it serves his purposes and those of his business contemporaries.

In fact, there's a strong suggestion he doesn't even know what "net neutrality" is (or at least didn't when Obama was POTUS).

Nor do some of the rest of us, and we're not likely to find out via the corporate media.  But it's pretty much imperative that we (and Trump) learn the facts about the FCC's proposed legislation to regulate the Net in favour of Big-Biz.

Canadians should not feel smug. Our country is run by big business (including Bell, Rogers, Shaw - see what they own and operate) and it's only a matter of time before the Bill Gates wannabes completely monopolize the Internet.  Bell already has a monopoly on Fibre Internet, and cable Internet has always had the capability to determine what you are allowed to see online.

And before you say, but, but ... the CRTC said Bell had to share its Fibe lines with smaller Internet companies ... that's true, but that was over a year ago and Bell still isn't sharing. I know, because I live in a "Fibe to the Home" apartment building and I'm stuck with Bell, and I've canvassed the other providers I might have liked to do business with and they say they still don't have access to my building.

So no point in imagining that Canada's Internet is going to be freer than that in the US.

And then there's CSIS. They are asking for access, without a warrant, to our subscriber information. What that tells me is that they already have been accessing it. The federal court can deny the request, but how are they to know whether CSIS is complying? As NSA Whistleblower William Binney says, "Everybody in the spy business is hacking everybody else". It ain't just the Russians.

There seems to be an all-round lack of respect for other people's privacy these days if invading it is in any way profitable.  Here's an example:

• A public art installation in downtown Calgary will be coming down after a social media firestorm revealed several British comedians and photographers discovered their pictures were used in the project without permission.

And here's another example:

• Woman wins lawsuit against video company for recording her without permission

The woman, quite rightly, was awarded an amount that it would have cost the video company if they had hired a model instead. As an indication of extremely shallow thinking, here's what the lawyer for the video company said in rebuttal:

• “In a day an [sic] age where everyone has a video camera in their pocket, when everyone has a camera in their pocket attached to their cellphone, it’s unbelievable that a ruling like this was made” ...

But, just because one has the means doesn't mean one has the right to profit from it.

Twice within the past year I've had photographers walk up to me at certain events and say "smile" with a camera pointed at me. It's assumed you're flattered to have your picture displayed in their little rag that's mostly full of advertisements. But I clearly recall a time when it was assumed you might not want your face used in that way, and there was such a thing as a consent form proffered. Whatever happened to that?

The biggest indication yet that the FCC knows the kind of backlash it will receive if its plans to wreck the Net are not rescinded is that the media are cooperating by keeping reporting of it down to a bare whisper:

• Based on an examination of television segments aired on major news networks since November 20—the day Politico reported that Pai was planning a "total repeal of net neutrality rules"—the study found that NBC, ABC, and CBS have devoted just over two minutes combined to net neutrality.

But Reuters went a step further by saying that the backlash "appears" to be largely fake - and we're expected to take their word for it!

• More than half of the 21.7 million public comments submitted to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission about net neutrality this year used temporary or duplicate email addresses and appeared to include false or misleading information, the Pew Research Center said on Wednesday

People put their images up on social media all the time. And other people pass them on. That's fair enough. But taking a photo of someone else and posting it on your own pages requires consent.

People who go out on the streets to protest one thing or another know they are being photographed, especially by the police. They don't mind that; it makes their protest real.

Yours Truly freely admits to using images from other websites to enhance my own pages. But - and this is a big difference - the images are always linked to the sites from whence they came in order to give credit back to the originator. I make public only what the owner has already made public, and I have never made a dime out of blogging, nor wanted to, nor have I ever allowed any advertising on my sites, save my own for humanitarian reasons.

And I really, really resent Bell Canada forcing me to use its services, making me pay an arm and a leg for the privilege, and then sharing my information with other corporations.

Somebody should tell the big guys that if the little people are forced into oblivion on the Net, or voluntarily leave in order to protect themselves, they will have no one to read their warped news or buy their useless products.

Here's a video of Mike Wallace interviewing psychoanalyst Erich Fromm who, in 1958 saw all of this coming. The guy was an absolute seer!

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