Privacy is a lie.
We’ve been spoon-fed this idea from a young age.
Almost from infancy, we are told that an overweight man with a white beard and a red suit is watching us at all times. He knows when we’re sleeping and when we’re awake. He knows when we’ve been bad or good — once again reinforcing the idea that you wouldn’t worry about protecting your privacy if you’ve got nothing to hide.
And now this jolly Peeping Tom has backup — the Elf on a Shelf. (Even my younger brother has discovered one of these spying elves in his house, to the delight of his daughters.) These elves may seem harmless, but they’re watching your every move and reporting back to a higher power, who then makes decisions on where you fall on the reward/punishment scale.
OK, so they aren’t actually reporting to a fictional man in the North Pole. But there’s a parallel between these toys and the Santa Claus story we were told as kids.
By giving up our privacy, we were taught that good behavior would earn us a shiny new bike.
Bad behavior would get us a lump of coal.
Later in life that oversight moves from a jolly old man to these toys that are listening to our children play (in some cases reporting back to a defense contractor) to the watchful eye of the government determined to protect us and our freedoms by slowly removing them.
It’s time to draw a line in the sand.
Stop teaching our children that it’s OK to give up our right to privacy in return for temporary gains. And the next generation will be more willing to kick the government out of their business later in life.
Take back your privacy from Santa, the hackers, the retailers and the government.
Regards,
Jocelynn Smith
Sr. Managing Editor, Sovereign Investor Daily