ObamaCare and You

“Obamacare is socialized medicine,” says the Republican Party. No, no — excuse me — socialized medicine is what we have now! People without insurance can go to an emergency ward or throw themselves on the mercy of a doctor, and the cost of all this uncompensated care is shared by all those who have insurance, raising your rates and mine. That is socialized medicine and that is what Obamacare ends."

~Thomas Friedman, May 26, 2012, New York Times

As an unemployed, uninsured single-father, I had hoped that the US Supreme Court would strike down the Affordable Care Act, but they didn't, so now it's time to adjust. The Affordable Care Act, or as the wags would call it, ObamaCare does nothing to help those in need of coverage that don't qualify for federal assistance, and in fact penalizes them for not being covered. This will only further erode an already suffering middle class.

Yes if you're younger than 26, you can get on your parents insurance, but how many in that age group have kids of their own? And yes if you have a pre-existing condition, you cannot be denied coverage. That is if you have access to health insurance. While relative unemployment sits just above 8%, real unemployment in America is around 15% combined with scores of the populations, just under half, living barely above the poverty line of $23,050 for a family of four making them ineligible for state assistance. People in that group will be on the hook for their own coverage. People in that group are going to be penalized. The President gave the insurance company customers, but he gave a huge chunk of America nothing!

The insurance companies only agreed to drop the pre-existing condition in exchange for agreeing to everyone being required to be insured. There is a voucher program being implemented for those making up to 400% above poverty level, but that voucher will only be equal to the monthly portion of the cost of the eligible employer-sponsored plan which would have been paid by the employer if you were a covered employee. Medical insurance can be expensive when you're working. Imagine if your not working, but still paying that same premium. When you're already covering housing, transportation, and food, then add one more obligation, that "and" could quickly become and "or," and you're forced to choose which one you don't need so much of.

Add to these concerns that a $2,000 penalty to employers that do not offer coverage to full-time employees and you'll see an accelerated push to already alarming employment trends. For one the penalty  in many cases will be the cheaper option for the employer over providing membership in a group policy. What exactly defined full-time employment may also change to further exclude employees to avoid the penalty altogether such as 36 hour work weeks just avoid full-time status, longer probationary periods for new employees, or as what's becoming popular in some sectors, contract 1099 workers with an option for a permanent position after one year making them their own entity responsible for everything that the employer would normally manage, except the workload that is.

The Affordable Care Act is a back-handed attempt to appeal to the masses that will hurt more than it helps, and will ultimately serve to further marginalize the middle-class. It's time to legitimately socialize medicine already and to start taking care of the people. The healthcare system as it stands or even as Obama has designed it to become, even with emergency care is far from a socialized system, and frankly it's a display of, for lack of a better term, proletariat ignorance and a slap in the face of 143 million Americans to suggest otherwise! Health care in America is one of the best, but it's the healthcare system that is a horrible representation of our society, and serves as an embarrassing reminder that we are incapable of taking care of our own people.

On June 27 I checked my Facebook and found a notice from a person on my Friend's List advertising a fund raiser for a person's cancer treatment. This is the forth such notice to cross my Facebook account since January, all for different people. One is for cancer treatments, and two are for traumatic brain injuries, and another for a chronic condition. All four are high-school graduates, one holds a middle management position, and two are unemployed. One that I know of does have medical insurance, but the coverage is inadequate which caused much of his therapy to end after 30 days and leaves the quality of his long term care in limbo. So if there is going to be any substantive insurance reform, how about we start with these four people?

TBI

• Ashton MacFarlane
• Jeremy Israelson

Cancer

• Brittany Wilson

Chronic Condition

• Amanda Quinlan

Follow me on Twitter @snokedawg

P.S. To add insult to injury,  one in three Americans is unable to visit a dentist and you realize that we have a real problem that making it illegal to not have insurance won't fix. Our leaders sold us out. Proud to be an Amerikan, yo...

