The 4th Amendment protects citizens from search and seizure, and is usually the portion of the Constitution cited to protect privacy. However, because private companies don’t need a subpoena to record your voice or face… getting information from professional databrokers has become a loophole for law enforcement.

Topical further reading:

Text with bubbles are said aloud, text on purple is an unspoken thought. Additional author notes at the end.

December 15, 2019 — Talako and Frieda visit the city to meet her Psychic:

Click for the first comic, or for the comic before this one.

Words spoken out loud appear within white bubbles. The fainter white bubble in the second panel is meant to denote whispering, but is low contrast, so I’m including the full text of the dialog for the visually impaired.

Author notes at the end of the work.

It’s still December, 2019 —

Our awkward duo is rapidly approaching Frieda’s dormitory, and therefore, the end of their outing:

Talako: “A farmer’s market? How did — Did they just walk up and predict your future?”

Frieda: “Um, well, I was pretty stunned by how much they could see. Heh.”

Good intentions are useless until they’re expressed in appropriate action.

— Napoleon Hill, 1937

I think about this quote a lot while I scroll through Instagram.

So many of my friends are talking about gratitude these days. They have pictures of them in Thailand, grateful for past travel, they post selfies on the beach, #blessed.

Meanwhile, my friends in the Peace Corps, my friends who are nurses and doctors and up to their elbows in stress — they don’t post anymore.

And me? I’m somewhere in between, not exactly stocking up on Hepatitis vaccinations or antimalarials to spend years on sustainable agriculture in developing nations, but neither am I still able to #humblebrag in my posts as if Covid hasn’t changed anything. …