Hay - I learnt a new wurd today. I just thought it was a typo.

Oh gawd.. and I thought it was Engrish!!!!

I should probably add that a professor of mine from southern China pronounces her Vs like Rs.

I'm not to keen on the privacy issue, but I've kind of already accepted its inevitability. Heck, already it's hard to go anywhere where you aren't on camera.

After seeing Wim Wenders End of Violence I started to notice all the roadside cameras, not to mention security cams outside practically every building and inside every retail establishment.

Oh man....I had to seriously take this into consideration...it made me decide to stop dancing through Target....

If the music suited me... :D
and if the kids deserved to be embarrassed...:evil:

So this is how personal freedoms die. Not with a cry but with a meh.

That is the lesson of history, yes. But you haven't really demonstrated that any personal freedoms are dying in this regard.

Except for very narrow exclusions the traces and trails we leave behind when interacting with the world outside ourselves have always been fair game to criminal investigation (the exclusions are broader for civil investigation).

Bank records have always been discoverable, we now just route more of our financial lives directly through banks than we did 50 years ago before credit and debit cards. I don't have to use plastic and leave that trail but the convenience is worth the exposure, in my opinion.

The government has always been able to example hotel registration records, those records are just now easier to access with the majority of hotels being part of major conglomerations keeping central databases. I don't have to stay in them, if I want my lodgings to be more opaque to prying eyes I can stay at independently owned B&Bs, but I hate teddy bears on my bed.

I really don't see any personal freedom dying here. The activities involved are not really any less private than they ever were, the record keeping is just more organized than they used to be.

IMHO, if we expend more energy keeping an eye on the government itself, and commit ourselves to transparency, we could live very public lives with plenty of trails and not have to worry about the Gestapo busting us for going to war protests, buying bongs or reading about Islam. Technology is inevitable - it's how they use it that's controllable.

Well put.

I don't mind the data that companies collect. Like Alex said, the convenience is worth it. But if the government tried to use that information to control or oppress me, then I would have an issue with it. I just don’t see that happening right now.

The government can't take any freedoms we don't willingly give away.