P.S.S. Damn, post this article a few times in reply to people celebrating the Supreme Court decision and I get reported for spam? It's the online equivilant of putting your fingers in your ears and shouting "Lalalalalalala." That's a fine defense to your argument.

Today's lecture with Baleigh: Reality Shows

So I'm scrolling through Hulu seeing if there's anything interesting.

Baleigh: Hey look, they have the new season of Punk'd!

Me: What? No! I hate the show. Well I don't hate it, but rich people playing pranks on rich people is not something that I want to watch.

In fact, do you know what would make a good reality show? If they took away Ashton Kutcher's home, his cars, drained his bank account and set him on the streets of America just to see how he'd handle it. We'd get to see Ashton Kutcher in the homeless shelter. Ashton Kutcher in the food line. I'd watch that. Hell, I'd watch the shit out of that!

Baleigh: You're mean. </sarcasm>

Me: No, it's just that people like him make me sick. There are three types of wealth: acquired, inherited, and given.

Acquired wealth is when someone comes up with an idea and markets it, which makes money for them.

Inherited wealth is when someone is left money by the person that acquired it. Sometimes they do well with it. Other times they don't.

And then there's just the given wealth for people like Ashton Kutcher who really did nothing to earn it beyond being pretty. He was a Calvin Klein underwear model before anything else, and people gave him money for it. It's not like he has talent anyway.

Baleigh: Like Paris Hilton?

Me: No. Her's was inherited wealth, and the only reason she got famous was because someone thought it would be a good idea to take two untalented, spoiled rich girls and put them on TV.

Baleigh: Remember when we watched House of Wax just to see her die?

Today's lecture with Baleigh: Music and Politics

So we're in the car listening to Public Enemy.

Me: So you didn't know that Flava Flav came from Public Enemy?

Baleigh: No.

Me: Ugh. OK, let's take it back. What did Ice T bring to the hip-hop scene?

Baleigh: I don't know.

Me: A hype-man! That's what Flava Flav did.

Baleigh: I don't care. Well, I knew that, but I don't care.

My poor child gets frequently lectured on the socially significant music of late 20th century artists like Public Enemy, Ice T, Beastie Boys, NWA, et.al. Occasionally others like Slayer, Megadeth, and early Metallica get thrown into the mix for their relationship to politics and the American war fetish. She says that doesn't care, but she listens.

It's at this point that we should maybe feel bad for her teenage self.

Losing the First Amendment

The print media may well be the foundation of the American political system. Since before Benjamin Franklin absconded from his indentured servitude as a printers apprentice and chose to live as a semi-fugitive, the printed media has served as a platform to incite discussions on fairness and equality. Men like Adam Smith that authored a series of pamphlets named “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations,” and John Locke with “The Second Treatises of Government,” laid the foundation for what the new world was to become.

During the framing of the US Constitution, a series of articles written by Alexander Hamilton, James Madison, and John Jay that came to be called the Federalist Papers appeared in the newspaper, The Independent Journal and were designed to persuade the population into ratifying the US Constitution. It was from these writings that evolved our Bill of Rights that guaranteed among other things that “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” But regardless of this guarantee, our freedoms are fragile, and without due attention can be fleeting.

The Fairness Doctrine

The Fairness Doctrine’s importance was in the limited available spectrum utilized by the various broadcast networks. The internet did not exist. Cable television was not available. There was radio, newspaper, and TV. We had television that consisted of Very High Frequency that covered channels one though 13, and Ultra High Frequency for channels 14 and higher. Channel one was later reserved for war purposes after 1941, which is why it is not accessible on your television today.

