On Air: Privacy and Syria

Most of us would like to have our own secret 'garden' where we can 'grow' our own thoughts and see them mature into great ideas. We would like to reserve the right to keep them private and share them only with a select few. But in this information era, we are losing the capacity to have our own private space: others feel they have the technological ingenuity to encroach on our private space! By nature people are curious as curiousity is the essence of life but being excessively nosey is being down-right rude. But when privacy is used as a ruse to hatch a plot or build a secret weapon, then transparency should be insisted upon. We do not need intrusion but in the same breath we need to be flexible and transparent especially in this day and age when we want to build bridges with others.

Syria is on a very slippery slope. President Assad is resorting to brutality to quell demonstrations. How long will Syrians be prepared to endure this sorry state of affairs? By shooting indiscriminately at innocent citizens, the Syrian regime is showing its true colours!! A very dangerous situation which is bound to add fuel to the fire. The Middle East is becoming a raging inferno. When will this madness stop?

I believe very much in our rights to privacy. I believe the media has a right to ask questions, and the individual has a right to refuse to answer questions. The media does NOT have the right to stalk/harass individuals. The media DOES have the right to print/cover whatever they deem newsworthy - the one catch is they must not print anything that is untrue - they must stick to the truth or risk liable suits.

But I think most 'damage' to privacy is done by individuals - those that post /tweet their every movement, their vacation plans, home address, names of children and pets, etc. are giving away their privacy. It is fairly easy to maintain your privacy IF you think first about the tools you use and the information you post in/on public forums.
So if you are concerned with your privacy, do like the drug dealers do, buy the disposable phones. You also need to get rid of your GPS, stick to anonymous email accounts (like yahoo/gmail/etc) where you do not have to give 'real' information. It does take some effort but it is not that difficult - but you do need to constantly be aware when you are using modern technology.

Privacy is good; anonymity is better. Folks benefitting from exposure in public forums forsake anonymity for money and must expect encroachments upon many aspects of their privacy. For some strange reason the public feels it owns that which it buys. Go figure.
Concerning Syria: The government has long experience in covert and overt population control and at thumbing its nose at the wider world as well, thus it is hard to imagine the situation there taking a positive spin.
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I think the Syrian Government is shooting itself in the foot. Oppression and tyranny can no longer be used to control the masses. I only hope that too many do not need to suffer before a resolution comes.

President Assad is in the bigger picture in a fight agaisnt the real axis of evil who have overthorwn Lybia, iraq,afghanstan all who were identified as targets by the zionist dictator ship.this is a geopolitical and a war for the oil rich middle east.If syria, iran , lebannnon adn sudan fall, the zionist will own the middle east ture puppet governments.If the Syrian People real President is overthrown you will see the same thing as in Egypt and Tunisia where in these countries after the people overthrow the the AMERICAN backed DICTATORSHIP the parasites of the cia installed greater dictators.American and britian want to impose sanctions on syria.Why not impose sanctions of barahain and saudi arabia who are murding peopel as we speak, adn destroying places of worship, isreal who have 1.5 million people starving and using excessive force?Syria is not the problem.these are all violet cia mossad agents that organises these protest this was seen in Iran, Venezula etch.the so ccalled peaceful protestors have MURDERED police ,secutrity forces and damaging public building.the president have did what they demanded lift the emergency ban.Wikileaks documents have showed that american back news media out called Bahran i think collects million of us tax dollars to broadcast antigovernemnt news agaisnt assad.Syria and iran are the only place int eh middle east with real democracy.all the other middle east government are all just plane simple puppets of the zionist in washington having their country wealth prostituted.When you are not allowed their is a reson.Where is the bbc in Baharain? in Gaza and Isreal? saudi arabia when thy do mass torture .???? where is the bbc...the bbc is funded by mi6 to conduct psycological operations on the people of this world.You have no write ot be in syria.fix your own house before you criticize others.why dont the bbc report the public that britians economy has shrunk and about unemployment.yes bbc fix you won house.syria a real democracy without kings and queens and princes will solve its internal problems.try fixing yours

There is no such thing as "Privacy"!

If your reading this, then you should realize that there are lots of people reading data regarding you. For one purpose or another everything about us is being used by people we don't know. We can only hope that their intentions are motivated strictly for marketing.

And now they are mining Prescription Drug info on people.

What's worse is that the more we try and limit ourselves or try and cut-off access to for other people to our lives, the more we become noticed by those we don't want to know!

What about the rest of us, Jill? A whole lot of "the rest of us" (not me, let me add quickly) are so busy cluttering up the Internet, with meaningless details about our every waking minute, that "we" obviously couldn't care less about privacy.

Talk about too much information.

As to the Arab awakening, I compared the initial Tunisia uprising with the really astonishing uprising in Rumania, back in December of 1989. A watershed moment. I couldn't believe what we were seeing on TV. And I think that comparison still holds.

The difference being, the aftermath. With the Soviet block countries, it was democracy, more open borders, and capitalism instead of centrally controlled economies. In the Arab countries? I think that gullible westerners have a way of being made utter fools by Islamists. Of course, as long as it suits their needs, they will be begging for western support with whatever words they think will tug at our very heartstrings. And we just lap that up and give them what they want.

Then we'll see the truth. Stay vigilant. Don't trust like slobbering dogs.

I do not have a FaceBook Page. I do not Twitter. I do not have store cards that give me discounts while they collect personal information. I have nothing to hide. I also do not wish my personal details to be collected, data-mined and sold on to the highest bidder.

Call me a Luddite. I've worked with computers since 1975, since long before the current computer-savvy generation was a gleam in a computer screen's eye. I've never been seduced by computers--back in 1975, they were pretty clunky machines anyway.

I not only worked with computers, I worked in marketing computer technology. Perhaps that is why I am immune to the current computer mystique and the current computer mania.

It's great to be in touch, it's wonderful to be connected. But be careful what you wish for. There is nothing intrinsically better in connecting on-line to connecting in the old-time way. The modern way is faster; it doesn't follow that it's any better. What does follow is that your every word is followed, recorded, analyzed, collated, sold off to a bidder, collated, re-collated, telemarketed, re-analyzed, sold off to another bidder.

Sometimes I mouth off on World Have Your Say. But you won't catch me signing on to FaceBook, Twitter, local store-cards that track individual sales or any other kind of person data. It's personal. And I don't need to be validated by a social network profile.

it is strange that the West is silence about what is happening in Syria. the level and methods of confronting the people by Syrian Regime is worth to act not only by international community, but certainly by democratic countries. perhaps reminding those who still hesitating that the Bath Regime in Syria is not different from the former Iraqi regime. thus, such a regime must realised that they not only internally bankrupted, but they are also internationally isolated, then, will be very soon to step down and leave the spring of democracy further flourished in countries that so far just dream about it. without international support there will no Spring of democracy, it will be only a dry summer with smell of dead body who sacrificed for the sake of freedom.