Tag: privacy
Our Privacy Rights Are Being Sold, Stolen, And Stripped

Our Privacy Rights Are Being Sold, Stolen, And Stripped

To get a job these days, chances are you’ll have to pee in a bottle. Every company with a credit card, store card or website — or even a clerk who asks you nosy questions at the checkout counter — is looking to peddle “data” about your buying habits. In many states, you have to hand over your fingerprints to renew your driver’s license. Public and private spaces alike are constantly scanned by ever more observant surveillance cameras.

When we’re asked for our Social Security number to open a bank account, many of us simply shrug our shoulders rather than raising hell. And if we happen to be poorer than a banking customer — a footloose kid hanging on a street corner or an unemployed motorist guilty of “driving while black,” for example — we’re liable to be locked up and lost in a vast criminal “justice” system that considers itself not responsible for any rights, especially privacy rights.

Invasion of our privacy has become a way of life. When you stand up and demand to be left alone, you’re likely to be pegged as a quaint holdover from days gone by, a whiner or, more likely, someone with something to hide — maybe even a terrorist! We’re living in a culture in which individual rights have been sold and subjugated, all for database marketing and to keep the lid on the unruly masses.

This is an issue that has fallen off the political radar. What are the chances that privacy rights will engage the mighty intellect of The Donald? Last I looked, the only people in Washington overly concerned with privacy were the corporate check writers and their pet politicians, eager to cover the tracks of their own financial quid pro quos.

Behind the shiny glass doors of your not so friendly, not so neighborhood bank, everything they know about you is for sale — your account numbers, bank balance, loan history, address, credit history, Social Security number. The checks you write and receive, the invoices you pay and the investments you make reveal as much about you as a personal diary. But instead of banks keeping your information under lock and key, they collect it, cross-reference it, collate it and sell it — mostly to companies determined to sell you something else. The banks get 20 to 25 percent of the sales revenue generated by the marketers who buy the information.

In the brave new culture built around the marketplace, both corporate and government sectors have deemed private and personal information to be just another commodity. Already, our Social Security cards, which were never meant to be a tool for anything but our security, have become a basic means of keeping track of us, for both marketers and the police.

But now, driven by dreams of a citizen databank available to government at every level, public officials are falling over each other with new proposals for keeping us tabbed. The International Association of Chiefs of Police wants DNA samples from anyone who is arrested for any reason (as opposed to tried and convicted), while some right-wing politicos want to take DNA samples from all newborns.

Filing our DNA in a government databank is about the ultimate in unreasonable search and seizure. How far we have come from the days of Supreme Court Justice Louis D. Brandeis, who said in his famous dissent in Olmstead v. United States (1928): “The makers of our Constitution … sought to protect Americans in their beliefs, their thoughts, their emotions and their sensations. They conferred, as against the Government, the right to be let alone — the most comprehensive of the rights, and the right most valued by civilized men.”

And now there are companies like 23andMe that not only collect your DNA for genetic testing but will sell your DNA to government agencies. DNA tracking is not just an assault on the principles embodied in our Constitution; it has very real and frightening implications. Employers could deny you a job because your genes include a tendency toward certain diseases or health defects, and insurers might use DNA-derived information to impose limits on your health care coverage.

And don’t get me started on the tech companies and what they are doing with the overwhelming amounts of data they are collecting. Ah, for the simpler days of 1984, when George Orwell imagined that all this high-tech snooping and file gathering would be used to spot and snuff out society’s troublemakers and dissenters before they threatened the system.

Populist author, public speaker and radio commentator Jim Hightower writes The Hightower Lowdown, a monthly newsletter chronicling the ongoing fights by America’s ordinary people against rule by plutocratic elites. Sign up at HightowerLowdown.org.

Browse In True Privacy For Less Than $1 A Week

Browse In True Privacy For Less Than $1 A Week

HBO is currently embroiled in headaches after hackers assaulted their systems and swiped Game of Thrones scripts, unaired TV episodes, and scads of internal company documents. If an entertainment giant like HBO isn’t safe, how does a little guy like you protect yourself against cyber-predators stalking across the interwebs?