The Fairness Doctrine was introduced in 1949 to preserve fair and balanced reporting of important social issues. The mandate had little to do with providing equal time to contrasting viewpoints as it did require that those contrasting viewpoints be offered. As a child I remember a stuffy old man that would come on KSL Channel 5 for 30 seconds to lecture on whatever, that was the KSL television editorial commentator, Don Gale. He was honoring the Fairness Doctrine by providing a contrasting viewpoint. And later I found out, he was far from stuffy. Such voluntary compliance was a testament to the success of the program as noted by the Federal Communications Commission in 1974 with the caveat, "Should future experience indicate that the doctrine [of 'voluntary compliance'] is inadequate, either in its expectations or in its results, the Commission will have the opportunity—and the responsibility—for such further reassessment and action as would be mandated."

None of this is to say that the fairness Doctrine did not experience its own set of problems. Multiple Supreme Court challenges questioned the constitutionality of the program that was upheld under the understanding that electronic media has limited distribution while newspapers for their maturity had a more diverse and thus fairly competitive market. Ultimately in 1987 the US Supreme Court ruled in Meredith Corp. vs. FCC that the FCC was no longer held to enforcing the Fairness Doctrine as it was not a mandate of Congress.  In response an attempt was made by Congress to legislate the Fairness Doctrine, but was vetoed in 1987 by then President Ronald Reagan who felt embattled by the three major networks at the time, and was again stopped in 1991 with a promised veto by then President George H.W. Bush.

Later that year the FCC in a unanimous decision voted to remove enforcement of the Fairness Doctrine citing, “We seek to extend to the electronic press the same First Amendment guarantees that the print media have enjoyed since our country's inception.”

In the period since 1987 we have met Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, and Glenn Beck. We have met John Stewart and Steven Colbert. We have been witness to divisive media that pits American against American. We have seen the broad diversity of the public media again become distilled into the hands of a few media giants that control everything from the music we listen too, to the newspapers and magazines we read, to the TV we watch, the movies we enjoy, and the internet we surf. This is the very action that the Fairness Doctrine was intended to prevent.

As Justice Byron White wrote for the court in its unanimous 1969 Red Lion Broadcasting Co. vs. FCC decision, "A license permits broadcasting, but the licensee has no constitutional right to be the one who holds the license or to monopolize a radio frequency to the exclusion of his fellow citizens. There is nothing in the First Amendment which prevents the Government from requiring a licensee to share his frequency with others.... It is the right of the viewers and listeners, not the right of the broadcasters, which is paramount."

Jane Akre & Steve Wilson vs. Fox Broadcasting

The Telecommunications Act of 1996 was the first significant overhaul of the Communications Act of 1934, which created the Federal Communications Commission. The new Act sought to broaden the field of the media industry by allowing anyone to "let anyone enter any communications business…" but it instead had the effect of concentrating media ownership that gave large news organizations a direct influence over local reporting.

Jane Akre and her husband Steve Wilson were a husband and wife journalism team working for Fox subsidiary WTVT in Tampa, Florida in 1997 when they began working on a story regarding the agricultural biotechnology company Monsanto and their use of recombinant bovine growth hormone (rBGH) in dairy producing cows. Monsanto responded with a threatened lawsuit if WTVT chose to air the story. WTVT responded by airing a Monsanto rBGH positive story. Ultimately Akre and Wilson were dismissed as a result and in a subsequent lawsuit won their claim under Florida’s whistleblowing statute, but lost under appeal as The Communications Act of 1934 did not specifically prohibit the distortion of news. At no point during the trial did Fox Broadcasting dispute their distortion of the news, they only cited that it was their prerogative to do so. The ruling gave Fox the permission to present the news however they saw fit, and this is the very reason that Fox News is not shown in Canada. Canadian stations with similar ambitious are also denied a broadcast license.

Espionage Act of 1917

The Espionage Act of 1917 was enacted shortly after the United States entered into World War I with the expressed intent to prohibited any attempt to interfere with military operations, to support U.S. enemies during wartime, to promote insubordination in the military, or to interfere with military recruitment. The draft originally proposed by the President Woodrow Wilson proposed a measure that included press censorship, but the House declined and Wilson begrudgingly signed the Act without the provision on June 15, 1917. The law was made to include the Sedition Act of 1918 eleven months later that included a broad range of offenses that are normally covered by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, but that specific provision was repealed in 1920. The Espionage Act itself still remains with infrequent updates and enforcement of the Act is at the discretion of the US Attorney General.

