Thumbprint purchasing a risk?

By William D. Zeranski

A vending machine company, no doubt in good faith, has come up with a great and convenient idea to make your life easier, simpler, especially when it comes to indulging that sweet tooth or quieting the hunger pang:

Your thumbprint might soon be the key to an afternoon candy bar. A Massachusetts based vending machine company is joinng the growing ranks of companies that are field-testing new technologies.

I am all for news ideas and innovations. I wish the Federal government would give it a try, but fingerprints could add a new dimension to identify theft, which is on the rise, and also includes the theft of children's SSNs.

Personal information is not sacred. The Internet swung wide the door open, and personal information is free flowing, from Facebook and other online community sites to internet fraud, which doubled in 2009 at a cost of $560 million.

Bearing in mind the ease of access to our personal information, let's consider the spidery web of government intrusion as it expands, wrapping its tendrils around your health records and deeper in to your banking activates, it could get even worse.

Michelle Obama and her campaign against so called childhood obesity could spread like any bureaucratic disease. Bacon has been a recent target of the FDA for salt content.

One day you may have a U.S. approved health official, after pouring over your personal records, come knocking at your door, and saying in a deep, dismal and uncompassionate voice, "We need to discuss your Twinkie account."