"You must register for a Ning ID to become a Ning Member, sign up for a Ning Network, or sign up as a Third Party Application Developer. When you register for a Ning ID, you are required to provide certain Personal Information, including your name, email address, date of birth, and a password that you select. You also may create a Ning Profile and provide other Personal Information within your Ning Profile, such as your gender, city, state, and country, and photo. Your Ning profile will also display all of the Ning Networks that you belong to. Your Ning Profile is only visible to you. Please be aware that even though your Ning Profile is only visible to you, that information, including Personal Information, will still be accessible by Ning."

So, based on this it's easy for anyone to see, Ning keeps everything you do on a Ning site forever including any personal information you divulge voluntarily, like your picture, as well as personal information you're required to divulge, like your birth date, etc.

Let's look at Microsoft. Although I have a Mac most of you have PCs and use Microsoft application platforms. Here's some documentation from a Microsoft Manual that isn't generally available to the public although if you know what to search for it's on the internet. EVERYTHING is on the internet, IF you know what to search for.

Here's the cover of this 25 page book:

This next page deals with MSN and Windows Live access provided to Law Enforcement and provides information on exactly what Microsoft saves.

Do you have an XBox? Think you're safe from the prying eyes of government and Law Enforcement? Think again. This next page provides the information saved based on your XBox usage, and includes your credit card number and date of birth amongst other things. By the way, did you catch the print in the blue strip above? "Microsoft Confidential For Law Enforcement Use Only"

It seems they also keep and retain your gaming history. Probably to see if you're a Mario type of guy or a Tom Clancy kinda guy.

Do you use Yahoo Instant Messenger? Talk to Mom and Dad from time to time? Chat with friends? Here's a page describing data available to Law Enforcement from the instant messenger services provided by Microsoft and for other instant messenger services linked to Microsoft users, like Yahoo.

I think by now you might have a relatively good idea regarding what's kept about You and Me when we're on the internet. EVERYTHING. Everything we post, all of the information we divulge and wherever we divulge it, it's all vacuumed up into a Hoover Bag of Data Collection. The dust bin of Law Enforcement. Where they can put on their white gloves and janitor uniforms and sift through the mess of dusty data and find out all about each one of us. That means if we're anti-Big Pharma, anti-Congress, anti-Zionist, anti-Israel, anti-Muslim or anti-Federal Reserve, they know it.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg says the age of privacy is over. If he could go back in time and build Facebook again, he would make profile data public by default. The age of privacy is over but we can still remain private to the rest of the world on Facebook by using the extensive account settings menu to decide what we want to share and who we want to share it with. Even so, Facebook itself retains everything we post, all of our pictures and all of our information and conceivably all of our comments. They're no different then Ning, Blogger, WordPress or any other web site or web application.

THEY, whoever THEY might be, have access to everything we do on the internet no matter where we do it. That's because, as Zuckerberg says, "the age of privacy is over."

We know that Facebook, by associations with Dr. Anita Jones, Gillman Louie and James Breyer, has links to DARPA, the CIA and the Department of Defense.

We know that Ning, by association of its directors, Gina Bianchini and Mark Andreessen and his association with a Mr. Horowitz have links to the US Army. We also know that Ms. Bianchini is an ex Goldman Sachs employee. Not a grunt, a management level gal.

We also know that Andreessen is on the Board of Directors of Facebook and eBay and has interests in Skype. Ning also has a direct link with Google through AdSense and Google, is case you aren't aware, is the search engine that keeps a record of and saves your entire search history. Searching for porn? Google knows, even if your Mom doesn't.

There isn't ANYTHING that these various corporations don't save and there isn't anything that's not worth saving. If this scares you, it shouldn't, unless you plan on flying the next plane into a government building, which I don't advocate or recommend. I think it's a cowards method of making a statement. So as long as you play by the rules, dissent is the most Patriotic form of expression and there's nothing wrong with being anti-anything and there's nothing to fear about having your personal information accessible to Law Enforcement. The age of privacy is truly over. Get used to it. Don't break the law. You'll be safe that way, and remember, we're all in this great game together.