FOOT: "You're Leaving a Digital Trail"

In short, this article, "You're Leaving a Digital Trail. What About Privacy?" by John Markoff kind of freaked me out. The whole idea that the small town idea is now expanding to mean that basically the whole world is your small town is really freaky. On another note, I found the idea that insurance companies could use the data to screen potential clients to be kind of wrong. It made me angry that technology could be used in ways that I see as mean spirited as that. Also, the idea that people taking part in protests could be tracked as well sent some chills up my spine. Aren't Americans allowed to form peaceful protests? Don't we have the right to assembly? I could understand if they were trying to find out people in a riot, but not a protest.



I feel that this article could be used as supplemental material if you were teaching a unit on privacy or big brother. If you were using a book, such as Little Brother, it would be a great way to show real world examples of some of the events that occur in the book. You could talk about EZpasses, cell phones, etc. being used to track people and I believe that there could be some lively debate that could occur from this.