American Privacy?

With the revelation that President Bush is authorizing warantless wiretapping of US citizens without solid evidence to warant such invasion of privacy, it brings to light other issues of privacy that many Americans may become or already are subject to.

The current banter is about the US government requesting website searching information from online companies like Google. Is it for a criminal case or international security? No. They just want to do a survey to prove that children are not protected against going to porn sites.

Hey, isn't that the job of the parents?

Anyway, this raises the question of how private are the private affairs of people. I'm not talking about sleeping around here. It's about the private affairs like our financial interests, correspondence and research (like snail mail, email, library and internet use), and even health care.

Speaking of health care, it seems that where ever you go to see any type of doctor, you have to sign a HIPAA form. Do we really know what we are signing there? Is it really for the privacy of our health care, or does it in so many words let governmental organizations privately know what doctors are doing for us?

We all know that policies and procedures surrounding HIPAA guard the privacy of our health care from our neighbors knowing what status our health is in. I think that if I were on my death bed and couldn't contact anyone myself, it'd be nice if the people I love would be able to find out that I am on my death bed.

Now if I were in some odd situation that I was quickly and immediately knocking on heaven's door and rushed to a hospital, and they couldn't contact my husband or family, the hospital, under HIPAA regulations, cannot disclose that I am there to anyone who asks. I could not even have clergy visit me without my request, and if I were incapacitated with no one to speak for me, then there'd be no final rites for me. So, I guess the moral of this story is to plan for your doctor's visits and hospital stays ahead of time, and let friends and family know before you see the doctor, because once you're in the system, you're stuck.

Okay, going back to the other privacy issues. Sigh. Anyone with a bank account or credit card or a mortgage or loan of any type has relinquished their rights to financial privacy and any say in their credit reports. By the way, credit reports are controlled primarily by the same people that hold your money or credit in their interests, so if you have had a complaint with a credit card charge in the past like I have, it will haunt you for at least seven years or more.

(Don't ever, ever take your car to Sears for brakes, ever. If they don't kill you with their faulty brake installations, and refusing to credit your Sears card for the crappy work for three months--the same work that you had to get done elsewhere plus get new rotors that would not have been needed if you hadn't gone to Sears, then when they finally do credit your card they still show on your credit report for years that you didn't pay that amount for three months! I now avoid Sears like the plague.)

I think many internet users know that many of their online activities are being watched by professional voyeurs and hackers alike. It just kind of makes you wonder why would the government want such information for a study. What's their true motives, except to maybe spy on US citizens to implicate them later?? Or it may all be very benign and innocent. What? The government benign and innocent? Hey, let's give them the benefit of the doubt.