Internet Regulation

Where do I start with this one??

I think we'll begin with what the internet started out as...and what it still SHOULD be.  A world-wide source of information.  A collection of data that we, instead of having to go to a library to look it up, or have to have a special program installed to have this data at our fingertips, can now search on a world scale and probably find out all that I'd like to know on the subject...and more that I didn't really need to know as well.

This is where the internet should have stopped.  I don't know about the rest of the earth, but pretty much everything that follows, I can, without question, live without.  At the very least?  Regulation on what is posted freely as well as is what is accessible to whom, should have very quickly been implemented to protect the privacy of American citizens.

Now, 1st Amendment supporters will scream out "FREEDOM OF SPEECH/EXPRESSION!!", waving their little banners, and say everything should be left as is.  No regulation whatsoever.  Oh, there's no bigger supporter of free speech than myself, trust me.  I'm the type of person who, when his mouth is open, just about anything could come out, and I could care less who's feelings I hurt in the interim.  But come on, ARDENT RIGHT DEFENDERS, do you really mean for all of this as well?  Let's be real here.

Let's start with a very obvious concern, the safety of our children.  Before the internet, your average pervert had to really work to figure out how he was going to catch that 14 yr. old girl he's had his eye on for some time now.  Once he's figured out how to accomplish this, getting her to talk to or trust him was another big job altogether.  Thank God for the internet!!  In one fell swoop, the internet has managed to make easy all the tasks previously difficult at best!  Thanks to a collection of computers stretching the globe, and no world regulation, anyone can now know everything there is to know about anyone, given the price is right, right down to the color of their panties, if so needed.  Then, when he know all their personal data, including relatives, friends, etc., he can then talk to her, via social media, and get to know even more about her!  Then meeting her is as simple as posting a picture of a gorgeous 17 yr. old male who "Would really like to get to know you", and if somehow he manages to avoid the slight possibility of a television news reporter from MSNBC who's attempting to expose perverts from being the person he's really meeting up with, he can accomplish his goal in a whole lot less time, with a lot more info than he really needs.  Now, defenders? Close your eyes...now imagine, it's YOUR 14 yr. old he's after...How's a little regulation looking now eh, dad?

Then there's scams and cons, which, previously, were limited to local phone use and snail mail, and to the occasional door to door vacuum salesman.  Thanks to the internet, no world regulation and lax foreign policy, scams and cons are now done on Americans from every corner of the universe...and beyond!!  Regulars now include Nigeria, the Philipines, anyone in the third world...the possibilities are endless!  They started in normal places...email, messenger, but have since moved on to Craigslist...Facebook...and now, they've totally infested the world of internet dating.  They pose as available attractive women or men, with pictures of normal American models (although they're now catching on to us not being fooled by that, and are now switching to more normal pictures), either for straight dating or for sex, with the intent of stealing your heart, or playing on your sympathies, then cleaning out your bank accounts.

I have a friend who, after joining a facebook group, was hit on by an Egyptian who promised to send her money...in the rather large amound of $1500, then, because he needed her bank account numbers to "wire her the money", almost had her talked into it before I very quickly intervened.  Oh, but he was good.  He backed off all of that, still promising the money, and told her he would send it to her instead, no bank account needed.  In the mail it came, a week later, in the form of a cashier's check, in an envelope 3 times too big for it, delivered by FedEx, drawn on a bank account of some average Joe in America somewhere, with a nice big fat check number on it, I'm sure, for proof of legitimacy.  They had indeed gotten a lot better with the scam.  I told her to immediately call the bank it was drawn on, and, sure enough, it was stolen.  When I had experienced a different source of a similar scam, a couple of years prior to this one, I was sent a hand-written company check from the American Bar Association.  Much stupider.  Sure.  Some guy in Washington was buying my bed, in Iowa, wanting it shipped to him, also in Washington...with a check drawn on a major U.S. establishment...in Washington D.C.  This one was a legitimate-looking, finely typed Cashier's Check.

