Restless City Nights

So, in light of this whole Facebook ordeal (Facebook website changing its policy and user agreement to say they pretty much own anything you put on their site) I have been thinking about privacy rights and our rights as Americans. Being an American means you lend the government the right to control various aspects of your life under the belief that this government is of the people, by the people and for the people. Therefore, we oughtn’t have reason to believe that the government, which technically is ourselves, has anything but our best interest at heart. Sadly, this does not seem to be the case.

My attention has also been drawn to news reports of police charging teenagers (as in, high school age kids) with child pornography and solicitation of a minor and a myriad of other serious crimes and even felonies for sending nude photos of themselves to other teens. Now, I have no problem with them being charged with something more like a misdemeanor count or something, but felony charges? Really??? One of the articles mentioned that these charges would go on their “Confidential Permanent Record”. That’s what really hit me.  Why the &(#$ do we, as Americans have “Confidential Permanent Records”? Who said THEY could keep tabs on US?

Now I can understand, somewhat, the need to catalog someones criminal past up to a certain extent. But notice I use the word “criminal”. Misdemeanor misconduct like sending a nude shot of yourself to someone else (solicited or otherwise) should not constitute being marked so that you can’t get certain jobs, you have to announce to the world you are a sex offender when you change residences, etc. etc. It’s an outrage and it is a clear violation of our rights as Americans.  This is almost as insulting as the NSA wire-tapping that took place following 9-11. Unfortunately, no one is standing up to this the way some of the telecom giants stood up to the feds.

To borrow some words from an excellent article I read on The Guardian’s website, “In their book Born Digital, John Palfrey and Urs Gasser review the characteristics of “digital natives,” those who were born (after 1980) into the digital age – those who have never known life without the internet. These kids have “digital dossiers,” which begin with their first ultrasound and continuing throughout their life. By the time they reach adulthood these children will have rich digital files, ripe for privacy violations and information mining. The authors liken aspects of the dossier to a tattoo, something personally identifiable and often regrettable, perhaps a racy photo a teen posts on MySpace. Palfrey and Gasser ask, will “digital natives” worry about privacy as we know it? Or do they have a completely different view of what privacy is, shaped by the societal changes wrought by the digital age?”. The whole article can be read here : http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2009/feb/17/privacy-children-internet-digital. I think that’s a very good point and something a bit eerie to consider. It is never a good thing to have so much personal information be so very public. What will the future be like when you can simply google someone’s name and get all their information, life history even baby pictures? The idea of poor choice pictures posted on the internet being available to anyone and everyone is a frightening thought. Especially here in the US where a picture on a web-based community website can prevent you from getting a job or even get you fired as has been the case in several instances in which the pictures ranged from sexy (albeit clothed) pictures of a school teacher to (yet another teacher) brandishing a fire arm. What is really harmful is that no one seems to be concerned about the context in which the photos are taken and I don’t expect there will be any change in that in the future.  I think all in all, it’s just safer to try and be as opaque and as invisible as possible when it comes to the internet.