Investigative journalist Julia Angwin, author of ?Dragnet Nation:?A Quest for Privacy, Security and Freedom in a World of Relentless Surveillance, recently did an interview with Bill Moyers. What she told him is shocking and disturbing.
The government, together with the private sector, is compiling a personal profile on all of us, according to Angwin. This doesn’t susprise us, honestly. Thanks to Edward Snowden, we already know a lot more now than we did two years ago about how our own government spies on us.
But Angwin’s years of extensive research uncovered something that hasn’t been widely mentioned before: the U.S. and state governments are selling our voting records to commercial data brokers.And data brokers are selling all of the information they compile on us to the U.S. government.
From Bill Moyers:
“In the data broker business, there are people who sell my name and address and actual voting records and all that.?
A few of the brokers mentioned are names many of us recognize: Acxiom, InfoGroup, Spokeo, Intelius, and similar lookup sites. Further more, the cost of our data is very cheap.
And they do a very big business in selling your data. And unfortunately, your data sells pretty cheap.?
Julia Angwin worked for The Wall Street Journal for 13 years covering the business and technology beat?and is?a Pulitzer Prize winner.
You can watch the three-minute clip where Angwin is discussing our voting records below and the entire segment at the end of this article.
Look Who’s Selling Your Voting Records from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
You can watch the entire 25-minute segment below.
No Escaping Dragnet Nation from BillMoyers.com on Vimeo.
