Your Total Information Future

|

A cautionary tale from the ACLU. It's not so much that the pizza delivery company will know a lot about you, it's that Uncle Sam will know even more.

Thanks to Pamela Friedman for the tip.

NEXT: Federal Government Passes Gas

Ronald Bailey is science correspondent at Reason.

Editor's Note: We invite comments and request that they be civil and on-topic. We do not moderate or assume any responsibility for comments, which are owned by the readers who post them. Comments do not represent the views of Reason.com or Reason Foundation. We reserve the right to delete any comment for any reason at any time. Report abuses.

  1. Poindexter

    HaHa! And you thought you got rid of me! I’m EVERYWHERE!

  2. Jimmy Antley

    That’s a really good demo. on what we will be up against soon. (Actually, I am pleased the ACLU is actually agreeing with me for a change.)

    It’s kind of coincidental, but I just took out a book from the library (oh, but you probably already know that ;-}, and they have the RFID tags working. They can be of so much good in say, distribution, retail, etc., but can be used to bad ends also – and yes I know the range is fairly small now (like 2 ft. of so) due to the chips having no onboard power – enough comes from the receiver to enable the chip to produce an electrical field containing the info. (96 bits or something like that).

    I didn’t know the technology was on the market already.

  3. Jimmy Antley

    About the pizza place, it’s hard enough to fool them these days to get them to deliver to the bar.

    On the bright side, technology to block the transfer of information comes along almost as quickly. I.E. caller ID, then caller ID blocker. Of course, the phone company still has all the information, blocking or no, so that’s the real problem …

    … not for them, of course. I think they will soon have Super-Caller-ID for $3.99 more + taxes, which will show even “blocked #’s. Then it’s time for Super-ID-Blocker, which can block numbers to even the Super-Caller-ID enabled lines. It will cost $5.99, plus taxes. It’s like arming the Iranians and the Iraqis during the 1980’s. Win-win situation!

    I think the lesson is, when governments or big companies (which will give up the information and kiss the governments’s asses when requested to) are the keepers of the info. that enables services to work (i.e. caller ID) then we are in trouble. There’s got to be ways to keep the data distributed. Oh, like the internet, why didn’t I think of it, AlGore?

  4. metalgrid


    Your Total Information Future

    Shouldn’t that be “Your Totalitarian Information Future”?

  5. I call retread.

  6. Paul

    Who Hijacked the ACLU website for this one? Wouldn’t all the aging hippies there be FOR THE HEALTHY FOOD SURCHARGE?

    But seriously, it’s good to see the ACLU is making some noise about the LARGER picture of the governments invasion into our lives, instead of the small handful the ACLU picks and chooses (or invents).

    Paul

  7. Jason Bourne

    Frontline has an interesting piece next week on what the political parties know about us:

    http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/persuaders/

    There will also be a discussion of how this information is used – e.g., narrowcasting, etc.

  8. Dan

    Who Hijacked the ACLU website for this one? Wouldn’t all the aging hippies there be FOR THE HEALTHY FOOD SURCHARGE?

    There’s also something a bit disingenuous about a bunch of lawyers scaring us with a dark future in which buisnesses make heart disease victims sign a liability waiver before eating fatty foods. There are a number of foods Californians can’t get at a restaurant without signing a waiver, and we have asshole lawsuit-happy left-wing lawyers to thank for it.

    I’m also not sure why the “credit cards maxed out — get cash” thing is supposed to be bad. Oooh, the dark, scary future, when I’m no longer able to defraud the pizza dude with invalid credit cards and bounced checks. And why is it supposed to be scary that a pizza place might check to see if they were delivering to a high-crime area, and bill accordingly?

    I have a feeling that the stuff in this ad (the stuff that is vaguely believable, that is — not the “we check your vacation plans” crap) is supposed to automatically be Super Duper Scary just because it’s a corporation doing it.

  9. bob

    I read about you in an article critical of Eliott and Lamm and their Malthusian philosophy. I’m here looking at $80/bl oil soon. I guess you’re a bit wrong there. Then I surfed this board to your global warming post. I guess I’ll skip Reason Magazine altogether

  10. Sandy

    The irony is that many of the people who contribute to the ACLU want EVERYONE to pay $20 extra for meat pizza, not just those who would adversely affect insurance premiums by consuming it.

  11. Hi good site thank you free sex videos – playboy.com free sex movies – teen model free porn videos – group sex free sex pics – kama sutra naked teens – preteen sex

Please to post comments

Comments are closed.