Op-Ed: Next Up Thanks to Big Tech - Cameras in All Offices, Diet Monitoring
Amazon’s recent move should anger every conservative who values the privacy rights of Americans. Acting as an extension of the liberal nanny-state, the e-commerce giant — owned by the world’s richest man — recently forced delivery drivers to sign “biometric consent” forms to continue working for the company.
Under Amazon’s privacy policy, drivers must consent to sharing photographs used to verify their identity; vehicle location and movements (including “miles driven, speed, acceleration, braking, turns, following distance”); “potential traffic violations” (such as speeding, failing to stop at stop signs and having seatbelts unbuckled); and “potentially risky driver behavior, such as distracted driving or drowsy driving.”
In the name of “safety,” Amazon employees must agree to being surveilled by artificial intelligence or risk losing their jobs.
Unfortunately, Amazon is not alone. Competitors like Facebook and Google abuse their power too. Even beyond Big Tech, employers are using key-logger software, video surveillance, geolocation tracking and other tools to keep tabs on workers and publicize what should be private information.
But Amazon is now leading America’s tech oligarchy closer to the dream of an autocratic “woke” kingdom, where employees are treated as serfs lacking the right to relieve themselves without being timed and monitored.
And who will stop them? If Dr. Fauci can force Americans to suffer through a year of excessive lockdowns, wear three masks (one to protect the person, one to protect those around them and one to protect their mask from their other mask), and miss seeing their families at Thanksgiving and Christmas, then why can’t Amazon — one of the wealthiest companies in the world — force their employees to wear a wristband functioning like a dog collar?
Public officials have already exploited the COVID-19 pandemic to exert undue control over private activity, now pushing for vaccine passports and mobile location data tracking. Imagine what we will be forced to give up in 2021 and beyond.
Unelected bureaucrats have long invaded the private lives of American citizens.
Back in 2017, the National Security Agency collected more than 534 million records of phone calls and text messages from U.S. telecommunications providers — over three times what it collected in 2016. In the process, Americans have slowly been conditioned to accept the state as our default mother, since we have been conditioned over time to accept the notion that when you are not on “your time,” you belong to another entity.
This raises serious concerns for individual privacy rights, made all the more relevant by Amazon’s recent intrusion.
When you work for the government, do they own you completely? When you work for a private company, do they control you unconditionally? Can your employer supervise your private life and personal decisions, or are there philosophical limits that should be applied?
Entering into work relationships with employers — public or private — should not require us to leave all of our rights at the door. Even worse, the decline of individual privacy can create a reverse adversarial effect, with employees reaching a place where a lack of supervision is perceived as apathy.
In other words, we could be led to believe that a lack of top-down management means the powers that be do not care about their subordinates, leading those subordinates to do as they choose.
Of all the managers and supervisors at Amazon, how have they not stepped up for individual rights? We shouldn’t be shocked that none of them spoke to the overstepping of decency in these rules. Amazon’s leaders are not accountable to anyone else, and they don’t believe anyone cares enough about their workers to do anything.
Amazon and other entities are establishing a dangerous precedent, leading us all down a slippery slope where individuals lose agency in their lives. Individual autonomy is under attack.
What is the logical endpoint?
Can employers now stick cameras in their offices to ensure that their employees are not wasting time on social media or using company phones to call friends? Can Apple or Google decide they will regulate employee’s diets to ensure they are healthy and alert at work?
If past is prologue, Big Tech and big government will continue to abuse their power at the expense of individual Americans. With many Amazon employees complaining about their company’s new rules, the current state of micromanagement is undoubtedly demoralizing.
Most Americans — Democrat and Republican — seem to agree: 72 percent of working Americans are concerned about online privacy, with over half taking concrete action to protect their privacy rights from public- and private-sector entities.
Enough is enough. In a post-Trump world, conservatives have learned our worst nightmares are indeed realities. As American citizens, we need to take back our lives and our freedom.
Our focus should not be going tit-for-tat with Twitter; it should be protecting the rights of factory workers and others caught in the globalist pipe dreams of liberal elites. No entity has the right to control our poo and pee, no matter how hard they try.
The views expressed in this opinion article are those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by the owners of this website. If you are interested in contributing an Op-Ed to The Western Journal, you can learn about our submission guidelines and process here.
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