Just about everyone knows that the NSA monitors and collects data on web use, including identifying internet surfing (as much as possible) by the person sitting behind the keyboard.

What you probably don't know however is that the NSA is in the market to sell this ability to private corporations.

The National Security Agency is actively seeking venues to advance its Technology Transfer program and make more patented NSA technology available for licensing. One of those technologies, a method for determining the geographic location of Internet users, represents a nascent but promising market that has proved useful for financial institutions to combat criminal fraud and could help in the NSA's collection and production of foreign signals intelligence.

The NSA's goals are to sustain economic growth by developing the commercialization of new technologies, to increase the taxpayers' return on investment in the federal research and development budget, and to assist federal agencies in meeting their mission requirements.

One NSA technology in the program describes a step-by-step internetworking method for geo-locating the logical network addresses that indicate where an Internet user is physically located.

via

Jeez and I bet you thought the NSA was in the business of protecting the United States from harm by conducting electronic signals intelligence operations. But no, it wants to sell of its patents to provide a "better return" to the taxpayer. How noble of them.

It's nice to know however that your bank can track you down to your home computer but what about all those other sites you go to, or your child goes to, or your drunken buddy visiting your house goes to? And what will happen if those records get in the hands of your creditors? Will your bank double think a mortgage if the XYZ Corporation shows you logging onto Hentai sites?

And of course, as we all know, any technology designed to "protect consumers" will eventually be bypassed by sophisticated criminal enterprises. Will your bank or credit card company relax its security standards because they think they've verified it is you at your home address, but is in reality a criminal who stole your ID? And what's to stop a company from selling your internet surfing habits to a second or third company?

Or maybe your next employer will be able to pull up your surfing habits and decide you don't fit their profile because you visited political sites not to their liking.

The list goes on and on. As much as I resent the NSA's current domestic spying operations, I'll never advocate them trying to be "profitable" by selling their advanced technologies to megacorporations.

I should add that this "geo-location" technology is just 1 of 44 different technologies the NSA is looking to sell to the private sector.

Of course, when they talk of protecting America, they are not talking of you or I. They are talking about the corporate entity and the elite. When they talk of National Security, they are not talking about the safety of this countries citizens, but it's business ventures.

Just as the "leaders" have (moblie) rules for them and a whole different set of rules for us. Your just a cog. Consumer cog. The MIC (READ Military Indus Complex) comes above and first always; with regards to any and all technology. Then after they have perfected whatever technology they have, then and only then does it become public. And when I say public, I do not mean the common good of the people I mean the business sector. You know trickle down and all that reagan bullshit.

Also related, Glenn Greenwald's Post-mortem on the Intelligence Committee vote