Notable persons prosecuted under the Act would include columnist and suspected spies Julius and Ethel Rosenberg. Ethel was posthumously exonerated, though it was later revealed that Julius was indeed involved in passing information to the Soviets. Noted whistleblowers Daniel Ellsberg, and US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning had also found their way into prosecution for very similar actions. Ellsberg was eventually hailed as a hero for his leaking information on the Viet Nam war while the case remains to be seen on Manning. Five other relatively recent cases have also found themselves under the magnifying glass. You may not know the names, but if you’ve been paying attention, you would know the stories: former senior executive at the National Security Agency, Tom Drake; Former FBI translator, Shamai Leibowitz; former State Department contractor, Stephen Jin-Woo; former CIA Agent, Jeffrey Sterling; former CIA Director of counter terrorism operations in Pakistan, John Kiriakou; and former Department of Justice Attorney, Thomas Tamm. 

Reporters as well are caught up and threatened in the dragnet approach of national security, most notable to me would be New York Times reporters, James Risen and Eric Lichtblau that were awarded the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting in 2006 for a series of controversial investigative reports that they co-wrote about the National Security Agency's surveillance of international communications originating or terminating in the United States codenamed "Stellar Wind" and about a government program called Terrorist Finance Tracking Program designed to detect terrorist financiers, which involved searches of money transfer records in the international SWIFT database. SImilar to the New York Times, and Risen and Lichtblau, Wikileaks and its founder, Julian Assange remain beset by difficulty at the behest of State Department officials from being made to relocate their servers to having their funding blocked. At least eleven of those 13 names should be honored as national heroes rather than just Ellsberg's, not forgotten in the winds of history along with an unknown number to come. All of these individuals have provided rich context from which we are able to understand the workings of our government.

Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012

As evidenced by the above names, Washington and the military have long played politics in the media. A quick scan of your local TV listing would reveal any number of programs that air with the governments blessing so long as the government is portrayed in a positive light. Immediate examples on television would include NCIS and Army Wives. Examples of movies would be Top Gun, Transformers, Battle: Los Angeles, Battleship, Act of Valor. All play a subtle role in developing desired behaviors in the public and the enlisted ranks which all dance the edge of permissible propaganda that has been explicitly forbids targeting American citizens on American soil since 1948.

The Smith-Mundt Modernization Act of 2012 is being written into the Fiscal Year 2013 National Defense Authorization Act that would remove the distinction between foreign and domestic audiences similar to the removal of the distinction between foreign and domestic combatants in the FY2012 NDAA. Entirely too much we sit back and watch this happen. Though these laws may have originated in private, the smoke filled rooms where this kind of legislation once originated is happening before our very eyes. The smoke filled rooms of the past have become the House and Senate floors of today!

These bills are being passed with remarkable swiftness with nary a debate in the House and near unanimous votes in the Senate. Our politicians do not speak for us and those that we depended on to explain these issues for us are falling silent. This is not America, and this is not our representational republic. As President Abraham Lincoln said, “America will never be destroyed from the outside. If we falter and lose our freedoms, it will be because we destroyed ourselves.” And he may well be right.

Channel one may soon be on your TV.

The State of the Economy and What to Expect From the Next G8

This past week we've been provided a snapshot of what topics may be discussed at the May 17-18 Group of 8 summit, which in a surprise move was relocated from Chicago to Camp David. The move itself was said to be, “more closely approximate the remote settings in which the G8 leaders prefer to gather,” as meetings in larger, urban areas tend to attract clamorous protests.

The snapshot that we've been provided though comes by way of two speeches, one delivered at The Brookings institution by Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund, Christine Lagarde. The other at New York University by Vice Chair of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, Janet L. Yellen. Both speakers discussed the state of global and U.S. economies with proposals on moving forward from our current situation.

