What we want you to do is click on the pic below and listen to a guy ordering a pizza. We want you to do it because we think you may be spending too much time overlooking the fact that your freedoms are still being compromised. Don’t get mad if you fail to appreciate this accusatory tone either. Maybe you are not one of those people. Maybe you DO believe that GPS can be used as another system of tracking you, and that ‘On-Star’ is the pleasant voice of the devil’s concubine. Or maybe you think we are bat-shit insane for even mentioning that. Perhaps you blindly go around putting scads of personal information out into the ether via internet, or maybe you are aware that your satellite programming is just as capable of watching you as you are of watching it. Call us crazy (we know), but we are apprehensive about any group of people who sit around inventing new ways of keeping tabs on others.

Despite whether or not you feel our paranoia is slightly (or maniacally) excessive, we still want to convince you of how completely unnecessary things like a ‘National Identification Number’ are. For one thing, we each already have one. It’s called a social security number- not unlike a prison ID or a cattle brand. Second, considering the array of uses for the social security number, consolidating and cataloguing even more personal information into one number would be the nail in the coffin of privacy and safety. The social security number’s original purpose was to dispense benefits. Technically it isn’t even required for a citizen to have a SS#, but convenient groups of numbers like those were deemed so useful, that they quietly experienced what is called a “mission creep”. Basically, someone other than you took it upon themselves to decide that your information should be made readily available to the “right” people (whoever the hell they are). Forgive me if this sounds exactly the opposite of what the forefathers had in mind.

Maybe you don’t have anything to hide, but that is not at all the point. No one should have the right to manage someone else’s life and personal information without their consent. Unfortunately, it happens all the time. Don’t think so? Go in and apply for a loan. Using only your social security number, someone at a bank, car dealership, or mortgage company, will tell you exactly who they feel you are in under an hour. Yeah, yeah that’s how it works, but what if the information is incorrect? There are a hundred reasons why it could be, and it is common knowledge that it often is. Serious decisions are being made based on false info thousands of times a day. If there are going to be credit scores, who is the referee? And why do WE have to pay to know OUR score? We already accept these and similar circumstances way too much.

Now imagine one number that had it all. Seriously, all of it; health, dental, police record, family history, previous employment, Netflix rentals, favorite teams, most frequented stores, political affiliation, etc. If a number like that experienced a “mission creep”, those who seek to dominate or simply control certain situations would not have the upper hand- they would have all the hands. Still not worried about what your enemies or evil corporations could do with that much intel? Fine, but what if your delusional ex got access to it? It is a bad idea all around. The worst.

This has gone far enough. The power struggle for your privacy has already gotten way out of control. Conspiracy theories aside (and yes, we also believe Marilyn Monroe’s death was not an accident), click on this presentation by the ACLU and remember back to the first time your local pizza place told YOU where you live, and then remember back to when we used to have a choice about stuff like that. ~pfft~

Enough already.

(Click the pic)

Last 3 posts by Cain English

• Sick Of It - October 28th, 2009