Shrimpbox
Gold Member
This will be an interesting intellectual exercise because I will be trying to marry a conservative fundamental to a liberal gripe. A recent post about judge sotomayor worrying about our freedoms needs a footnote here too.
The other day a food service truck was making a delivery to the restuarant and I happened to look in the cab. Up where the rear view mirror should have been was was a rather elaborate camera system. I asked the driver about it and he gave me an earful. He said the camera not only looked forward but one was also sighted on the driver. That whenever he put his foot on the brake the computer saved the footage 5 seconds before and 5 seconds after the event, that he was not allowed to pick up his phone, take a drink, or eat anything while he was driving. I said that sounded a bit extreme to me. He said some drivers with 15 and 20 years experience with the company had been let go for no other reason than violating this policy. Big brother is definitely here.
One of my sons was applying for a new job as maintenance manager for an apartment complex after being let go by another apartment complex after 13 years because they felt he was making too much money for them to meet the income goals of the property. They found the most nitpicking things they could dredge up as grounds for his firing. His new prospective employers had him take a drug test, do a credit check, asked for copies of his past pay checks, and copies of his tax returns.
Finally, my son in law runs an insulation business. He has been trying to get an account with Duke Energy for rehabbing older homes for a long time. The duke energy guy shows up at the office saying their biggest concern about bringing his company on board is the many possibilities of being sued when customers see the duke energy insignia on the truck. People with previously cracked driveways will try to sue my son in laws company after they drive a truck on the pavement just because they think they have deep pockets, apparently not an uncommon fraud at all. His employees are now being trained to take pictures of everything before they even start work.
The point of these examples is twofold. One, the right of lawyers to sue now supersedes your right to privacy and two, your right to privacy is trumped by insurance companies intrusions into your life to collect the most far reaching and trivial details of your life to be used later by your employers to create the flimsiest excuses to terminate your employment all in the name of protecting oneself from being sued.
1984 is here. Our freedoms are being trampled on. Our privacy is being high jacked by accountants. How long is it going to be before not only mcdonalds but truck delivery will be done by robots. People who worry about jobs better start putting this in their pipe and start smoking it. I wouldn't last 2 weeks if I had to work for one of these companies and on my way out I would tell them to shove it up their ass. We now have a culture where you are guilty until you can prove you are innocent, that is if you even get the time, chance, and finances to prove you are innocent.
So what do we do about it. First kill all the lawyers. At a minimum have an English style system where suers accused of fraud have to pay legal fees and fines. Define and make illegal frivolous lawsuits. Pass laws where 90 percent of judgements must go to the plaintiffs and lawyers can get no more than 10 per cent of settlements. Raise the bar of proof and make injuries life threatening before one could sue. Make fraud and violations of the rules punishable with jail time. Make lawsuits the last resort not the first.
As far as privacy goes I would start here. any company that has surveillance on their workers must have the same surveillance on every one of their employees including managers, officers, the board, the president, and consultants paid by the company when they are doing company work. That would put a stop to a lot of it. Also I would promote small business which can neither afford this crap or usually doesn't need it because a lot of small business people are a more close knit family operation where common sense prevails. It may also be time to bring these privacy concerns to the courts and define exactly what a persons "private space" is.
Do I want someone driving a semi down the road and checking their Facebook page? No. But this stuff is way out of hand. Big business is in league with big govt in denying workers and individuals their rights and their privacy and their due process. Liberals who believe in workers rights and conservatives who believe in the freedoms espoused in the bill of rights need to band together and push back against those who would turn the workers of this country into a bunch of slaves.
The other day a food service truck was making a delivery to the restuarant and I happened to look in the cab. Up where the rear view mirror should have been was was a rather elaborate camera system. I asked the driver about it and he gave me an earful. He said the camera not only looked forward but one was also sighted on the driver. That whenever he put his foot on the brake the computer saved the footage 5 seconds before and 5 seconds after the event, that he was not allowed to pick up his phone, take a drink, or eat anything while he was driving. I said that sounded a bit extreme to me. He said some drivers with 15 and 20 years experience with the company had been let go for no other reason than violating this policy. Big brother is definitely here.
One of my sons was applying for a new job as maintenance manager for an apartment complex after being let go by another apartment complex after 13 years because they felt he was making too much money for them to meet the income goals of the property. They found the most nitpicking things they could dredge up as grounds for his firing. His new prospective employers had him take a drug test, do a credit check, asked for copies of his past pay checks, and copies of his tax returns.
Finally, my son in law runs an insulation business. He has been trying to get an account with Duke Energy for rehabbing older homes for a long time. The duke energy guy shows up at the office saying their biggest concern about bringing his company on board is the many possibilities of being sued when customers see the duke energy insignia on the truck. People with previously cracked driveways will try to sue my son in laws company after they drive a truck on the pavement just because they think they have deep pockets, apparently not an uncommon fraud at all. His employees are now being trained to take pictures of everything before they even start work.
The point of these examples is twofold. One, the right of lawyers to sue now supersedes your right to privacy and two, your right to privacy is trumped by insurance companies intrusions into your life to collect the most far reaching and trivial details of your life to be used later by your employers to create the flimsiest excuses to terminate your employment all in the name of protecting oneself from being sued.
1984 is here. Our freedoms are being trampled on. Our privacy is being high jacked by accountants. How long is it going to be before not only mcdonalds but truck delivery will be done by robots. People who worry about jobs better start putting this in their pipe and start smoking it. I wouldn't last 2 weeks if I had to work for one of these companies and on my way out I would tell them to shove it up their ass. We now have a culture where you are guilty until you can prove you are innocent, that is if you even get the time, chance, and finances to prove you are innocent.
So what do we do about it. First kill all the lawyers. At a minimum have an English style system where suers accused of fraud have to pay legal fees and fines. Define and make illegal frivolous lawsuits. Pass laws where 90 percent of judgements must go to the plaintiffs and lawyers can get no more than 10 per cent of settlements. Raise the bar of proof and make injuries life threatening before one could sue. Make fraud and violations of the rules punishable with jail time. Make lawsuits the last resort not the first.
As far as privacy goes I would start here. any company that has surveillance on their workers must have the same surveillance on every one of their employees including managers, officers, the board, the president, and consultants paid by the company when they are doing company work. That would put a stop to a lot of it. Also I would promote small business which can neither afford this crap or usually doesn't need it because a lot of small business people are a more close knit family operation where common sense prevails. It may also be time to bring these privacy concerns to the courts and define exactly what a persons "private space" is.
Do I want someone driving a semi down the road and checking their Facebook page? No. But this stuff is way out of hand. Big business is in league with big govt in denying workers and individuals their rights and their privacy and their due process. Liberals who believe in workers rights and conservatives who believe in the freedoms espoused in the bill of rights need to band together and push back against those who would turn the workers of this country into a bunch of slaves.