“Only a few months ago, we seemed to be staring into the abyss. More recently, some data have [sic] indicated that the United States may be beginning to turn the corner,” said Lagarde who spoke inspirationally of the economic situation and quoted Nelson Mandela when she suggested that there is still much work to come beginning with that countries must limit their exposure to the financial vulnerabilities of their trading partners as has been occurring in the European Union where financial strains remain high. “A stronger global firewall will help complete the circle of protection for every country.”

On the day of Lagarde's speech, the International Monetary Fund posted that it had concluded its 2012 Article IV Consultation with Iceland. “Iceland is gradually emerging from its post-crisis recession. The economy expanded by 3 percent in 2011 driven by a broad-based rebound in consumption and a gradual pick-up in investment. Unemployment declined steadily and now stands at around 7 percent.” This comes just three years after Iceland allowed its banks to fail. On that same day Iceland announced that it would be forgiving much of the mortgage debt held by its citizens and indicting key members of the government and financial sectors for their roles in the economic collapse.

In her speech, Yellin referenced this stage of recovery with, “In addition, it's conceivable that the European situation could deteriorate and prompt a significant increase in global financial market stress. Such developments would likely have substantial adverse effects on U.S. economic activity and inflation.” Although inflation didn't appear to be the primary concern as she said, “significant headwinds are likely to continue to restrain aggregate spending, and progress in closing the remaining employment gap is likely to be quite gradual. Apart from sizable increases in gasoline prices, inflation has been subdued in recent months.” She added that she expects inflation to stay at or below the 2 percent projected by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC).

On the day of Yellen's speech, the Bank of France posted that there was no growth in the first quarter of 2012 and that there are no signs of a strong recovery in activity in the coming months. The Euro zone's second largest economy barely avoided a recession after it grew by 0.2% in the fourth quarter 2011.

Lagarde suggested that this moment is one of global redistribution. “Clearly, the rebalancing of the global economy—a shift in demand from external deficit to surplus countries—is key and something that the IMF has been advocating for some time.” She furthered this in citing global successes by referencing, “new forms of collaboration coming into play,” as seen in the BRICS—Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa—that have established a development bank to aid burgeoning economies. “The IMF recognizes it too,” she said. “We are at the very intersection of an increasingly global world.” From this she surmised that Western economies have something to learn in the way these markets work and that we would do well to look towards emulating some of these as a path to recovery.

“One, we need financial systems that support—not destabilize—the economy. This means repairing financial systems so they can deliver credit, growth and jobs.” Lagarde added, “This means better regulation and supervision, and coordination across countries, to prevent the recurrence of reckless risk-taking.”

“Two, we must improve competitiveness and have better functioning labor markets so that we can generate more jobs.” Lagarde's rational on this was that workers across the board, skilled and unskilled would need to accept that industry wage standards would have to be lowered to remain competitive in the global economy. “The focus should be on getting people back to work.”

“Three, as countries undertake the sometimes wrenching reforms that are needed, the social fabric is in danger of being stretched.” Lagarde cautioned, “So they must protect and reinforce appropriate safety nets.”

Recommendations from Lagarde did somewhat match those of Yellen in that to move from our current situation, our economy must begin to capitalize on its labor resources. “The level of private payrolls remains nearly 5 million below its pre-recession peak, and the unemployment rate stands well above levels that I, and most analysts, judge as normal over the longer run,” Yellen said on citing a ¾ point fall in unemployment in the first three months of the year to 8.25 percent. “FOMC participants' projections indicate that unemployment will decline gradually from current levels. Included in the figure as well is the central tendency of FOMC participants' estimates of the longer-run normal unemployment rate, which ranges from 5.2 percent to 6 percent. The unemployment rate is expected to remain well above its longer-run normal value over the next several years.”

