Anyone seen the excellent German film, "The Lives of Others?" It's
about the Stasi (Secret Police) in Germany, and how the eavesdropping
that occurred in Eastern Germany on friends and neighbors so often
destroyed lives. The big take-home message for me was that by and
large most of the information collected was terribly mundane and
trivial. Reminded me a lot of Twitter, Facebook and even this mailing
list. If you wanted to be anonymous and have your privacy, you
wouldn't sign up or use those services.
I had to laugh when my mother (who lives in the Seattle area, and I
only see about once per year) informed me that she didn't use the
grocery store savings cards, because "do you know that they collect
information on what you buy?" I said, "heck yeah, and I hope that
means that they stock more of the things I like in this store, and
give me better prices on those goods" because that is what they
(allegedly) do with that information. She just stared at me like I was
a dupe.
Diana
On Sep 1, 2009, at 8:49 AM, Katy Roodenko wrote:
Hm,
Can we (the foreigners who for whatever reason come to visit USA)
encrypt our fingerprints? I have never been to any as humiliating
process as this one: being taken my fingerprints at the US border.
I guess it is really not the best way to make friends. I know many
of my friends in Europe who would not come to USA precisely for this
reason.
For whatever reasons, very recently, Texas Teachers were ordered to
give their fingerprints as well. I expected riots and protests - but
they went silently to gave up all their privacy as easily as that!
What a KGB country of obedient society who shouts loudly on privacy
but really forgot what "privacy" really means!
Really, if I had a kid, I would not like it to be educated by these
teachers.
Katy
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Diana R. Tomchick
Associate Professor
University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center
Department of Biochemistry
5323 Harry Hines Blvd.
Rm. ND10.214B
Dallas, TX 75390-8816, U.S.A.
Email: [email protected]
214-645-6383 (phone)
214-645-6353 (fax)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Visit our website: http://texascavers.com
To unsubscribe, e-mail: [email protected]
For additional commands, e-mail: [email protected]
