I don't need to avoid being tracked because I do nothing illegal. My main gripe is with corporations tailing private internet users in order to build a consumer profile and flog 'stuff'. The other gripe I have is that government surveillance organisations, most prolifically the NSA (admittedly data mines UK citizens as well as their own) are building profiles of citizens without their consent. As we are governered by consent this is effectually unlawful.
Take for example activism and protesting, government can target people within these groups who are non-violent, law abiding and peaceful but may feel strongly about a politically hot subject, e.g. fracking. In the interests of freedom of expression and speech, it is in our interest that protestors have a platform, it is not in our interest to allow government to treat protestors the same as terrorists. All of the freedoms we have, and often take for granted, come at the expense of those who have fought to the death for a belief or ideology. As the saying goes the price of freedom is eternal vigilance, for as long as human's are in control of their own destiny this saying will hold true.
So, again where is the evidence that intrusive surveillance makes us any safer? Why is the government so paranoid about its own citizens ?
I never said everything should be handed over to a robot. That original comment I made was sarcasm.
From your original post ''Last year, just under 200,000 people were killed or injured on the UK roads in cars where humans had control (or not!)''. - What I find interesting is that these sorts of statistics are often used by government to push agendas, for example that could mean a new law forcing all new cars to have in-built trackers which are hooked up to a government grid, the emphasis being road safety. They would say it brings down deaths on the road and makes it safer for everyone. Where's the evidence? I'm all for making the World a safer and better place, but you have to ask yourself why is it always at the expense of a futher lose of privacy?
Look at gumtree in the news recently, someone was killed over a juicer and 3 men went to prison for it, the government's answer? A call for added ID checks from gumtree and a public critisism of it's business model.. It's as though now the answer to all the world's ills is to be totally stripped of your inalieable right to privacy. I think we should resist it for as long as we need to until a solution becomes obvious and works for EVERYONE, not just those in control of our data.