Without plotting the same course, Yellen cited the same reasons given in Legarde's speech.“Putting all the evidence together, I see no good reason to doubt that our nation's high unemployment rate indicates a substantial degree of slack in the labor market,” Yellen said. “Moreover, while I recognize the significant uncertainty surrounding such forecasts, I anticipate that growth in real gross domestic product will be sufficient to lower unemployment only gradually from this point forward, in part because substantial headwinds continue to restrain the recovery.”

In her discussing the near term economic outlook, Yellen cited three factors that prevent the U.S. Economy from returning to pre-recession levels where she first pointed to the housing market as a reason for an anemic recovery. “One headwind comes from the housing sector, which has typically been a driver of business cycle recoveries. We have seen some improvement recently, but demand for housing is likely to pick up only gradually given still-elevated unemployment, uncertainties over the direction of house prices, and mortgage credit availability that seems likely to remain very restricted for all but the most creditworthy buyers.”

On the financial markets, Yellen took her speech away from the conclusions of Lagarde's call for financial reform and instead offered tax revenue as a resource by stating, “A second headwind comes from fiscal policy. State and local governments continue to face extremely tight budget situations in light of the weak economy, depressed home prices, and the phasing out of federal stimulus grants, though overall tax revenues have been improving and that should continue as the economy expands further.”

Finally citing the global market as a reason, Yellen offered, “A third factor weighing on the outlook is the sluggish pace of economic growth abroad. Strains in global financial markets have eased somewhat since late last year, an improvement that reflects in part policy actions taken by European authorities. Nonetheless, risk premiums on sovereign debt and other securities are still elevated in many European countries, while European banks continue to face pressure to shrink their balance sheets, and concerns about the outlook for the region remain. A further slowdown in economic activity in Europe and in other foreign economies would inhibit U.S. export growth.”

Overall there is the divergence, Largarde asks a radical shift in monetary policy that would include slashing wages and other austerity measures, while Yellen recommends staying with existing policy set forth when the FOMC issued statements following its January and March meetings indicating that it “currently anticipates that economic conditions—including low rates of resource utilization and a subdued outlook for inflation over the medium run—are likely to warrant exceptionally low levels for the federal funds rate at least through late 2014.”

The First Circuit Court of Appeals Finds in Favor of Citizen Media

The First Circuit United States Court of Appeals on Friday ruled in favor of the United States Constitution in regards to a Massachusetts man arrested for his recording three Boston police officers that were arresting another individual.

On October 1, 2007, Simon Glik was taken into custody and charged for recording an incident in which he states there was evidence of police brutality. On being approached by one of the arresting officers with the statement, "I think you have taken enough pictures." Glik replied, "I am recording this. I saw you punch him." When asked, Glik did affirm that along with video, his device also captured audio and was immediately arrested for the unlawful audio recording in violation of Massachusetts' wiretap statute, disturbing the peace, and aiding in the escape of a prisoner, which was later dropped for lack of probable cause.

Four months later the Boston Municipal Court disposed of the remaining two charges citing the, "officers were unhappy they were being recorded during an arrest... does not make a lawful exercise of a First Amendment right a crime." The court also found no supporting evidence for the wiretapping charge as Glik did openly admit to, and "had used his cell phone openly and in plain view."

In February 2010 Glik filed a civil rights action against the officers and the City of Boston in the United States District Court for violations of his First and Fourth Amendment rights, and for malicious prosecution under the Massachusetts Civil Rights Act. The defendants moved to dismiss the case citing that the officers were entitled to qualified immunity, "because it is not well-settled that he had a constitutional right to record the officers." Their motion was orally denied when the court affirmed the right of citizens to publicly record the activities of police officers on public business as being established.

This is a very important ruling for everyone. Know your rights, and read the decision of The First Circuit United States Court of Appeals.

6 Stories to Help You Sleep at Night

This story was originally submitted to Cracked.com, but was rejected for the simple fact that it was just plain creepy.

