Big Brother is Here

Internet Privacy is an Oxymoron

   Join our cognitive infrastructure, says IBM, and you will know every transaction, piece of data and interaction of computer users worldwide, the better to know your potential customers and target your advertising,
   In a four-page, full-color newspaper advertising spread, the computer colossus welcomes business to what it calls the "Cognitive Era," where its technology "takes in data in all forms," from all sources, including Facebook and Twitter as well as its business partners, customers and "data available to all," stores it for you in what is conveniently known as "the cloud," and sets its team of 2,000 specialists to work analyzing what a client may want to know about potential customers and how to reach them.
   These clients could easily include governments that want to monitor the activities of Internet users, on the excuse that they are looking for potential terrorists. In fact, the IBM ad brags that the company has 6,200 specialists "monitoring 133 countries and 20 billion events per day," ostensibly in the name of security.
   But there is no privacy on the Internet, as Edward Snowden proved when he released the tons of data gathered by the U.S. government.
   Meanwhile, a backlash has begun, as the European Court of Justice ruled illegal the practice of gathering, storing and transferring web search histories, social media updates and other data between the U.S. and Europe. The court said leaks by Snowden already showed that American government agencies had full access to user data, interfering with citizens' rights to privacy.
   The court said an agreement among international companies to transfer data files on user patterns between the U.S. and Europe was flawed because American officials could thereby peruse European individuals' files.
   The case was brought by a citizen of Austria, who has been a Facebook user since 2008, according to the European Court of Justice. His Facebook postings were stored on computers in Ireland, and then transferred to computer servers in the U.S. But, the court noted, "the law and practice of the United States do not offer sufficient protection against surveillance by public authorities."