Meh, anyone who stores enough food to last a solid two weeks (I think) is also a requirement for a terrorist in our government's eyes.

~SE++

That is actually true. You are on a list if you buy MREs or other long term survival food. At one point they put you on a list for wearing jeans and paying for coffee with cash or even talking about the constitution.

Of course then they try to confiscate your guns when you try to defend your home from looters after a hurricane and they can't get food out to you for at least 2 weeks, and pimp out women for clean water. I certainly don't want these people looking at my private stuff. Personally I wouldn't want people who I thought were morally upright looking at my private stuff, I certainly don't want morally bankrupt people doing it...

Lets keep the thread on the original topic of consoles, instead of devolving into some government conspiracy theory ramblings.

The topic was being watched by authorities through consoles, so I didn't see this as being wildly off topic... perhaps this belongs in Off-Topic instead.

~SE++

You are more likely to be watched through your electronics if you have a list of things they are looking for like blog and social network posts that are anti establishment, purchases of anti establishment books, talking to people outside the country, tendencies to pay cash, and a whole host of other things. So its entirely on topic. Its also not 'conspiracy theory ramblings'. Its absolute fact. If you don't believe me go look it up. You can start with PRISM, and move on to social networks admitting to sending info to the NSA. If you still don't believe it, I can't help you. At that point you are arguing with cold hard facts...

This brings us back around to if you want privacy there are steps to take, not leaving the cameras or mics plugs in and on or pointed anywhere useful ...if so cocerned.

Stop using sites known for selling information, rather than just whining that they do. The whole generation is too engrossed in facebook anyway.

As for the rest, about cash, wearing jeans, and such....no theyre not on topic though related through the 'Government Spying' angle the thread is about electronic game consoles ...and is in the Other Games section. Feel free to make a thread about the side topic up in OTR and discuss those issues there

In the end gamers (and most people) don't actually care because all our data has been sold for years to advertisers just by virtue of using convenient services like google facebook ect. along with our regular humilation at TSA screenings and deep seeded need for protection post 9/11. People don't even want to have privacy if you just look at how they use these things. We take photos, we stream, we tweet, we post everything we can think of to the internet because privacy is dead. I have a feeling, though, that you don't really have to worry about hackers spying on you playing video games in your underwear because there is no value in wasting their time to do this, and you are probably safe from more invasive government spying unless you're brown or actively plotting to assassinate the president (which knowing you might be a risk???). What will definitely happen is your observed data will be sold off to specialized advertisements marketed at the demographics and lifestyle habits you exhibit in front of your kinect.

The american people have decided privacy is worth sacrificing for convenience, and you can thank the free market for that.

Sucks for antisocial people like me who don't have facebook or Twitter or anything. Eventually we will have to rise up and probably accidentally kill a lot of people and our existence will be erased.

The free market isn't at fault. Its corrupt government. The moment they tried to bypass the search and seizure laws (and constitutional amendments) they should have been shut down and arrested.

Either way, government or companies, I don't want them to have my data and if I want to play a camera game I'm forced to 'agree' to their EULA which allows for both. Its something that needs to be addressed...

If people didn't want their data being sold off they wouldn't use the services that do so, and they've decided keeping up with friends on facebook is worth more than keeping that data private. It is a consumer choice to use those services, how is that not free market? If you don't want to agree to that EULA, you don't, and you don't use the associated service or product. The free market would theoretically provide an alternative if people cared enough to support a service that respected their privacy, correct? PRISM companies all participated willingly in the program and none of them have fought for their user's right to privacy.

Government seizures are another matter but our government is democratically elected so its basically consumer choice as well.

Or you could develop your own that doesn't come with the rules. See, the thing about complaining about having to agree to their rules is that you sit there screaming at the world through the internet, but it's not like you do anything about it. You call them corrupt and call for change without knowing how to run a government. You complain about their rules required for their products without the ability to create that product and run your own rules. You just want everything the way you view it should be a whine at the rest of the world that things aren't perfect for you. Boo-frickin'-who.

~SE++

I wonder how the government would react if I said I was planning on burning down a church

I think its more that most people don't realize they are selling their souls...er.. their data to marketers and government agencies for things like Facebook and Google+ and any free email site. The problem is no one reads the EULA, it ought to be the law that a contract have a summary in plain English if a lawyer is not present to interpret it, but that would fall under the swindling laws. The free market would have provided an alternative a long time ago if Facebook and Google+ hadn't been getting paid big money from the U.S. government (see PRISM) to spy on people.

The democratic process in this country is a joke. Representatives spend most of their time pandering to lobbies trying to get more money for their re-election campaign. The politician with the most money usually wins. In other words the elections are pretty much rigged based on being able to buy your politicians which is the heart of crony capitalism. So no its not consumer choice. Its businesses choice. If you don't go with businesses you don't get elected (see Ron Paul's recent election statistics. He didn't stand a chance, not because of his views, but because he didn't get even 1/10th of the funding of other candidates).

In other words it all falls back to corruption which is the major problem...



I don't know. If there was evidence of your planning we would hope they would get a judge signed search warrant to check out your house and possibly watch the church waiting for you to make your move. If not then they should just watch and wait. However if you said it on a public site to the public I'm sure someone would try to talk you out of it or report your post to the police which would then start an investigation based on reported evidence.

In other words I would hope they would follow constitutional law instead of spying on you and trying to entrap you by handing you a can of gasoline and nagging you over and over to burn it down...

Then don't play that game. You're not being forced to play it. No one is making you. If you don't want to agree to hand your data over, maybe you shouldn't agree to it.