Does BATF check on black powder purchasers ?

[user 34300]

Ain't got any, and you can turn them off.

That may not stop them. Your TV may be watching and listening, even when off. To stop it you need to unplug it and the router. The CIA got caught developing software to do this.

https://patch.com/us/across-america/smart-tvs-may-be-watching-listening-your-home-fbi-warns
The NSA is collecting all the cyber data they can . For instance you cell phone call are recorded and stored. They have a huge facility doing it in Utah. Utah Data Center - Wikipedia

 

[doubleset]

If you mean by "they" the U. S. government then they are a bunch of bumbling amateurs compaired with what Goggle knows about you right now.

While I am not an alarmist about this, or (normally) a conspiracy theorist, this ^^ is in fact true. I spent over 20 years developing AI methodologies and systems for some of the large pharmaceutical companies (to aid in drug discovery and and discovery of adverse events of drugs in large populations), and so I know how a lot of the "data mining," "text mining," and "knowledge engineering" and "knowledge discovery in data bases" works (and have the publications to prove it ). My title in one job was "Associate Director of Knowledge Engineering". But I remain astonished at how much a lot of companies (some I've never heard of) know about me in terms of what I buy and the subjects I'm "interested in". I know how it's done, but I'm still startled by it when I see it appear on my web pages and in emails. From one perspective, I love to see the value it produces in helping people in a variety of ways. From another, it just seems intrusive and irritating -- and potentially dangerous because at the moment it's like a tool (or a gun) that can be used either for good or ill. Balancing those is the trick. People should re-read Asimov's I, Robot -- because it's almost here. It's just that most of the "robots" we use now don't have bodies -- yet.

The government isn't a bumbling bunch of amateurs -- at least not all of it is. But sometimes it's good for them to seem like they are.

I do get amused when Alexa (which we use for practically nothing except the music my wife wants to hear) hears something in the background and starts to ramble on about her "take" on it. Or when it hears something on the Amazon TV and actually gets involved in some sort of weird conversation with itself. And that's with a dumb AI.