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Posted on 09/17/2025 1:31:20 AM PDT by CIB-173RDABN
The Permanent Record: From Empty Threat to Everyday Reality
When I was a student back in the 1950s, we used to joke about the phrase “That’s going on your permanent record.” It was a hollow threat from teachers, something said when a kid stepped out of line — broke a rule, said something smart-alecky, or handed in an assignment late. We all laughed quietly to ourselves, because we knew there was no such thing. There was no record, and certainly nothing “permanent.”
Today, that joke is no longer funny — because it has come true.
We now live in a world where everything we do, say, search, post, buy, or like is recorded, stored, analyzed, and sometimes weaponized — not by secret police, but by corporations, platforms, and even ourselves. The “permanent record” isn’t a folder in a school office anymore — it’s your phone, your social media profile, your Google history, your cloud backups. It’s searchable, sellable, and in many cases, impossible to delete. And the craziest part? People pay for the devices that spy on them.
They voluntarily bring microphones, cameras, and tracking devices into their homes. They wear them on their wrists. They update them gleefully. They post every detail of their lives to platforms that are engineered to remember everything — and never forgive.
We Built It Ourselves
The surveillance state didn’t arrive in tanks or jackboots. It arrived in cardboard boxes with Apple and Samsung logos. It arrived as a free app, or a new feature. It arrived with a cheerful chime and a reminder to "enable notifications."
This isn’t paranoia. It’s observation.
Once upon a time, privacy was the default. You could make mistakes. You could grow up, reinvent yourself, and move on from your past. Now, even teenagers are burdened with digital baggage — old posts, foolish photos, angry comments, awkward videos — all attached to their real names, indexed by search engines, and archived for life. The result? A generation that has been taught to share everything — because being popular means being visible. Because if you're not online, you're invisible. And in that rush to be seen, they’ve sacrificed something priceless: the right to be unknown.
No Secrets, No Privacy, No Room to Grow
What saddens me most is that so few people — especially young people — realize what they’ve lost. They don’t understand what it meant to grow up in a world where your thoughts stayed in your head, or in a paper journal. Where you could try out ideas without fear of being recorded, judged, or punished years later. Where a mistake wasn’t eternal.
The platforms tell them it’s freedom. But it’s not. It’s exposure — and exposure is not the same as liberty. True freedom includes the ability to choose what you share, when, and with whom — and the right to be left alone when you choose not to.
A Final Thought
I’m not writing this because I’m angry. I’m writing it because I’ve lived long enough to remember a different world — and I worry that if no one remembers it, we won’t know what we’ve lost.
It’s not too late. The same tools that were used to erode privacy can be used to reclaim it. But first, people must realize what’s happening. They must stop accepting surveillance as the price of connection. They must teach their children that popularity isn’t worth the cost of privacy — and that some things should be kept off the record.
Because today, there really is a permanent record. And unless we push back, it will remember everything — except what freedom used to feel like.
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Die Gedanken sind frei—NICHT...
The phrase **”Die Gedanken sind frei—NICHT”** is a twist on a well-known German saying.
### Literal Translation:
**”Thoughts are free—NOT.”**
### Context and Meaning:
* **”Die Gedanken sind frei”** is a famous German expression meaning **”Thoughts are free”**—it comes from a centuries-old song celebrating freedom of thought and expression.
* The addition of **”NICHT”** at the end (written in all caps for emphasis) means **”NOT”**, and it **negates** the previous statement—similar to sarcastic reversals in English, like saying:
> “Sure, that’s a great idea—NOT.”
### So the full phrase means:
> **”Thoughts are free—not really.”**
> Or more sarcastically:
> **”Yeah, thoughts are free—except they aren’t.”**
It’s a critique or ironic comment, possibly pointing to censorship, surveillance, or the feeling that even our private thoughts are no longer safe or truly free.
Thanks. I forwarded it to my kids as a reminder to them to stress this with their kids (teenagers)
I have espoused since before the internet. Of course, the erosion of privacy has exploded since then.
How very true! Thank you for stating it so clearly and completely!
It is not just young folks. There are a whole bunch here who were perfectly willing to give up all their privacy to be protected from the terrorists under every bed after 9-11. What was the popular saying? “If you have nothing to hide you have nothing to fear?”
