"The GoBeRmEnT Is GoNa TrAcK YoU"
Listen, you got a cell phone, and chances are that's going to give away far, far more than data that your credit card company holds on to.
They're just going to have a line -- "Food Lion, [Date] $88.23" -- not detailed list of your purchases.
Meanwhile if you use a membership card at any sort of grocery store, they absolutely will associate it with you; in many cases you have to register that card with your name and phone in order to use the points. Cash or credit, that's tracking you.
Until modern social media that -- grocery store membership cards -- were one of the best predictors of age, income, gender, etc. available.
Then, having found me, I asked what number was in there, and he proceeded to read, with exactly zero recognition, <area code> 867-5309, and I just laughed on the outside, and cried a little on the inside.
No matter how evil and corrupt a given corporation is, it could never be as bad as a government.
Boston Dynamics is no more (and honestly in many ways far less) enmeshed in the security state than any number of military suppliers. Seems like a poor argument that things are specifically bad now or getting worse on this front.
If you’d pointed at Palantir perhaps you’d have had a point.
FWIW, too, the "tinfoil hat" thing doesn't work on me. I will smugly tighten mine as I look down upon the naive proletariat being manhandled as "Do You Love Me" [1] is played over the crowd control loudspeakers.
Few Americans are aware even now of the role of IBM in mechanizing and tabulating the murder of Jews for the Nazis, and basically no Americans were aware of it then[0]. "They" who desire "symbiosis" between corporate power and government power - a better word would be fusion - are the same corporations who promoted fascism in the US and abroad throughout the 20th Century, whose continued efforts we can see daily through virtually all channels in our society.
Name one sphere of society in which corporate power has not merged with or overrun democratic governmental oversight. Name one environmental, social or economic battle that grassroots democratic movements or western governments have won against the corrosive force of corporate profiteering in the last 30 years.
My concerns aren't exclusive to governments or corporations. The degree of co-mingingling of personnel and regulatory capture at this point makes the difference moot. Whoever has the data on every purchase you made since 2012 can silence you, threaten you, blackmail you, or force you out of a public or private position, if there's any difference between those things now. It doesn't matter if you're innocent or the law is on your side; all that matters is perception. Someone who wants you in can hide anything you did; someone who wants you out can find the smallest detail that you accidentally allowed to be recorded, and amplify it. It really makes no difference whether it's a government agency, or a corporation. Splitting hairs on that or saying I'm necessarily paranoid because my concern runs more toward government abuse is an argument about nothing more than the superficial, speculative scenario. The data is the data, and anyone who has it has power. Power is power, and it's only realized when you can wield it over people. Handing anyone your full purchasing history is giving them the power to subjugate you.
Risk minimization sounds prudent if you’re a target.
“Read about J. Edgar Hoover” is a handwave, rather than an argument, and its made worse when it supposed to support a position on the current state of affairs.
Life isn't a song, nobody in politics these days actually faces the consequences just because they were a rapist/adulterer/wearing blackface/drag/doing felony fraud/etc.
I wouldn’t conflate political shenanigans and things that make the news with systemic forces. Made up things don’t always, or even often, pass muster in court. But true information being lawfully used against you will result in no legal recourse.
after that you need some magic to deanonymize the anonymized data, but in the 90s plenty of people claimed to do that already. the famous case was infact with health insurance and burgers... but i can't recall any names.
edit: in the usa
Personally I'd be far more interested to learn that someone running for office refuses to use a credit card to buy groceries because they fear having that information collected and used against them... than that they once spent $500 in a single month on Twinkies.
If someone wants to use your spending history against you they don't actually need your credit card bills these days, they can just make something up. Look at the insanity that people managed to create out of John Podesta's office pizza orders.