The use of technology is both helping and hurting the collection of historical archives. The blog entry regarding the Library of Congress archiving every tweet while can be considered saving everything, seems a little excessive. There is a lot of information out there floating around the internet, to save it all for possible use in the future, doesn’t seem realistic. Let things go untouched. We don’t need to inscribe every tweet, blog post, status update, or forum thread in our books of history. Having said that, I do believe that there is a lot of good coming from the internet in terms of historical data. We are going to be able to have tons of information at our fingertips. Even in the world post 9/11, we are able to watch archived news footage on multiple web sites. There are millions of newsapaper articles, journals, and databases available on the internet that have all become part of our history.

I believe the wikileaks story was an unpleasant wake up call for anyone who posts anything on the internet. It was evidence that there really is no privacy online. If you post something, anyone can see it, and if they want to see it, they will see it. It is a generation where you can no longer hide evidence easily, where you can have a “take back”. There are no more take backs, once its out there, its out there. So be careful when posting even what you think may be harmless tweets, status updates, or blogs. Because its no longer just Big Brother who is watching you, its anyone with an internet connection.