Tech Friday: Big Tech’s data access knows no bounds … and neither do some politicians and government agencies
Posted By RichC on September 6, 2024
Europe and their big government overreaches in restricting personal liberty by American standards, but that same heavy handedness often does more that the U.S. to protect an individual’s privacy from Big Tech and their sweeping data collection machines.
Ever since social media and cloud-oriented companies desired to take ownership of their users data, it has been a constant struggle for people and their elected representatives, or self-appointed power-hungry dictators, to 
thread the needle as to what data is private and what data can be collected and used by Big Tech companies. In the US, business titans work to get their puppets elected, whereas in Russia/China, companies share the data under twisted arm.
From the “liberated people’s” perspective, we all know that receiving tech services isn’t really free … and we likely have all found ourselves pressured into agreeing to give something to tech companies — usually our data. Some accept a degree of “spying on our emails and web habits,” knowing we’ll likely receive selected advertising and marketing. We use free email and search engines such as Google and accept their terms … but some of us also “try” to be smart about just what we are sharing with them and giving up. We all have different limits … unlike the limits dictated by European bureaucrats who think they know best.
I personally have tried to distance myself from blatant data collectors, but still find myself using Gmail, several Google apps, some cloud storage, occasionally their maps and limited photo services. They just work well and often have better services … so I still them. Still, I’ll purposely switch to search engines that I “think” aren’t collecting and using my data. I have private email for work and use paid for apps that aren’t as obvious about making money from my data.
This brings me to the lack of trust when it comes to our own American citizen elected representatives who are suppose to be overseeing the hired career bureacrats running things in Washington DC. 
It has probably always been true; first, they are their to protect their jobs, second to increase the power and centrally control government and third, go after those who they perceive as a threat to their power. I likely first noticed the weaponization back when Lois Lerner use the power of the IRS to go after people associated with the Tea Party, but have seen it come out into the open over the past decade. No more doing it in the shadows.
Take a moment to listen to Tulsi Gabbard on X.com below. She was once a Democrat senator from Hawaii, but now has little in common with the progressive movement that has overtaken and in my opinion corrupted that party. The phrase “power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely” fits today’s Democratic Party perfectly (attributed to Lord Action in 1887).
Kamala says she believes in freedom, but I was put on a secret terror watch list after I publicly criticized her. No one will be safe from political retaliation under a Harris administration. I put my life on the line for this country. Now the government calls me a terror threat. pic.twitter.com/3xjgjmrLhD
— Tulsi Gabbard 🌺 (@TulsiGabbard)
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