We all like to think that everything is fine, and really it is. I mean we're a lot better off here in the United States than most and that's a good thing. Ah yes, life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, just like the founding fathers intended. We can watch the news and see the economic instability in Europe, burgeoning democracies in the Middle East, and the economic powerhouse that the far East is becoming. We can be concerned. We can be thankful. We can be glad that we are not them living in some second rate police state, I mean after all, look around you and...huh?. What...is, is someone watching me?

Your Appliances
Congratulation! You've made it to the future. Here, all of your appliances are interconnected via the internet. Your refrigerator will send you a message telling you when you're low on milk. You can set your DVR from your phone to record those lost episodes of Gilligan's Island. Large appliances will run during off peak hours. You're home security system tells you who is in your home while you're away. Why, even the lighting adjusts to your preconfigured settings when you enter a room. It is a technological utopia. The internet as we know it isn't able to run it all though. It seems that we're running out of IP addresses, which has actually spawned its own black market. All sites have a web address, or URL, but that address is converted to numeric IP addresses by a Domain Name System (DNS) server so in practice, there is a limit.

IPv6 technology was created to manage the growing demands on the internet from computers, smartphones, home appliances, gaming devices and all sorts of sensors and actuators that have yet to be invented. This transition from one technology to the other is the new Y2K (remember that) for large business and government with a near frantic global retooling. Most home and small business users won't even notice the transition. You won't suddenly need a degree to plug in your toaster, but you will want to update your firewall settings if you change internet service providers after the January 1, 2012 industry deadline. If your internet doesn't work after that day, you know what happened. Fortunately the government has set their own deadline for a later date just in case.

No need to panic folks. Your government is here to help.

War on Terror
All was fine in the life of John H. Gass of Massachusetts until a Department of Homeland Security antiterrorism program recognized the face on his driver's license as belonging someone else. It seems that law enforcement frowns on that and rather than investigating the matter, Mr. Gass' driver's license was suspended and he was required to prove himself as not being an unperson in order to regain his privileges.

Sure it was just a computer error, but in Mr.Gass' lawsuit it's estimated that this has happened more than once. But really, what's the worst that could happen?

Facial Recognition
So you get to the airport, you're late, you get a little aggravated, but say nothing averse to the ticket agent as you check your bags. You dash off towards the terminal, and wait. You're standing in line waiting to be scanned, glancing past the other passengers wondering “What the hell is taking these guys so long?!” But you're not going to say anything because you don't want to get into some weird TSA handballing fetish scene. You're probably saving that for the S&M conference that you're going to anyway.

Well it turns out you don't have to say anything anymore. The expressions on your face, your behavior, you adjusting your crotch, and you eying that booger for it's nutritional value has already been cataloged by the airport's pre-crime detector program, Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST). FAST is a program currently being tested at airports in the northeastern United States that can supposedly 'sense' whether you are planning to commit a crime. Similar to a lie detector, but not bothering to use controlled instruments like direct contact or questions, FAST measure various indicators to judge a person's state of mind and intent. On an unrelated note, the TSA at Logan International Airport in Boston is now using the more exotic approach to counter terrorism such as making eye contact when they talk to you.

Maybe next year you should take a train, they don't search that shit, do they?

An Increasingly Mobile Society
So you're tired of the lines, the pat downs, the radiation. Dammit, you're an American and you shouldn't be subjected to a state sanctioned molestation. The airplane isn't the only way to travel and by golly, you can always appreciate the open road. That is until you get stopped, and then you kind of have to do it.

As it turns out, the TSA's Visible Intermodal Prevention and Response (VIPR) program participates with local law enforcement in some 8,000 unannounced security screenings each year with airport-style screenings of passengers at bus terminals, train stations, subways, and ferries. There is also at least one report from Brownsville, Texas of the VIPR program having been extended to include personal vehicles. Couple this with a recent Indiana Supreme Court ruling that the right to resist an unlawful police entry into a home is against public policy and is incompatible with modern Fourth Amendment jurisprudence, and you're pretty much reduced to that moment when your mom found your porn stash.

