August 12, 2025

Privacy = Belonging to Yourself– Intelligence Pt 3

Crrow777

“Who cares if they collect my data… I am doing nothing wrong!”

Privacy. Do you know what this word means? And if so, do you have it? The word “Private” comes from the Latin term meaning “set apart,” or more importantly, “belonging to oneself”. It is self-evident that the idea and meaning of the word privacy, and how we experience it, has drastically changed in the new millennium. If we consider telephones alone, the stark realities of privacy loss become very apparent. In the last millennium we watched countless movies that underscored the importance of telephone privacy by illustrating how warrants must be obtained if “private communications” were to be infringed. At some point in the new millennium, not only did this expectation disappear, it became commonly accepted that no privacy exists while using a telephone, and worse, that all travel, images and data are collected non-stop. I would ask: Do we belong to ourselves in the new millennium?

In this episode we show that privacy did not vanish overnight. It was chipped away by programs with friendly names: Operation CHAOS on U.S. soil, Church Committee findings on media ties, NSA’s SHAMROCK and MINARET vacuuming communications, CIA’s HTLINGUAL opening mail, and the FBI trying to peek into reading habits through the Library Awareness push. That was the baseline before the smartphone era. And here lies the etymology of privacy: It literally means to belong to yourself. That is the crux of the matter. When you realize that, you see clearly that we no longer belong to ourselves in the digital age. Our images, our data, our very identities are pulled into the hive.

In the 1990s I was designing and building websites, as everything began the crawl towards digital. At that point we were using what is called tables in HTML, and CSS was just starting to catch on. As companies started to launch their first websites, medical companies were scared to death about violating HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act) regulations. I notice this across the board, from dentists to doctors. The privacy associated with medical records was not only respected, but much energy was put into honoring and enforcing HIPAA… to a “T”. This act was not only carefully followed, with regard to stored/collected health records, but it was perceived as having teeth, and many companies I saw going online for the first time lost sleep worrying about violating the sanctity of health records. But time moves forward, as does the line in the sand that keeps shifting what is acceptable. Does the Overton Window ever stop creeping to the right?

Back then, I saw whole rooms of patient files under lock and key, with staff terrified of even small breaches. That atmosphere of fear showed that the idea of privacy was treated seriously, even if HIPAA itself was more about legal shields, not protecting people. The cultural respect mattered, and it is that respect which has vanished. The line kept moving. Reforms created oversight and secret courts, yet the culture of collection expanded. The 1990s brought highly visible domestic overreach, and after 2001 the surveillance stack normalized bulk collection and broad data sharing. The merger of state power and platform power now treats daily life as a data stream unless we refuse consent. The multi-national corporation had become power, and moved away from oversight and government controls. And at the end of the day corporations like Google seemed to get a pass in courtroom with regard to medical data collection, as the rules were aimed at the providers.

Google has made more than one run at health records; the last one was shut down in 2013. There are those who claim big tech and data companies have been illegally accessing health records for decades now, but backing that up is another matter. What is known is that Google very quietly launched a program called “Project Nightingale” last year, and a number of reports use the word “secretly” in describing yet another push by big data to openly gain medical record access in the above-named program that ranges across 21 states. They go on to state that the partner company Ascension’s employees have questioned the legality of how the data is being collected, and then end by stating “it appears to be legal”. How the worm has turned. In the 1990s no one wanted to risk violating HIPAA regulations. But then again, those I met and worked with were not multi-billion, multi-national corporations.

Context matters for health data. We show how “intel inside” became life inside the database, which raises two simple questions: who owns your record, and who profits from it. First steps to re-assert ownership are practical: request an accounting of disclosures from providers, opt out of ad IDs on phones, disable cloud backups for notes and photos that mention health details, favor end-to-end encrypted messaging with backups off, and keep a local copy of your records. “Belonging to oneself” must be practiced. But here’s the sleight of hand: judges routinely rule that Google is not responsible for HIPAA violations, and that health providers bear the blame. That loophole is why the biggest data collectors can act with impunity. It looks like legality, but it’s a system designed to shift accountability away from those who actually profit. I would ask if the HIPAA Act was intentionally launched in 1996 just before the world would begin to wake up to the new power – called BIG DATA.

New technology has turned privacy into something even more fragile. A single photo can be stolen and turned into an AI deepfake without your consent. That is not science fiction, it is happening now. This is the endpoint of a society that no longer values privacy: your voice, your image, your records, even your memories, are up for sale. In Episode 641, we track the global expansion of surveillance. People are being beaten into submission, folded into a hive mind where data is king at the top, and “content” is king for the rest of us. It is funny how the saying flipped, but the meaning is clear: the sovereignty of the individual has been traded for the currency of data. An honest assessment of digital culture will show that data is king, where once money wore that crown. But it will also show you that content is king down in the trenches where us marginalized data makers exist.

Little did we know back in the day when new products flooded the world with the tag-line “Intel Inside”. We were being told the truth. Our three-episode run on the intelligence agencies stand as a milestone in time. A time where decades no longer differentiate. A time when privacy is little more than a word attached to antiquated ideas. Unfortunately, that idea remains as paramount as it ever was. In this era where the richest corporations in the world collect all the data, all the time – do we still belong to ourselves?

The time of nonchalantly caring less about your data needs to come to an end. With every bite you give away, the power of AI grows. And this is a power you will never have access to. For you the kindergarten level AI will correct your typing, or write your paper. The PhD version you will never have access to will be predicting the future with a 98% certainty. But that too will improve if unimpeded.

I would like to wish you all a happy, healthy and higher-minded new era.