What's more dangerous? RFID or supporting Amnesty Intnl on trade conflict

BTC Commentary --  Today I read a headline at Chris Corum's, RFID news:

"The Wall Live tour promotes human rights with RFID"

There are so many ideas going on in this headline. Roger Water's heading up a human right's benefit is a good thing. (Ordinarily, yes.) Pink Floyd's show planners glomming onto Intellitix data savagery by using RFID in concergoer bracelets. (That's more of the "opt-in" brand of data slavery, of course. Bad.) Putting 'RFID' and 'Human Rights' in the same sentence seems like an anomalous occasion that makes absolutely no sense. Until of course, as you read farther down, it says plainly "The Wall" as presented is a Human Rights benefit for Amnesty International.

Sadly, it all began to make sense.

How #PinkFloyd Intellitix #RFID @ concert benefit bit.ly/OcHhgv = an armed trade conflict in 3rd world nations bit.ly/NGFLnM
— BeatTheChip (@BeatTheChip) July 26, 2012

OR You can reblog my notes on Amnesty International's armed interventionist meddling at my overflow blog, Godzilla Government.

For more analysis on "democratic interventionist trade policy", we turn to the musical illustrations of the Chemical Brothers.

WHO OWNS YOUR DATA? You do, says David Bond.

BTC-- The debate returns over ownership of personal data. The NYTimes ran a piece today on why data you own is NOT actually accessible to you for review or removal from major data brokerage firms.

The debate over data privacy continues to rage into the Summer, as cellphone driven searches (warranted or unwarranted) are back on the table for use by law enforcement: as tracking devices littering data about us.  This data is then sold and collected by both the government and invisible business hands.  FISA, the codified US basis for domestic wiretapping, was called on the carpet this week for violating the 4th Amendment en masse.

The importance of who has your data, what is known about you and the range of your control conventions over your own data is usually something untested.  Perhaps, we fear we are too ignorant of device and IT structures to investigate or test the ranges of our limitations or worse, the length of time it would take to track down who is mining you for data would require you to quit your job and go on public assistance to just get the simplest of answers.

Thankfully, you don't really have to do that. You can live vicariously through David Bond, who did his own personal data inventory and attempted to reclaim or control the property of his identity data.   Fair Warning: You will find search artists and private investigators do not play fair and they methods they use may alarm you.

WATCH: Erasing David 

Is E-Verify charging $30 to get a peek at WA State driver and labor data?

A BTC TRUTH-IN ACCOUNT

Here is how I came by this information.

I looked outside and saw a man sitting driverside smoking in a black car and with a laptop open. I thought he was simply leeching WiFi.  He suddenly spat a large amount of phlegm 20 ft away from the car.  

I also suddenly decided he was "up to no good".

I took down his license plate as my gut instructed. To see what I could come up with, I dropped it into a license plate finder search for Washington State.  You don't have to be a great investigative journalist to get this information. I used Google.

Proof positive, if you are somewhat alert on any given day, you will run into hard truth about the US government's evolving database state.

For months and perhaps years, bloggers and advocates have discussed drawbacks of mandating "the honeypot" or a centralized database for government use.  E-Verify is one such database recently adopted and codified in the State of Pennsylvania.  E-Verify adopters may believe, mistakenly, they have a reasonable expectation of privacy if their information is in a government database.

Today, I can pay $30 and get whatever sensitive information about what you drive, who you are, and maybe where you work at the Department of Homeland Security's E-Verify database information clearing house.  That is the US security state claiming voluntary compulsion to house your otherwise private information and now sell that information TO ME; while also registering my information into said database as a customer.  This information will undoubtedly later be sold to someone else for profit, for an equal or lesser amount.  None of which, will you make a profit from or will you have any control over. It was required of many people involuntarily without their consent!

Washington State prides itself for honoring civil liberty by not adopting the E-Verify mandate. That hasn't stopped them from selling information gleaned from their an Automatic License Plate Reader on the 520 bridge auto-toll if you drive over Lake Washington. If you take the bridge, it won't just cost you once.  It will cost you again and again.  That information can be sold to me for $30 where it makes money for Homeland Security again and again - to your neighbors or prospective employers who are nosey enough. If 10 people need to review your driver information in the State of WA that's going to make potentially $300 or more in private data brokerage billing for DHS, a public federal agency.

In this scenario, you wouldn't have to think hard about the consequences I could bring upon your life if I was a person "up to no good" paying DHS $30.  I would think finding my evil doppleganger post-crime as an afterthought for these security figureheads.

You might want to write a letter to your leaders at Congress.org and let them know how you feel about DHS selling your information to people like me.