Being watched at a mall near you … you!

For years, malls have used various techniques to determine what entrance people use, what stores they go to, and what stores they pass by. Now, the technology exists to track unique cell phone IDs to collect reliable data – in bulk – concerning your movements at malls and inside stores. How do you feel about…

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School secretly monitors students at home via webcam

Is big teacher watching your kids at home? That’s the question of the day, as the Lower Merion School District admits they had the ability to access webcams – without the users knowledge – on school-supplied laptops. Did teachers access the webcam of one student when he was at home?

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Little brother is watching, too…

What does this story mean?  Probably that Orwell just wasn’t paranoid enough… Children as young as seven are being recruited by councils to act as ‘citizen snoopers’, the Daily Mail can reveal. The ‘environment volunteers’ will report on litter louts, noisy neighbours – and even families putting their rubbish out on the wrong day. There…

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PETA and Michael Vick

One of the things you can always count on PETA to be in entertaining, especially if you like your humor dark and your protesters naked.  Admittedly, they’re probably best known for stripping at KFC than making sense, but, hey, who can complain about a campaign I can only call “chicks for chickens.”  Which is why…

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“Big Brother” is watching…

What is the difference between a citizen and a subject? Personally, my reflexive answer is freedom of one sort or another — the right to bear arms, the right to free speech and freedom of association, etc.  The things that a citizen has and takes for granted.  Sometimes, however, it is what the subject has…

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Wall Street Witch Hunts

Democrats in Congress usually have a “thing” for privacy rights.  Listening in on international phone-calls were one end of the conversation is a known or suspected terrorist?  That’s bad.  However, not all such intrusions are equal. McCarthy-esque intrusion into the lives of folks working on Wall Street?  Wielding  the tax code as a weapon against…

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Taxes, privacy and liberalism

Remember all that Democratic whining about wanting for people to drive more fuel-efficient cars? Here comes the other shoe… “A year ago, the Oregon Department of Transportation announced it had demonstrated that a new way to pay for roads — via a mileage tax and satellite technology — could work. Now Gov. Ted Kulongoski says…

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