If you look across the spectrum of data coming across our feeds, you begin to get a very clear picture of what is going on.

The age of information works both ways… It opens the world to you about everything that is going on. You literally can access to 88% of the world from your hand.

But also through that same open door, it allows the world to see everything that goes on with you.  Granted, there are 7 billion people and the chance they want to find out about you is small.  But if they ever did, your profile is up for sale. Someone, somewhere is going to choose money over morals and hand it over.

Most of us are not criminal and don’t have crimes we are running from. But everyone has a late bill paid, or two.  In today’s world, that late bill can cost you dearly with a lost opportunity you otherwise would have had.  Higher rates today are being paid by you, for something that cost “no one” “nothing” 6 and a half years ago.

Because technology is still newish for most of us, we accept such as necessary for business. We were too busy enjoying its fruits to worry about the aftereffects our indulgences will bring us the following day after.

Now we have reached that point, it seems. And particularly with the political season upon us, we get daily reminders that even benign innocent items in ones past, can be twisted in certain ways to cause us lots of pain and consternation.

“My disheveled opponent bought some Tinactin in 2006…  You contracted Athletes Foot, didn’t you?  You were so disorganized in your hygiene behavior that you literally allowed a FUNGUS to grow unmonitored, unrestricted, and unopposed so long, that you had to get medication for it… Tell us why Mr. Disorganized,  should we then take your word over what you say you will do to solve these complicated global problems?  When you can’t even take care of a foot fungus by practicing basic hygiene? ”  (Ted Cruz was the template for that; could you tell)

Never mind that around 15% to 25% of people are likely to have athlete’s foot at any one time… (That’s one out of four on the high end, one out of 6 on the low end.)

But whether any accusation is true or not, if it resonates, then reputational damage is done to the person simply by just being the object of such an accusation. Their time must be diverted to address the issue, which of course takes time away from focusing on issues that really do matter and are far more important.

We are in a world ruled by distortion gamesmanship.  I was so saddened to see that even Hillary has stepped into it now, (being hard on accusations–loose on facts), now that Sanders got a surprising jump in Michigan.  Today one is gamed to distort ones opponent first and often.

Like this guy here... right or wrong he wears the effect of the sucker punch in Fayetteville NC he never saw coming….  Today, he who was punched then escorted out the building, is absolved of all crimes. His puncher has been arrested and I guess (he must have waved off his right to an attorney) is still bragging to all who listen how wonderful it was to cave in a black person’s face.

But by the time that comes out. our attention is long gone and we are hard pressed to remember it… All we do remember is that someone hit someone who based on our previous beliefs, either did or did not deserve it. But that person hit, has this episode virtually attached to his computer-collected profile now until he dies. It’s there for future employers, future co-workers, even future in-laws to exploit to their advantage.

Is this what we bargained for as we rushed headlong into the information age?

Yet it can be fixed fairly easily; you just have to overcome the power of Big Money to make it so.  No you won’t put the genie back into the bottle.  Instead, you capture the genie, then make it pay for the mischief it has done.

Which means you open up information gatherers to lawsuits…. Currently they are protected.  But you allow them to become victims of huge settlements whenever their information goes against what 12 random people sitting on a jury think should be moral and proper.

In doing so, you put the trust back between us and our machines.  Because I really don’t mind if I’m tracked at 1:15 pm March 11th driving though Chik Fil A’s drivethru to pick up some grilled nuggets and delicious waffle fries. (Ok, damn it, I got an Oreo Shake too, IT WAS SMALL!!!!)  as long as I know that no matter who knows about it, it can never be used against me because if it is, I too become part of the upper 1`%…

When we reach that point, we are back where we were when growing up, where our spinster neighbor knew everything about us from peaking out the curtain, but would never tell anyone because she’d then be ostracized for being a spinster neighbor who peeked out of curtains, which in our town was the kiss of death.

The result is that we didn’t do anything really illegal because on that she could tell, but it didn’t hold us back from having fun because there, our secrets were safe….

So if corporations are today allowed to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence election campaigns because they allegedly are “people” too and have certain inalienable rights,  DOES IT NOT STAND ALSO, that they should be accountable for all the unlimited amounts they damage and harm others? With that new badge of citizenship, shouldn’t they also have certain “inalienable” responsibilities?

We all know the answer!  WE, THE PEOPLE, need to open our informational gatherers to the potential of huge lawsuits for when they do wrong… By doing so, we do our very best to insure that very little wrong will ever occur in the future.