Hey, now, none of that: You are either with us or the milk-drinkers. Seriously though, there are several critical and basic differences between that situation and this:

1) Verizon does not want to ask people their preferences; it wants to surveill them to discover those preferences WITHOUT asking.

2) GI barracks, as you well know, grant no expectation of privacy. The question was if you would mind government bugging, not ITS barracks, but YOUR home.

I often disapprove of the DoDs proprietary attitude toward soldiers, but do not recall enlisting in Verizon or any other zaibatsu. My LANDLADY cannot legally enter the apartment without 24 hour notice, and she owns it; why is it different for Verizons cameras and mics?


That last is a pretty good comparison here, actually; I see no reason it should be illegal but putting cameras and microphones in peoples living/bedrooms should not. Buying from competitors is ineffective when they all collude to do the same unconscionable thing. As for not buying media products at all, yes, living off the grid is always a theoretical option, but an increasingly impractical one for anyone who wants to remain a member of civilization. Try getting a job without a phone or email and see how many employers snail-mail you an employment contract.

On the larger issue, regulation and law (i.e. Evil Government) is still the only way to hold businesses truly accountable for abusive practices. Boycotts and patronizing competitors only allow indirect influence, and the most abusive businesses are frequently large enough to dismiss that. I and many others have been shunning Wal$Mart and Apple for a very long time; so far the only change is that FoxConn has installed bars on its factories to catch people jumping off the roof.

You know my view: When Big Business competes with Big Brother for the favor of worker-consumers, the public wins, but either of them can ride roughshod over the nation if it convinces the public to compete with the other for ITS favor. It is hard to forget that after the nations CEOs spent billions of dollars to elect one partys candidates, then0 fired tons of employees when the "wrong" guys won anyway. Big Business and Big Brother can both be incredibly effective public servants OR incredibly destructive public menaces. Ensuring each the proper role is up to us; making the two titans compete for our support is the most effective means.


Ones yard offers little to no expectation of privacy, and the electric company is only observing THEIR meter. I do not know how it is in OH, but in TX the property becomes a utility right-of-way 6' from the street for just that reason, and one obviously has no expectation of privacy on anothers land. In many cases utilities need not enter anyone elses property to read their meters anyway, and thus have no right to do so. When I first lived in WI I briefly had a job calling people to schedule installation of automated remote meters; the company could just drive by and read usage of THEIR gas via THEIR meter without interfering with residents at all.

There is no discretion in listening to and watching people within their own homes (i.e. not their yards.) I state that as fact because it is: If Verizon and those applying for similar patents had any "discretion" they would not seek to observe people on their sofas and in their beds. Doing so demonstrates they lack discretion (in the sense of personal judgement) while obliterating everyone elses discretion (in the sense of circumspection.) I do not want my email and phone bombarded with laxative ads because I forgot to take my phone out of my pocket before going to the bathroom when I was constipated last week.

A more succint illustration: Consensual sex in ones bedroom merits no public comment or inquiry; in ones FRONT YARD it invites arrest for lewd conduct and public indecency. The expectation of privacy in ones home is far greater than in ones yard or a US military barracks, for obvious reasons.


Yes, buying a TV prominently stating the manufacturer and/or programmers will watch people through it WOULD be opt in, and I have no objection to that. Do you genuinely believe Verizon et al. will aggressively market in-home surveillance of customers as a "feature," or take pains to conceal it? We are discussing technology that monitors sight and sound in ones own home. Its motive is irrelevant, because there is no way to ensure its restriction to any stated purpose even were that purpose legitimate (which is highly debatable.)


The crucial difference above is in bold: Obviously, one cannot invade ones OWN privacy. I have no problem with this laptops webcam or mic; I (at least nominally) control both, and access to them. I get spammed with penis enlargement ads because EVERYONE does, not because I sat in front of the computer in my boxers.

Technology for people to record their interests and preferences in their own homes does not invade privacy. A technology called "writing" has done that for millennia—but anonymous strangers entering our homes to log our every word and act for market research would be VERY MUCH an invasion of privacy. Machines that record my behavior for my personal use are common and do not invade my privacy, but the INSTANT they externally transmit that to another party without my permission they DO. What is so radical or objectionable about that statement?


Precisely the point, because the proposed technology does just that. Apparently we are debating, not its legitimacy (you just agreed it has none,) but its operation.


The legitimacy of anonymous demographic research is a valid debate, but is not THIS debate: Verizon et al. seek patents on technology to monitor individual behavior for the purpose of direct marketing to those individuals. Not 32 year old males who drink coffee while watching the 6AM news: YOU, specifically. If you knowingly let them, fine, but making permission a condition of owning a TV, phone, radio or computer (or why stop there; how 'bout a microwave or refrigerator?) is unacceptable, particularly if they do not bother telling anyone. There is no discretion in snooping through all the most intimate details of peoples lives, and no anonymity in using the resultant discoveries to specifically target them with ads designed to exploit their private thoughts, feelings and behavior.

You said it is OK if discretion and anonymity are maintained, but whose? How can I be discrete with an international corporations entire staff watching my living/bedroom 24-7? Where is my anonymity if they aggressively monitor my words and deeds until they know them better than I? VERIZON EMPLOYEES would be anonymous, and we can only pray they would be discrete with every detail of our private lives, but OUR anonymity and discretion would forever vanish.


Privacy rights are far older than the Constitution; it just formally guaranteed them especially well. Liberty of conscience (inextricably predicated on privacy) was the crux of the Thirty Years War 500 years ago, more than a millennium after the confessional established a private anonymous place of conversation solely between penitent and confessor. Privacy rights are central to the prophet Daniels exposure as a Jew in his eponymous book, which even the most conservative estimates place two centuries before Christs birth (the narrative itself claims six.) Do you seriously contend this technology is perfectly alright, not because it does not invade privacy, but because privacy rights are a novel fabrication whose violation is thus not only acceptable, but impossible?

When you speak of "discretion" and "anonymity" you speak of PRIVACY. It is tautological to say privacy cannot be violated without violating privacy.


From the cameras and microphones in TVs and computers observing peoples every word and deed in their own homes, and from the host of strangers on the other end collecting that data. Like I said, just like Orwells novel, where Big Brothers TVs kept tabs on people even in the shower. Again, when a company says it wants to listen to you being intimate with your mate on your sofa so it can sell you birth control, how can you respond with just "is there a discount?"


Thank God for small blessings then, though I do not consider Drudge ENTIRELY right wing. It definitely tilts, but it is no one-sided Ministry of Truth like Fox.

There are a couple other points to remember here, too:

1) Technology is neither good nor bad; it simply is, and new technology can be applied to both good and bad ends, which its novelty often makes hard to predict.

2) This technology is far from novel; cameras and mics, even miniature ones, have been around a long time. The difference is the deplorable proposed USE of the same technology this laptops camera and mic USE without transmitting my every word and deed to a faceless marketing researcher for USE as he pleases.

The technology to record peoples words and behavior in their own homes has been around for decades, but no one was brazen enough to TRY—until now.

A final note on discretion: Remember, marketing research is passed around like a joint at a Dead concert. When sipping coffee during the 6AM news, how often does Obamas name leave your lips? He has an infamously robust e-media campaign, y'know; my old email account STILL gets flooded with donation requests (ostensibly) from David Plouffe, Jim Axelrod and the FLOTUS just because I foolishly "reserved" tickets (as requested) to his first big rally FIVE YEARS AGO in Austin.

Can you hear me now? Good....