H.R. 2356: We Are Watching You Act of 2013

Did you know that the big media distributors like Verizon and Comcast can legally install cameras and microphones in your set top box to monitor the activity near the TV in order to feed the proper advertising to your screen?  I wrote about the loss of our privacy while watching TV back in June 2013.

H.R. 2356 was introduced by Michael Capuano, U.S. Representative for Massachusetts's 7th Congressional District a Democrat of all people.  This bill, nicknamed "We are watching you act of 2013" would make the installation of cameras, microphones and other monitoring devices illegal without consumer agreement.

"To provide for notification to consumers before a video service collects visual or auditory information from the viewing area and to provide consumers with choices that do not involve the collection of such information, and for other purposes."

Unfortunately according to GovTrack.us there is only a 6% chance that this bill will make it out of committee. With just a 1% chance of it becoming law.

So what has happened?  Did we get too involved in the Debt Ceiling debate or perhaps the Affordable

Health Care Act?  Or perhaps the fact that Verizon and Google are helping the NSA spy on regular Americans and foreign countries.  It would seem that our rights and privacies are under attack from all sides.  We are currently losing our right to choose what type of health insurance we want as well as being forced to have insurance.  Now the very privacy we enjoy in our homes is under attack.

This "New America" is not the direction our forefathers wanted the country to go.  Someday in the future, sooner than later, we will wake up and wonder how we lost all our rights and privacy.  People you do not lose your rights in one day.  You slowly give them up little by little.  So after a bit of time you look back and say "What happened?".