After the recent headlines about the government mining out internet data. I read some line about companies keeping track of our information in exchange for us taking a discount card for shopping at the store. All kinds of stores do this. All the book stores, the grocery stores, they all have discount cards and it keeps a running record of everything you buy. At what point will the government decide to demand that information to protect our national security?
Okay to get around specific stores keeping track of your purchases, you just don’t use the cards. No problem. But what about our banking information? I use my debit card to pay for pretty much everything. At what point will that information be used to protect our national security?
Now think about it. If the government decided to demand our information from bank, how many people will say, “Oh okay. Who cares,” and how many will go pull their funds and start paying cash? Personally I could not pay cash for everything. Certain bills and such would stay at the bank. But I would not use a debit card any more. I still pay cash at certain places. I don’t care what it will show up as on the statement.
All that being said, can’t the government still access our records? How much of it is public and how much of it is private? It's a really frightening though. I know that much.