They're getting a whole lot smarter...and will probably get smarter yet, with every passing day we don't appeal to that country's (as well as ours, of course) government to stop the madness, or find a way we can uphold a sort of world regulation.  If you won't regulate?  Then you are banned from using or being a presence on the network.  Hell, I wouldn't be surprised if the government of whatever poor country we're talking about didn't dream up and implement the scam themselves!!  "We can't take care of our poor, and we're running out of funds...so let's take advantage of rich Americans!  That'll give our people hope!!  And just think of the prestige we'll enjoy when the people of the world recognize that we single-handedly scammed those naive and trusting Americans out of their wealth!"  Well defenders?  Argue this one, will ya?

Let's move right on to identity theft, shall we?  Thank the internet for this epidemic as well.  Before the internet, criminal intent to steal a person's identity had to be done in the underground black market, or with the shady guy standing in the dark corner of an alley.  The common way to handle the conversation was "I know this guy's brother's girlfriend...for $5000 and a little time, we can make you fake ID's, a social security card, passport..."  These ID's and passports often sported the picture of a man/woman who looked nothing like you, and hopefully, if the conditions were right, whoever was scoping you out didn't notice the obvious differences.

Then came the internet to the rescue.  Now, with a few minutes research and infinite possibilities right down to a man/woman who looks just like you, you can produce all of these documents yourself, right in your own home.  What's more, you can apply for numerous credit cards in just about anyone's name, steal all the money from their bank or bank accounts without even going to the bank, and transfer all their money to some bank in the Carribean or Switzerland, somewhere where it can't be touched by the already too long arm of American law.  And just in case someone gets the bright idea of tracing my computer, location, or my cell phone records, I can easily download or purchase countless masking programs that can project me as being in a farmhouse in the mountains of Arkansas, or on an Island on the Black Sea.  As for the cell phone, I can get something that'll bounce my signal off of every cell tower in a five state radius.  No problemmo muchacho.  You'd have to be pretty stupid to get caught these days, heck, we practically hand you the keys to the kingdom and give you a playful wink, while out of the other corner of our mouths we might slap you on the hand and say "Bad Hacker!"  How many people are actually caught and jailed for this?  Very few, comparatively.  A lot more get away, scott-free, believe that.  HEY DEFENDERS...YOUR OPINION....PLEASE!!!!!

I think we've taken this far enough.  You can't convince me that we haven't been practically begging for some law to cover our asses on these and other matters already.  We have, I guarantee it.  I'm afraid I have some bad news for you, however.  Left up to our Government, I can pretty much say good luck with that.  The defenders of our very outdated Constitution (and the absolute vagueness of its language) would have you believe we are trying to infringe on their rights to freedom of speech.  I guarantee the owner of the wildly popular and very lucrative teen porn site he started last year is the loudest yeller in that group.  Let me know how that works out for you.

I can honestly and truthfully say that I believe any attempt to try and get the government to implement regulation at this point would be a more than futile attempt.  Why do I say that?  Because I believe the Government...ours as well as others, plotted it out like this.  Put the internet in place, under the pretense of what it was to start with, knowing full well we'd love it and take to it; no matter for what original stated reasons it might have been sold to us, to eventually be used for what I guarantee it's being used for freely and commonly today, and for what we've feared it would be used for for some time now:  A way to keep tabs on us Americans (and/or other citizens in other countries), and to be used to take away the only right we have that's yet to be violated...those of our much-deserved and constantly infringed upon PRIVACY!!  Put in both hands, weighing them up, I'm sorry kids.  Freedom of speech vs. An Expectation of Privacy?  Gotta go with privacy here.

Why do you think it is that every laptop has a web-cam, and every phone a camera, front and rear?  And they're all hooked to, world-wide, the very thing I don't believe we Americans could, to this day, live without.  The Internet.  Pretty soon, you won't be able to say you love your wife without someone somewhere knowing about it.  Bet on it.

Who said the mark of the beast had to be physically put in place?  The invention of the digital tattoo probably isn't too far off.  'Nuff Said.  G'nite.  Sleep tight.  Let the bedbugs bite.