Tuesday, December 24, 2013

The top conspiracy of 2013

National Security Agency Seal
National Security Agency Seal (Photo credit: DonkeyHotey)
For conspiracy theorists who believe that Big Brother is watching them, the revelations of NSA contractor Edward Snowden seemed to confirm their worst fears. Snowden leaked a staggering amount of information about NSA surveillance programs, including PRISM. The fallout included a diplomatic row caused by allegations that German Chancellor Angela Merkel's cell phone had been bugged. (U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry publicly admitted that the NSA had gone overboard.) Snowden was charged with espionage offenses and fled to Russia, where he has temporary asylum.

This should come as no surprise to anyone, they have been spying on Americans for years.
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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Big Brother replacing good parenting

User big brother 1984
User big brother 1984 (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
It would appear that job hunters are not the only ones that have to watch what appears on their social media, now middle and high school students have to as well.

A suburban Los Angeles school district is now looking at the public postings on social media by middle and high school students, searching for possible violence, drug use, bullying, truancy and suicidal threats.
The district in Glendale, California, is paying $40,500 to a firm to monitor and report on 14,000 middle and high school students’ posts on Twitter, Facebook and other social media for one year.

Though critics liken the monitoring to government stalking, school officials and their contractor say the purpose is student safety.  ↬ California district hires firm to monitor students’ social media – CNN.com

No matter how they try spin it, this is another sign that good parenting has gone out the window. At one time, parents kept tabs on these things themselves. Now either mom and dad are too busy with their careers to give a damn or they just don’t know what their kids are doing. Either way, it is a sad state of affairs.

If your kid attends a school that has this type of monitoring program, educate them in how to set their privacy settings on their social media accounts and monitor their activity yourself. Be your kid’s best friend as well as a parent and they will love you for the rest of their life.
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