What's the fuss? Tell me what's happening?

OK, I am admittedly and proudly a Left Wing Nut. I find myself, sometimes, to the left of the ACLU. I have credentials and street wise extreme Liberal smarts.

What I can't understand is the hullabaloo about the government having access to phone records and Internet information. For God's sake, everyone has access to that stuff. We live in a media culture where advertisers routinely send adds to me on line that they believe, because of my Internet material, I will be interested in.

If you have a cell phone and it is turned on, there are ways to know exactly where  you are at any given moment. (I read lots of mystery novel and believe that is true!)

Besides, if you choose to put all sorts of personal information on Face Book or some other media, you have zero chance that your information won't be accessible to someone else. In fact, Face Book is designed to make your personal thoughts available to all your 'friends' and others as well. Just a fact. Sorry to bother you with facts....

I don't like in the least what I am subjected to in order to board an airplane. It is invasive, humiliating and awful.

Yet, I am willing to endure it, as much as I dislike it, to make sure I'm on an airplane with others who have no weapons or dangerous instruments. I'll take the embarrassment for that assurance.

So the National Security Council is gathering data from phones and the Internet. Since Amazon and Sears does too, I'm not too upset. Perhaps I am an unusual left winger in that I trust the government, especially this administration. So if they have access to my cell phone and computer, so be it. It's one of those times when a barter between privacy and security is worth the cost.

I KNOW that nothing is private when using devices like cell phones and your computer. By definition they are not private. It is, after all, "social media', which implies that everything you put out there in those ways, is 'available' to 'society'.

My advice would be this: If you don't want what you say on-line to be available, get the hell off Face Book and all the other outlets. Twitter not, neither Tumble....

I have a little green icon at the bottom of my computer screen that tells me my information is, for the most part, protected. When it turns orange, that little icon, I click on it and it runs a scan of less or more intensity to tell me that (for all it knows) what I write is safe.

I know damn well that 'nothings safe' out in cyberspace. And a lot worse people than the NSC can know all I write and all I say with just a few clicks.

Living in the "information age" means ALL information is public and accessible. I protect my privacy by never putting anything into social media I wouldn't mind telling anyone. Like this blog.

But I'm not paranoid about who can access my thoughts on line. I assume 'anyone' can. So I am careful. That's my advice. Guard your privacy by being private about it.