Authored by Daniel Nuccio via Brownstone Institute,
If you currently live in the United States, I regret to inform you that you no longer live in a free country. You are no longer a free person. Actually, you haven't been for quite some time.
This may sound harsh with this being the year America celebrated her big Two-Five-Oh. But think about it. Think back to the last time you drove from your home to the grocery store. How many automatic license plate readers did you pass along the way? How many apps logged your route? What information did your car collect about you and anyone who may have accompanied you?
When you finally arrived at the store, surely there were cameras, but were they simply there to help catch and deter shoplifters - maybe help police investigate a more serious crime on the off chance one were to occur? Or were those cameras serving other purposes? Was the grocery store implementing facial recognition to deliver you targeted ads when you checked out? Did those cameras automatically link to some local real-time crime center, enabling law enforcement to track you from one location to the next, even if you traveled on foot?
Although your routine trip to pick up eggs and milk may not have been recorded for posterity by all of these technologies, it was by no means a private affair. Nor was your most recent trip to church, a political rally, a protest, or your doctor's office. And this doesn't even touch any of the many items in your home that have come to serve as data collection devices.
Now, reflec
