Privacy, police states, and the balance of power

One of the great things about writing a column like this is the readers who write in and add their two cents' worth. Even when I disagree with their take on the situation, it makes me go back and re-examine my own position, something that's always useful and worthwhile, whether or not I change my original position.

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This happened with the readers who took issue with my views on privacy and informed me that we are "fighting terrorists" and should be happy to surrender our privacy and freedom to that end. I suspect they have a lot of company, but it's a position that doesn't stand scrutiny. Although prudent measures are called for, there should be some proportionality between the freedoms surrendered and the possibility of their effectiveness. If the goal of terrorists is to destroy our way of life, then for us to willingly give up that way of life would seem to help the terrorists, rather than to combat them. We would achieve what they set out to do. These freedoms, once surrendered, will be hard to regain.

It would be similar to our finding out that the terrorists wanted to blow up a particular building. If we blew it up ourselves to prevent them from doing it, it would be hard to say that we had stopped them. We would have instead become their accomplices.

But not everyone disagrees with my view that technology brings new and much different dangers, and some readers who agreed brought up points that I hadn't thought of -- and wish I had.

One reader pointed out that installing video cameras on city streets is no different than placing police officers on every corner. Imagine for a moment that your city has done that, placed police on every corner. While walking down the street, you are regularly stopped and your ID is checked. Your picture is taken and you movements are recorded in a book. You are routinely checked against a large database of felons, scofflaws, parking ticket violators, and political "troublemakers."

This is what they call a "police state," and few of us would stand for it. But this is exactly the capability the increasingly popular surveillance cameras are creating. The proponents of these systems claim they are protecting us, but the availability of the technology increases the chance that someone can use it against us. Totalitarian regimes almost always cloak their assaults against freedom as protective measures. By the time the cat is out of the bag, it's too late to put it back.

The main danger here is the possibility of abuse. Those who try to defend surveillance cameras argue that we don't mind when we see them in banks or public buildings. And they're right; we don't. The reason is that they are protective, both of us and our money, and that consideration outweighs the slight intrusion into our privacy. More important, the possibility of abuse is also slight. I have little to fear from the fact that someone knows I was in the bank at 2 p.m. last Friday.

Tracking my movements on a city street is something else altogether. In the bank, I am there for a specific purpose and am aware of the surveillance. On city streets, I am merely living my life. Having that recorded and digitally stored infringes on my privacy and presents an opportunity for someone -- perhaps the police or rogue politicians -- to use seemingly innocuous information against me.

In talking about privacy I also compared it to the fact that a shopkeeper, perhaps in a small town, might know what we bought and when we came in. I argued that this was very different from the digital collection of information about my purchases and purchasing habits.

Some readers agreed and took the argument one step further. At least two suggested that one measure of protection in a small town is the "balance of power." The shopkeeper might know something about me, but I in turn probably know something about the shopkeeper. If we both keep our mouths shut, no one gets hurt.

In dealing with the conglomerates, however, there is no balance of power. These organizations know everything about me and I know nothing about them or the individuals involved in them. There is no countervailing force that keeps them from exploiting that information, or even making it public when they want, as there is in the relationship between me and the small town shopkeeper. In the case of the conglomerates, they are all-powerful and I am powerless.

Another factor, someone pointed out, is that the shopkeeper's ability to gather, maintain, and transfer information is extremely limited. People can take in only so much, remember only so many customers, and that memory is limited by time. After a while, the shopkeeper may forget what I ordered, unless it was something truly outstanding. The information is also hard to categorize and transfer to another person. The inefficiencies of doing that make it almost futile to try.

Computerized information gathering, on the other hand, has no such limitations. The computers are tireless, efficient, all-encompassing, and they never forget. They also facilitate putting the information into categories and passing it, in an extremely efficient and useful way, to other organizations.

Those of us who live or have lived in a small town know that we can escape -- either temporarily or permanently -- to gain some control over our privacy. So the local minister can slip into the nearest big town and keep the shopkeeper from knowing that he is buying gin or "adult" magazines. Those who bristle under the constant scrutiny can simply move, as many young people do, to the anonymity of the big city.

Computerized data gathering, however, allows no such escapes. Big Brother keeps track no matter where we go. Some people think they have the answer: pay cash. There will be no record -- unless, of course, those darn video surveillance cameras are there. The cameras will gladly record anything at which they're pointed.

But in the not-too-distant future paying cash might not provide the refuge many think it does. There was a story making the rounds a few months back about a new technology that allows for an embedded magnetic strip in paper currency. This will allow "the authorities" or whoever else is interested to follow a digital trail of where, when, and how the money is spent.

This will remove our last hideout, and we will have no hope of privacy at all. When this will happen is uncertain. But when it does, and it will, you can be sure it will be sold to us as a measure for our "protection."

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