Digital Piracy

The data center storm descends on small town rural America. I talked to someone building a laundromat in our town, largely to accommodate workers building the data center about fifteen miles away. Meanwhile, they’re also going to build a natural gas power plant twelve miles away with a man camp fourteen miles away.

Of course, the whole discussion centered on what a great economic opportunity it was for this part of the state, the panhandle of Texas. I’m sure that’s what sells all of the commissioners and the like who approve such things. But when commissioners step out of bounds and do things damaging to the people and the land, there must be accountability.

No American citizen, especially property owners, are without power. They have merely ceded this power to elected representatives, but there does come a time when those representatives fail to represent their interests that the whole universe can be rattled to the core.

There is no better example of this than the railroading of property owners for the sake of these giant, humming, water-guzzling monstrosities with no other purpose than to smother each individual in digital bondage.

I have been waiting and writing about such injustices for nearly two decades, to no avail. I see the world changing, closing in, depriving the subsequent generations of the freedom once so tangible to me. I’ve cursed it, organized against it and yet, it still happens. I’ve come to recognize that we do not love freedom enough to keep it from happening. That our full intent seems to be to live such bland, fearful lives that even when threatened with destruction, we merely bow our heads lower and accept more and complete subjugation. The spirit of 1776 seems to have been frittered away in the search for comfort and convenience.

Another conversation arose between myself and a handyman, who I had charged with building some bookcases, of which I am constantly in need. The discussion, standing next to my 1985 Ford diesel, a prized possession in these times, about the new Fords. They will be able to decide for themselves (the trucks) whether the “owner” is capable of driving them based on feedback from the cameras pointed at the driver. They are surveillance vehicles in themselves, able to record driving patterns, excesses of speed and braking so that this profile can be sent to insurance companies and build a database on individual driving habits, securing a score that will then be used to determine one’s insurance rates.

My only advice, don’t buy them. The newest truck I’ve owned was a 2015 Chevrolet Silverado, a great truck which I recently resold after fixing it up a bit. But it reminded me of why I have not been interested in a new vehicle since 2012, when I operated a Ford F350 for a company I worked for.

I don’t know about everyone else. This isn’t a loyalty test or a standard by which anyone else should make decisions. I’ve never been into that sort of thing. Everyone is an individual with their own thoughts and preferences, I encourage that, not the opposite. But, for me, I hate the new vehicles that want to do about half of the driving for me. I’ve rented enough cars to mark the change and it takes roughly a half hour of programming it to just drive the thing.

What this is, is a mark on the decline of individual freedom. Freedom we have willingly forfeited in search of convenience. The cell phone is another great example and I find myself leaving it at home as often as I can, leaving it to sit and record nothing. I had never liked the idea of a cell phone until, working as a salesman for pump and well supplies, I found it invaluable as a tool to help me do my job. It was important when I bought a water well drilling company, so that I could take my rig out and drill wells without sacrificing customer service. It came in handy when I returned to the oil industry in 2011 for staying in touch with family while on my two-week and thirty-six day hitches away from home.

This is how the world works today. This is how we communicate. For these corporations to spy on their customers, build databases of their likes and interests to sell to mass marketing companies is egregious. Relying on satellite communications, the airwaves, should come with some limitations and those limitations should have been baked into legislation from the beginning. That it wasn’t shows a decided lack of concern for the well being of citizens worldwide. Now, one might expect that of China, but here, in the United States?

“Well, it’s always been that way,” is no argument, not one I recognize. Every day begins at dawn and any previous toleration of this behavior does not mean that going forward we have to indemnify those who have abused us in the past.

I have marked, through my time writing such things as this, every single violation of individual freedoms and rights and what those violations would lead to. Invariably, they have and worse than my imagination would allow for.

I have heard of the disturbing sounds these data centers make. There are thousands already built and thousands more on the drawing boards of huge corporations. Admittedly, I don’t know all of the particulars of them. The surface objections are enough. In order to power data centers already in the planning stages we will have to increase power production by 100 to 200%. Where will that power come from? From our shaky grid? Or will we be financing another grid to lay next to the one already in place?

While corporations fund the building of the data centers, they pass that expense onto the consumer, the same way they did for solar and wind power. The financial backers of these wild plans to subjugate every individual to surveillance and record keeping of their every move, have no say but to pay.

One alternative is to generate one’s own power supply. That’s much easier to do out here in the sticks than it would be in high population centers, but that can change, too.

The solution in both these cases: the surveillance autos and data centers is to not fund their attempts to do this. Working on a viable alternative, where we just cut the breaker to our home, is looming as an important topic around the house.

The overlooked fact in all of this is the concept of digital piracy (not privacy). The information needed to set up an account online or for the use of devices is minimal, much less than they demand now. All of this information, readily available through hacking, is a security risk to the individual and should be treated as such. To get militant about the subject is justified and will, I believe, be the source of coming troubles.

Become a paid subscriber and join the conversation. Currently $5 per month or $30 per year.

In order to offer my subscribers a further benefit, please use the discount code “subscriber” for a secret 30% off the paperback versions at Twelveround.com. This discount will not be advertised, this is the only way to get it, but you can offer it to friends and family.

Twelveround.com is still the home of quality fiction with 60-70% 5-star ratings. If Westerns, Shadow Soldier, Home to Texas and Into Exile aren’t your thing, Rebel and Rogue are more modern (1970s) If you don’t want to buy from Amazon or have them in e-book format, you can get the physical novels from Twelveround for the above discount.