With rock solid, battle-tested security coverage, of course. In the virtual private network (VPN) arena, few names are as trusted as industry leader Private Internet Access — so defend your online activities with a two-year PIA subscription for only $59.95 (63 percent off its regular price) from The National Memo Store.

PC Magazine has PIA among its elite Editors’ Choice picks for good reason. Whether you’re connected through a home network or on a sketchy public WiFi hub, PIA offers an iron-clad secure connection that holds any cyberthieves, government snoops, or intrusive friends and family from getting into your private information.

With more than 3,300 servers in 31 regions around the globe, you’ll always have access to fast service speeds and data encryption based on the ultra-secure Blowfish CBC algorithm. Your service will block unwanted connections, get around geo-locking content restrictions and crush ads, trackers and other malware through its cool new MACE feature on up to five devices.

The price breaks down to a ridiculously low $2.50 per month, so jump on this limited time offer now.

This sponsored post is brought to you by StackCommerce.  

VPN Coverage For 10, 25, 100 Devices — All Up To 92% Off

VPN Coverage For 10, 25, 100 Devices — All Up To 92% Off

Online security isn’t just about protecting your trusty old home PC anymore. In fact, it isn’t even just about protecting yourself and your handful of mobile devices. We’ve all got families, organizations, and whole workforces to protect from cyber attack as well.

As one of the world’s leading VPN service providers (and winners of the PC Mag Top VPN of 2016 title), VPN Unlimited took up that challenge. They’ve unleashed three new tiers of lifetime VPN coverage, all available now at up to 92 percent off from The National Memo Store.

The VPN Unlimited Infinity Plan ($55.99) is built for individual users — but unlike most VPN service plans which cover up to 3 or 5 devices, your VPN Unlimited Infinity coverage extends to 10 devices. Each will have high-speed public WiFi access via VPN Unlimited’s secure encrypted service network in 53 locations in 39 countries around the world.

Now, VPN Unlimited is upping the ante with their Family Plan ($95.99), serving up protection for up to 25 devices for life.

Or, make sure your entire company and their full network of devices are covered with the VPN Unlimited Team Plan. For a one-time $199.99 price (over 90 percent off its regular price), you’ll have protection for up to 100 devices. Do the math and you quickly realize that you can make sure every smartphone, tablet or laptop in your organization has full VPN Unlimited coverage — for only $2 per device.

You can pick which service plan works best for you, and for a limited time use coupon code INFINITY15 for 15% off.

This sponsored post is brought to you by StackCommerce.

Get Eternal Online Peace Of Mind With Windscribe VPN — For Under $50

Get Eternal Online Peace Of Mind With Windscribe VPN — For Under $50

Having a virtual private network (VPN) protecting your online activities is practically an essential piece of anyone’s cyber defense these days. But with dozens of VPN companies crowding the market, a select group of VPN service providers are upping the ante, packing more than just a secure internet connection and IP masking for your subscription price.

Windscribe is one of those providers — and right now, they’re offering a lifetime subscription to their pro-level service plan for just $49.99, over 90 percent off, in The National Memo Store.

Like the best VPNs, Windscribe allows complete online freedom while your privacy is protected via their encrypted data tunnel. Your IP will always be cloaked, your content will always be free of geo-locks, and your information will always be secure from phishing and other malicious online scammer activities.

But Windscribe truly distinguishes itself through its full desktop app and browser extension integration. Windscribe brings together all of your device’s defenses through their simple interface, removing all the need to sort through endless pages of settings and menu options.

With Windscribe enabled, ads and trackers will be removed and websites can be unblocked as it works with your device’s native security to protect your system from infiltration. All the while, Windscribe masks your physical location and never collects any logs or evidence of your browsing history.

If you aren’t ready to take the $49.99 lifelong plunge with Windscribe, this current deal allows you to at least dip your toes in the water with similarly big discounts on the 3-year ($29.99) and 5-year ($39.99) plans as well.

This sponsored post is brought to you by StackCommerce.