#conspiracy theory tinhatters but also if youre marginalized (usually queer and white lets be honest) and handing over your entire ass

[wifihunters]

i like. i never try to be alarmist but it just kind of baffles me how many years I've tried having conversations about information sharing and how no, no one has "nothing to hide", no one has a life where they will never become a target of suspicion, some people just live lives that have never forced them to think about that fact and face it.

i can tell a traffic stop is just a possible fine to you. it is to me. i also could see on the cop's perplexed face when he pulled younger me over at 1am when leaving a late shift that from the moment he smelled fried corn and restaurant sweat wafting out the window rather than weed and found a pale kid in an apron and ball cap--yeah, he didn't stop me because i had a charm obscuring my rear view mirror. He stopped me because my car was old and cheap and left the lot at the same time as another old car. He stopped me because the hat and hairnet I forgot to take off didn't let him see my face first. He stopped me because he was rolling the dice he would find someone else. When he rushed through without realizing that i handed him my provisional, vertical license from 5 years back, I knew it wasn't me he wanted at all. But he still turned his lights on.

Eventually the lights will come on behind you. You were out late. You were sick and just trying to get to the medicine aisle, and when you passed an employee, they took your sore throat mumble and cloudy eyes as something else.

You took too long, looked too long, showed up at the wrong time, or said something that was too loud for Susan behind the counter. Combative, non-compliant, manipulative. You feel so distant from the homeless man laying down in the parking lot and blocking traffic until an ambulance finally answers his calls, but you are five steps from him and five miles from the cop who looks through the window at the scene and shrugs, knowing and companionable, at you.