At Risk of Winning (The Max Masterson Series Book 1) Read Online Free Page B

work.
    Eventually, a small man in the center of the room stood. he was obviously the de facto leader of the group, and all deferred to him. It was the familiar face of Martin hilliard, a physicist who had gained fame in artificial intelligence. Years earlier, he developed a program that improved the odds of winning at blackjack as each card was dealt. his idea caused a temporary loss at casinos around the world until the casino operators discovered implanted signaling devices in the ear canal of the winners. By that time, hundreds of millions of dollars had been won, which was shared on a 50/50 basis with hilliard. he was fabulously wealthy, but he hadn’t taken his wealth and gone home. he was now using his brilliance to solve more important problems, and today he was in his element.
    “Senator, we know of ways to keep new information from being released, and we know how to construct safeguards in a program that will prevent hackers from getting to it, but whatever is already out there can’t be retrieved and protected.” he paused for effect, letting his words sink in.
“You need to understand that we’re talking about millions of databases containing information that can be filtered and sorted,” he declared. “hell, the collective information of the human race is spread out over computers all over the world, and once it’s out there, it can’t be retrieved and secured. It’s much like detonating a nuclear bomb and then trying to put all of the radiation back into the metal shell it was contained in. We can probably start with medical records and psychiatric records, because they have a certain degree of protection, but criminal records, driving records, credit card transactions, phone records—”
    Masterson stopped him before he rattled off all of the “can’t do’s.” “Let’s talk about this prospectively. I want a clear-cut system that people can surrender their private information to. I can’t protect what is already out there, but I’m going to try to protect what I can,” he said. “This will be funded by a transaction fee. Authorization codes must be created, and all of the safeguards need to be in place to prevent access to information once it is in the system. That includes the government, the press, and terror organizations. I don’t want some bureaucrat downtown to be able to scan through my medical records and find out my blood type or prescriptions, look at pictures of me having sex with a particular woman, know who I vote for, or what my fears may reveal.”
    The senator’s mind was erupting with thoughts that came from years of frustration. It had all started in 2007, after a quantum shift began in the government propaganda machine. To answer complaints that government was invading the privacy of law-abiding Americans, a move began to change the definition of what privacy meant. The old meaning, the right to be left alone, free from prying eyes and ears, had surrendered to technology.
    The mass of information about anyone could be sifted and sorted to intrude into every aspect of life, and he had sworn an oath to uphold the Constitution, something he considered a sacred trust placed upon him by all Americans. he had no intention of keeping government from pursuing terror suspects and enemies of the United States, but the information to be disclosed would be a matter for the courts to decide on an individual basis. It was no longer possible to keep any information private if that information was transmitted electronically, and Senator Masterson had created the mechanism to become the gatekeeper of privacy, or as much of it as could be shielded from those who sought to invade it.
    The irony of it all was that once he had sold the concept to Congress and had used his clout to have Gatekeeper become law, he acquired a monopoly, and for privacy’s sake, it could not be undone. he amassed enormous wealth from the one cause that had defined his career. Now privacy meant any information an