This reason to elect a progressive American President in 2008 has to do with an explosive scandal in another country. So, why should we worry about it here? It’s a scandal that, if replicated here in the United States, could bring our economy to a halt.
In the United Kingdom, compact discs containing private financial information about half of the nation’s population have been lost. People entrusted the British government with this information, but then someone in the government burned the information onto two compact discs, and then sent them in the mail.
The private financial information of half the British population was lost in the mail.
Here in the United States, our government is collecting unprecedented amounts of information about our private activities, including financial information, records of our shopping habits, records of our telephone calls and emails, our medical histories, books we borrow from the library, and on and on and on. The government is integrating all that information into integrated databases that form virtual maps of our lives.
Could that information be put onto some compact discs, and then lost in the mail? Could it fall into the wrong hands?
If it could happen in the United Kingdom, it could happen here.
(Source: The Guardian, November 21, 2007)
Oh yes, it has already happened. I want to say social security and Milwaukee, about a year ago, but I don’t remember for sure. Maybe another agency too about the same time. VA? Someone taking a disk home and having it stolen? A computer stolen from an office? I remember huge numbers of people were officially notified their info was compromised. If you are really interested you should be able to google the specifics.