In this modern age of technology and surveillance, freedom of speech and privacy rights are becoming more and more scarce, as everywhere we go, we see video cameras in our shopping malls, intersections, sidewalks, and on public transit, policing agencies can get access to our locations through our cellular telephone providers and GPS units in our vehicles, and marketing firms can track our spending habits through credit card purchases.

On the Internet, we can be identified by our email addresses, registration information on forums, blogs, and chat rooms, and our IP addresses provide a direct link to our locations through service providers and other obvious methods. Gone are the days where you can speak your mind anonymously, without fear of reprisal.

Now I'm not one to keep my mouth shut or worry about who knows what I said or why I said it. I get regular emails from people complaining about being offended at one thing or another, and I own up to what I write, for the most part. But there are times when I would like to rant and rave about this or that without having it come back and bite me in the ass, unless I'm asking for a nice sound biting.

But I came across an interesting website called SoulCast, one of those free blogs like Myspace, Xanga, LiveJournal, etc., that states that you can post anonymously, and freely speak (write) your mind without compromise. Now I can imagine this is a good thing for privacy rights, and as long as you're not posting hateful material, it's nice to be able to post something without someone targeting you because of who you are, where you're from, who you voted for, and the usual "colour of my skin" categorizations.

It used to be that you could post almost anything you wanted on the Internet anonymously, and although a lot of it was considered cowardly or puerile, at least you had the comfort of knowing you could write what you wanted...within reason. Now, those days are probably gone forever, but maybe more sites like SoulCast will appear that won't track you down for writing what's on your mind.