PRIVACY SHOULD BE PUT ON AN ENDANGERED LIST

Brian Krebs writes on Computer Security in the Washington Post: "When you visit msnbc.com, you're actually visiting 16 third-party sites, 10 of which are from different companies," Conti says, referring to the secondary content of providers and advertisers whose data make up the page. "You're really dealing with the lowest common denominator privacy policy when many sites are involved." If you want to see the site, the reader is given no option to opt out of that giving up of our privacy. When we read all news in newspapers, the worst the paper could do was sell your mailing address. Today, with the advantage of the great databases being built built up for profiteers, cross referencing can pinpoint just who you are with only a few clues.
Privacy.org, for December 17, 2008 with: Verizon Employees Snoop on President-Elect Obama's Cellphone Records

"It was recently disclosed that curious Verizon employees snooped into then Senator Obama's cellphone records during the recent election. Senator Patrick Leahy has asked the Department of Justice to provide information about investigations and prosecutions under the federal law that prohibits viewing confidential phone records information, related to the reports about Verizon employees improperly accessed President-elect Obama's cell phone records. The employees were dismissed but no criminal investigation was pursued. Unauthorized or illegal access to telephone records through pretexting, domestic surveillance, and now employee curiosity are posing problems for telecommunication privacy."

Our government has ignored our privacy throughout this past 8 years of Bush administration. Perhaps a focus should be placed on what harm can we have happen to us when our privacy is lost. We all know about identity theft. Are there more dangers? Many write about all the ways we are invaded and intruded upon but I was not able to find sites which have listed the ways that people can or are being hurt by the lack of respect for privacy. One site which allows one to read from the thousands of credible publications used by Highbeam Research requires registration and raises my suspicions of what happens after you give them your full name and email address...do you suppose they would have any difficulty finding everything about you just through matching your name and email address?

Paul Cox wrote in the Wall Street Journal that since Social Security Numbers began to be issued in 1936,in recent years the nine-digit numbers have taken on the additional role of universal identifier for tax collection, employment, financial accounts, medical care and more. And with these new uses have come abuses.

Lastly, the Privacy Right Clearinghouse lists some examples fo things that can go wrong like minors receiving spam, people receiving credit carts because they were told a year ago if they didn't answer (a letter they never received) that they would automatically have a credit card sent in their name, etc. And I thought it was bad enough that we in the USA have top press "1" to speak English!