COMPUTER DATA THEFT ON A MASSIVE SCALE

You might have noticed that when you are on the Internet your computer suddenly gets slow to do anything and you might hear your disk drive clicking like crazy. There is a good chance that someone or some company or advertiser has grabbed control of your computer and is trying to upload your personal data from your computer. This is called "browser hijacking" where your computer is secretly redirected to a site where your information is being uploaded from your computer. A less intrusive form of this data theft is the adding of so-called "cookies" to your computer that automatically upload data from your computer that is useful to advertisers or marketing companies. This kind of activity is not limited to just individual "hackers", but, I believe is being done by large companies and maybe major Internet businesses, according to my tests and experiments. For example, I have noted that if I remove all "cookies" from my computer that all I have to do is access one major Internet company and I will pick up at least one "cookie". By removing the "cookies" and other personal privacy invasion objects that find their way onto my computer when I use the Internet for my everyday activities, my computer runs faster and does not do strange things like slow-downs and the disk drive working overtime. This massive data theft is presently beyond laws and regulation, but I believe that it is criminal theft since the computer user does not knowingly agree to the covert and secretive intrusions on our private information. Unfortunately, if government regulation is forced by this criminal activity, it will cause some loss of freedom in Internet usage. Is this the price we will have to pay for this massive theft of data? I hope not but at present I don't see any other solution except regulation and prosecutions if necessary.

A LOT OF AMERICANS STILL NOT EMPLOYED

According to the latest statistics, 14,900,000 Americans are still unemployed. This is a shame on this country for a number of reasons. But to me the most disgusting thing about this vast number of people who can't find a job is that we have so much work that should be done in this country. Our highways and bridges are falling apart. Driving over 50 miles an hour on most highways is dangerous. Our cities and especially public schools are in decay and in need of serious work. Our airports are overloaded and we need more built. The FAA radars are obsolete and need up-dating. We don't have enough air controllers and the ones we do have are over-loaded with too heavy a workload. Our aircraft are getting old and need replacement. Our railroads have almost faded away and tracks in dis-repair. We have no up-to-date high speed rail. Our manufacturing jobs and capabilities are disappearing fast because of free trade policies. Our manned space flight program is almost gone due to excessive spending on other frivolous programs. Our borders are not secured. The fence on the southern is not completed. There are not enough border guards.

What is holding back work? Why can't people do some of the work that is needed? There is only one answer. Stupid politics by both political parties who have miss-managed this country for years. You say, but that's not the capitalist way to put people to work on government projects. But we already have a socialist government so what is the difference? The work still needs to be done whether it is done by the government or private contractors, there is a lot of work that should be done and there should be plenty of jobs!

Write and call your Congressmen and let them know that they are not doing a very good job.

SHOULD THE US BUILD PLANTS IN OTHER COUNTRIES?

Recently American companies trying to build plants in other countries have had to sign agreements on intellectual property while trying to operate manufacturing facilities in other countries. Some countries require that a foreign business operation in their company must sign agreements which allow access to proprietary information of that company. There has even been at least one case of theft of intellectual property of an American company doing business overseas.

So the cost of doing business overseas can be very high, not to mention the loss of our technical data and any edge we might have in competition for business.

I really don't like the fact that American companies are building products overseas that will be exported back to our shores and kill the same businesses here that cannot compete with the cheap labor. Examples are clothes, shoes, and other basic consumer items. Now if a product built by an American company overseas is sold overseas, such as automobiles for example, that is fine.

As part of a solution to our economic problems right now I believe that imports to America should be very limited mainly to things like certain metals or resources that we cannot produce in the US. Other imports like clothes, shoes, food, consumer electronics, tools, automobiles, and many other commodities that are imported should be strictly limited or even banned so that manufacturers in the US can start producing such items and hire more workers to do so. I know all the free-traders will scream about this if we tried to do it, but I don't think we can continue to let our own manufacturing industries die out while we import cheap goods made with cheap labor overseas. Our workers lose jobs and we lose our technical abilities and our manufacturing know-how advantage. It will eventually lead to the decline of America as a world power.