Isn’t it amazing how much of the old Star Trek series, with Captain Kirk, Bones, Scottie and Spock, has come true? Remember the walkie talkies that look so much like our modern flip phones? What about Capt. Kirk asking, ‘Computer, give me any information on XYZ?’ We’ve come a long way. Now we can answer most any question by typing it in on our computers, an almost infinite amount of information is at our fingertips. Voice-activated ‘assistants’ are remarkably like the ‘computer’ Captain Kirk used. And this has happened in the last fifteen years.

But here’s the thing. When Capt. Kirk asked ‘computer’ for information, or commanded ‘her’ (she spoke with a female voice, even back then) all of his interactions were private. No one could know what he had asked her unless they were in the room with him when he said it. Now just suppose that Kirk had been going about his business, asking Computer every now and then a few questions about various items he might be curious about. But without him realizing it, Computer had also been logging all of his other interactions with devices aboard the Starship Enterprise, had tracked his every move, whom he spoke with, for how long, and what was said. Which is all a distinct possibility. But what if, unbeknownst to anyone aboard the Enterprise, not even Spock, the Klingons had gained access to this information? While Computer may not have named the personnel aboard ship, using anonymous ‘numbers’ associated with each person, it wouldn’t take long to figure out who was who.

That is exactly what is happening today with our reliance on apps created by Facebook and Google, among others. If you have an app active on your phone, it has access to everywhere you go, how long you stay there, if you post updates to Facebook, who was with you, what they were doing. And behind the scenes, all of that information is being sold to the Klingons, or to anyone else who has the money to pay for it, including governments, corporations, anyone who cares to ask and can pay the money to get it.

Maybe you live your life in such a way that you are happy with it being a complete open book to anyone who cares to look. Societies who have operated in such a manner have opened themselves up to the worst kind of manipulation by those who can and will take that information and use it against you. Think of the Stasi, or North Korea. It is the beginning of a power that has such complete control you no longer have any freedom at all. If you are constantly under surveillance, which is the case with most of us who use modern technology, you are no longer free. You are being watched, listened to, tracked and recorded, not just the things you post, but anything and everything the phone is capable of noticing, which is a lot. You often hear that our modern day smart phones have more computing power than the computers that sent men to the moon. That’s a lot of knowledge. Remember, without privacy, there can be no freedom.