Wow. I'm Grateful. And Wary.

Got a call the other day, late afternoon, from our credit card company. They told us they spotted a possible fraudulent transaction coming through the system and wanted us to verify.

What impressed me was that the call came within minutes of the time it was posted. When I called back I learned that bit of information. It does appear that this was a fraudulent transaction and the people at the credit card company caught it. I couldn't identify the transaction and neither my wife or I remembered any transaction like that. We could still find out that it was real- some delayed posting or something- but it was good to know that the credit card company was on the ball.

Of course the more paranoid side of me realized that this was discovered by a computer program that looks for anomalies in transactions and that it is always scanning my records. I know that this would allow all kinds of surveillance to look at my records and learn some things about me. Like we preachers used to say in our stewardship sermons- you can judge what's important to a person by looking at their check register.

This is the downside of the technology that may have saved me money and headaches. Which is why some of what goes on in the name of "national security" scares me. When we turn things around and allow uncontrolled abuse of privacy and constitutional rights to proptect ourselves we are on dangerous ground. I know the standard answer. I have used it myself. If you are not doing something illegal- why worry?

Because humans are humans and power corrupts. It is a small step for a person in power to use information for all kinds of things. It is a small step for a government founded on fear to name all kinds of things as dangerous to the national security. We have moved a long way from the technology of Nixon and Watergate. We have only made it easier.

So I am grateful that the credit card industry is able to police my account and let me know what is happening. I hope they will let me know when someone is also trying to use that information for other purposes made "legal" by an "opinion" from a "lawyer" in the government.