CELL PHONES and OTHER METHODS OF SPYING ON INDIVIDUALS - SHOULD YOU DUMP YOUR CELL PHONE? WORRY?

We've been reading around Edward Snowden, and the results of the information he has given us as U.S. Citizens, that our every cell phone call - in and out - and our every Internet search can be traced.

We've read hundreds of articles by now over the last 6 weeks since his name became a household word here in the United States of America, and all over the world.


These days your politics is word dependent on the adjective you use before Snowden's name ; spy or whistle-blower?

We have to wonder, were we really *INFORMED* before we made those calls and searches? Let's just say that we sure didn't "read the fine print" or that as smart and knowledgeable as some of us can be, we can't be smart and knowledgeable about everything.


We're not paranoid about it. Should we be?


A few years back - true story - I was sitting talking to people I didn't know so well - and one of them, a man whose mother owned a small specialty store in our area, told me that he had his car in for service at a mechanics a few miles away and asked me if he could use my cell phone to call the mechanic. (You're saying "You mean he didn't have his own cell phone? I had just recently gotten a very primitive one myself, so no, I didn't find his request bothersome or strange.) So I handed my phone over and he went with it about 20 feet away, kept the call brief, and returned the phone to me and sat back down. He said the mechanic said to call back in a couple more hours. I thought nothing of it at all until someone from that number kept calling me and I kept telling this person not to call me anymore. They must have called a dozen times before they quit. I was not happy about it.


Well, it turns out that this man had called a heroin dealer on my cell phone, but I didn't know that for some time after he got busted and went to jail.


THERE SHOULD BE LIMITS WE SET TO PROTECT OUR OWN PRIVACY. I'm told that privacy is an Old School Notion = I am hopelessly out of it.

These days when I'm asked, usually by a young person, if they can use my cell phone I start out by asking who they are calling and why and then say "tell me the number and I'll dial." The effect is that they usually tell me to "forget it."

MEANWHILE TELEPHONE BOOTHS HAVE BECOME HARD TO FIND IN OUR AREA, the presumption being that everyone carries a hand-held tracking device that alerts anyone who may have interest in them as a suspect - even if falsely accused - of their movements and whereabouts, in relationship to a cell phone tower.

IT SCARES ME THAT THE EXPERTS ARE SAYING THAT YOUNG PEOPLE CHECK THEIR CELL PHONE ON THE AVERAGE OF EVERY 6 1/2 minutes! I think of that as desperate, as in "has not one real friend."

TOOLS - which cell phones are - are intended to MAKE OUR LIVES EASIER. Dependency and addiction? Life without one?

I remember when cell phones came out and were considered an expensive indulgence. Then some of our friends said that their husbands wanted them to have one to take with them when they drove so they could call for help if there was an emergency. So, the cell phone was thought to be only for emergency use!

Now, you can't walk around a grocery store and not hear snippets of conversations that should be private; someone firing their maid, discussing the salary review for an employee, talking about the sex they had the night before or their medical diagnosis and you know what, I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THAT!

The OVERALL LEVEL OF NOISE KEEPS GOING UP and with it THE NOISE OF OTHER PEOPLE'S CONVERSATIONS.

There is also the question - a serious one - of HOW MUCH ATTENTION DRIVERS ARE PUTTING INTO SAFELY DRIVING - while on cell phones.

So much to think about!

I DARE YOU TO NOT USE YOUR PHONE FOR A WEEK!

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