Editorial: Privacy in a digital world is nearly absent

The fight for privacy has long been a losing battle, with corporations and the government amassing reams of personal data about people taken from social media, Internet history, cell phone use, license plate trackers and security cameras everywhere.
But in Minnesota, there is the faint stirring of a counterattack on those forces.
In St. Paul, legislators from both major parties want to amend the state Constitution to keep electronic communications private, along the rules that already govern paper documents.
“In today’s world, every intimate detail of our lives exists in a digital format,” Sen. Branden Peterson, R-Andover, said. “Electronic data like emails and photos is a big part of what Minnesotans consider their private information.”
If the Legislature approved the measure, it would appear on the 2016 ballot. However, Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, D-Cook, said that he does not approve of most constitutional amendments, including this one, so it’s not clear whether it will get through the Senate. That’s a shame. It’s time to push back hard against the flood of technology that threatens to make privacy a distant memory.
Along similar lines, Sen. Al Franken is pressing the companies Samsung and LG to explain the measures they’re taking to protect the voice data privacy of their customers.
Disturbingly, recent news stories have revealed that these companies are capturing customer voice data – that is, people’s private conservations as they watch television in their own homes - and sharing it with third parties.
Americans today can expect to be monitored, surveilled, spied on and tracked in more than 20 different ways, by both government and corporate eyes and ears, as they go about your daily business, according to author and privacy expert John Whitehead.
The National Security Agency and other entities listen in and track behavior, and corporate trackers monitor purchases, web browsing, Facebook posts and other online activities.
Some of the more recent revelations:
Police in some cities have been using Stingray devices mounted on their cruisers to intercept cell phone calls and text messages without court-issued search warrants.
Doppler radar devices, which can detect human breathing and movement within in a home, are already being employed by the police to deliver arrest warrants and are being challenged in court.
License plate readers, yet another law enforcement spying device made possible through funding by the Department of Homeland Security, can record up to 1,800 license plates per minute, and can photograph those inside a moving car.
Sidewalk and “public space” cameras, sold to communities as a sure-fire means of fighting crime, is yet another DHS program that is blanketing small and large towns alike with government-funded and monitored surveillance cameras.
As Whitehead says, Americans are now being monitored, managed and controlled by their technology, which answers not to them but to their government and corporate rulers.
Isn’t it about time to fight back?
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