Stupid argument brainwashed into fools. Then why have fences around your property? Or why lock your door? Why close your curtains? Why are warrants required for searches? Why even wear clothes and cover your body? It was a psyop to belittle people for even wanting some personal sense of privacy.
The nothing to hide argument is a logical fallacy which states that individuals have no reason to fear or oppose surveillance programs unless they are afraid it will uncover their own illicit activities. An individual using this argument may claim that an average person should not worry about government surveillance, as they would have “nothing to hide”.
Whistleblower and anti-surveillance advocate Edward Snowden remarked that “Arguing that you don’t care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don’t care about free speech because you have nothing to say.”
All this began with the Patriot Act 25 years ago and people are still brainwashed into this ideology. It is not whether you have anything to hide or not, it is the moral principle and legality of it... It is just wrong and anyone who supports it or accepts it is wrong.
You are right about our kids. They just put any and everything on line under their real names.
I don’t get that.
I have been on line since the mid 90’s and there is very little of “me” there... Maybe a work related post or 2. I just did an image search and I was not there.
You can do it...you can remove yourself, or, at least, severely limit your real presence.
Shut off your phone location unless you actually need it. That includes the permissions of all your apps where you can. If they don’t function without those permissions, consider how much you need the app.
Deny access to camera and microphone where you can. Use aliases for as many things as possible. If you have to give your phone number to sign up for something, change it once you log in.
Its not perfect but you aren’t making it easy for them either. I counseled my kids to do the same and they are harder to locate also.
Unfortunately just so you know... Your user controls to shut off features on your phone do not shut them off. They are always remotely accessible by the carrier, phone operating system Google or Apple, and government even if you think they are turned off.
Very true. Tho I am not sure why any of those entities need the info on a regular basis.
But the “proof” I can offer is that I am not there when I search for me.
Just not correct. I believe I’ve asked you before if there is any video showing this.
You have done well to keep yourself off the “public” radar. But keep in mind they have digital records the public does not see or have access to.
. They are always remotely accessible by the carrier, phone operating system Google or Apple, and government even if you think they are turned off.
Just not correct. I believe I’ve asked you before if there is any video showing this.
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That may be true, I don’t know either way. What I do know is I don’t trust them, or the government, so I assume they are always “live”. If you are correct and I am wrong (always a possibility) no foul no harm (I almost spelled it “fowl” which just proves I can make mistakes). :-)
Wishing you well and hope the rest of your day is a pleasant one.
Personally, I’d attribute some of this to social media, and the way it’s engineered. Views. Likes. Social validation. Chance of “going viral”. A lot of people are addicted to attention now, and it’s by design.
There are certainly pictures online of J6ers' cell phones converging on the Capitol. The NYT had a picture showing where they came in from; it looked like the airplane routes you see in an airline travel magazine.
Your cell phone is calling out to the universe whether it's on or off.
No it is absolutely correct... I have taken phones apart and physically checked power circuits to see what sensors were hot and active or not even though they were “turned off”. The multimeter does not lie... Anyone with any knowledge of electronics can do this themselves. The software tells you it is not collecting input from those sensors but is this really the case when they are all still powered up and still available?
Occam’s Razor applies...
“Your cell phone is calling out to the universe whether it’s on or off.”
Yep, absolutely. In fact it has been this way for decades to facilitate the 911 emergency system.
Oh yeah: about a year ago right after Helene, I was stopped from accessing the web or doing anything on my phone by a message demanding I input my home address supposedly for the 911 system, so “they” could find me if need be. Why? While I can only speak for me, any emergency I might have would not usually be at home. So what good would that do?
The local Walmart is gonna be real busy...
If they do have access to info we don’t have, would they not be able to locate people lost in the wilderness without days of searching? Most folks carry their phones with them, even tho they are basicly “bricks” with no service.
Agreed.
We’ll just agree to disagree.
You would think that if phones were accessible in the way you claim there would be article after article in Ars Technica, Wired, EFF, Krebs on Security, etc would be shouting this far and wide.
Add to that there’s no video showing that what you claim is correct.
And those J6’rs had their phones off?
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