I wasn’t surprised about a lot of information in the documentary because i just assume that whatever I’m doing is being monitored. However, learning about the devices, tools and the laws that the government uses to enforce our own safety?  made it a lot real than expected. Over the years, I would get into extensive conversations about lobbyists with my friends. It is no longer a secret that companies want to aggressively sell their products to us and it is evident in the documentary that they will do whatever it takes to learn more about you, and sell something so specific that you didn’t know you wanted. Power in the digital economies is shared amongst the government ( including the NSA, CIA and FBI) , social media companies and surveillance vendors. Information about individuals is collected to be used for security, to prevent crime ( so the authorities say)  or to sell something to you. The implications of this is that it would be very easy for someone to see bit of information about you and totally misinterpret your intent, if they just look at a search or a comment that we post and take it completely out of context, an example of this is the Irish national who made a comment about destroying America on his tweet.

There was definitely more than 3 parts in the documentary that were interesting to learn the 3 I learned was:

1. The 4th amendment can be surpassed if the information gathered about a person is from a third party.
2. Surveillance vendors can sell surveillance tools to whoever can pay the price.
3. Carrier IQ can track every single keystroke on our cellular devices and the information can be retrieved fairly easily.

As i post this blog, i am aware that anything said on here could be misconstrued out of context and become a nightmare for me at some point in time. Good night. 🙂

Do you think the government should control the sale of surveillance tools?

Should there be a limit to the influence ( tracking of payment and gifts to lawmakers)  of tech lobbyists in congress?