Just be sure to smile for the Mobile Offender Recognition and Information System (MORIS) when they stop you and to provide a DNA sample if they arrest you because of your new found diminished expectation of privacy. MORIS is an iPhone compatible biometric device that is capable of performing iris scans and facial recognition searches against the manufacturers managed database. The Bill of Rights was a stupid idea anyway.

Social Networking
Social networking has certainly changed the face of culture as now we tell everyone everything about ourselves including who all of our friends are in alphabetical order. We check in at any little mediocre event we go to. We post and tag our most current pictures online, which is not always a bright idea as learned by Canadian water polo star and Olympic hopeful Nathan Kotylak who was tagged on Facebook stuffing a gasoline soaked rag into the gastank of a parked police cruiser following the Canucks Stanley Cup loss to the Bruins in Vancouver.

“So I just won't post my picture,” you smugly say to yourself. Once again the efforts of what's good and right have been thwarted by your evil genius. As it turns out, “they” will take your picture for you, from an unspecified distance even. The Air Force has been working on a camera that is capable of creating a digital signature of your face and using your biometric information to locate and track you, anywhere. How many cameras do they have anyway? Now you'll just have to walk everywhere making that grrr-face for posterity.

Fortunately you can always friend “them” online, tag your own photos, and just give them the straight feed on your activities. Unfortunately they're sneaky bastards so you'll have to start 'friending' random strangers, kind of like you did with those hobos when you were a kid.

Internet Privacy
Did you know that your profiles really aren't that private? I mean sure you can block your family from seeing your "experiment" at that party, but maybe it's not your family that you need to worry about. Law enforcement agencies of all stripes are allowed to browse your complete Facebook profile and all of your linked accounts for information due to a loophole in regulations from the 25-year-old Electronic Communications Privacy Act that was designed to protect telephone users from illegal wiretapping. The internet as we know it didn't even exist 25 years ago. In reality whoever owns the copyright on the website or the server that the information is stored in owns whatever content there may be, and technically information that is stored for over 180 days is fair game. Your lazy ass not clearing your Inbox or saving grandma's first email just makes their a lot jobs easier.

Fortunately for you, agoraphobia will soon be socially acceptable.

It seems that privacy does not exist like it used too in today's society. There was a time when people were very sensitive about their personal privacy. We didn't talk about how much money we made, or how we raised our children. We definitely didn't talk about who we voted for, but that's a bit out the window since an affiliate of Anonymous released hacked portions of the Florida voter database that included information on voter and candidate statistics.

But that's Florida I'm one of an estimated 2,095,006,005 internet users, globally. Who cares what I do online? They...I mean we do, we really do. By all means link your Facebook login at every opportunity. It's convenient and will help you save time on having to remember all those other pesky passwords. On the down side, you may need a FOIA request to get a password reminder if you forget yours because between the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's interception system, Echelon which is capable of intercepting every electronic transaction made, and the National Security Agency recording as much from the internet alone every six hours as is stored by the entire Library of Congress, your private life isn't really all that private. Yes, even those webcam chats that you've become notorious for. Add HR 1981 to the mix, which requires ISP's to retain all of your browsing information for 12 months and you're pretty much out of the closet.

With that, a recently recognized piece of advanced software called Nexus 7 combines all of the previously mentioned capabilities and more, and is currently in use in Afghanistan. Nexus 7 uses collected information from various resources to create population centric cultural intelligence. Of course it's all for the greater good and the technology uses a technique similar to Search Engine Optimization to identify and target specific individuals that may be involved in specific activities, but rather than looking for one individual, it uses a god's eye view to look for everyone to find out how communities work and to identify individuals that pose a potential threat. But that's Afghanistan, because doing all of that stuff here in the United States would just be unethical, wouldn't it. Hopefully Nexus 7 will make the Federal Government's IPv6 transitional deadline of September 30, 2012.

You may want to burn your computer after reading that last part. In fact, you probably should. I wonder if iPhone has an app for that?