Safety or Privacy: New Technology Will Make Us Choose
Not content with regulating home-baked cookie sales, the federal government is now attempting to take upon itself the authority to monitor the various locations of the citizenry by using an individual’s cell phone as a tracking mechanism. As usual, the government is saying this power will help authorities track down bad guys — drug dealers, criminals, and the like. But there may yet be another reason, even if the government hasn’t realized it.
Researchers at Purdue University have been working on developing a technology that could detect nuclear radiation in cities and metropolitan areas. Theoretically, this technology would work most advantageously if it were placed in mobile phones. The government would therefore be able to use the cellular network as a “grid,” thereby tracing the location of a possible dirty bomb.
Before decrying the excesses of Big Brother, civil libertarians should give this concept some consideration. However legitimate one’s opposition to the “surveillance state,” the thinking person ought to concede three unassailable truths: 1) there are tens of thousands — perhaps hundreds of thousands — of individuals throughout this world who consider it a solemn religious obligation to destroy American cities; 2) these individuals are sincere in their warped convictions and determined to pursue their heinous objective; they cannot be deterred or dissuaded; 3) these individuals will soon have the atomic means to achieve their apocalyptic ends — likely within the decade, certainly within most of our lifetimes.
Martin Shubik, the Yale economist, liked to draw a curve of the number of civilians ten determined men could kill before they were killed themselves. Throughout history, the change in this number is sobering. Crassly put, as time goes on, fewer men have always been able to kill more people. Consequently, it is not fatalistic or paranoid to assume that we will likely one day witness ten men with ten suitcases attempt to vaporize ten of our cities. The intent is there. The technology is there, increasing exponentially. This isn’t a possibility. It’s a probability.
So at face value, Purdue University’s development of this technology is a good thing. “The likely targets of a potential terrorist attack would be big cities with concentrated populations, and a system like this would make it very difficult for someone to go undetected with a radiological dirty bomb in such an area,” said Andrew Longman, the consulting scientist who is helping develop the system. Longman goes on: “The more people are walking around with cell phones … the easier it would be to detect and catch the perpetrator. We are asking the public to push for this.”
No. Can’t trust them not to abuse their power.
If TPTB cannot be trusted, it does not matter what the laws say;
The safety of citizens lies in _transparency_ ,in knowing what the State
does with its power, not trying to limit it with laws.
There’s a serious problem here that privacy advocates — and while I’m sympathetic to their desires, I must contradict their premise — must cope with sooner or later. The problem is this: Who owns the airwaves?
A cell phone is a radiating device. It’s non-directional; if it were otherwise, the system as designed and engineered wouldn’t work. But to emit a non-directional unencrypted signal in the electromagnetic spectrum is the same as standing in a public place and shouting at the top of your lungs — and who would dare to claim a “right of privacy” over that?
The government cannot be enjoined from collecting such signals on privacy grounds. If you want privacy against that sort of data collection, avoid cell phones entirely. If you trust law as a reliable constraint on the government’s actions, get a Constitutional amendment passed against government data collection other than expressly authorized by law. (Good luck.) In the meanwhile, turn yours off when you’re not using it. (I don’t own one and never will.) And quit whining about the undesired side effect of a technology you wholeheartedly embraced without understanding its implications.
When Unisex bathrooms were introduced, one woman commented that she had expected
to be embarrassed (heh heh) by the loss of privacy, but once she was in the stall
she realized she was anonymous.
Current Phone/Card systems are reasonably anonymous; If someone wants to eliminate
all chance of being identified/tracked while engaged in risky business, it is
easy enough to build that capability into the handset hardware.
Gee I thought you were going to ask me a hard question. The answer is NO!
Neither cell phone, nor satellite tracking technology are static.
Both advance, change and improve aligned with an exponential curve somewhat parallel to the market’s associated growth and profits.
GPS capability embedded inside cell phones can easily be defeated or, worse yet modified. For instance a GPS enabled cell phone modified so that it will activate (switch something on or off) when the cell phone is physically at a certain location.
The entire process will be passive, meaning no detectable, traceable signals exist in a simple device that provides extremely accurate pin point bombing capability. With enough explosive power to wipe out 10 city blocks or chemical warfare ingredients to take out the entire city, just drop the less than 1/4th pound thing into the local U.S. Postal box, U-Haul or Federal Express system and wave goodbye.
The unassailable truths about terrorists are: 1. We know who they are. 2. We know where they are. 3. We either kill them in their sleep first or that is what they will do to us.
This little government run cell phone project has nothing to do with citizen’s safety or fighting terrorism. For an uninformed public it is something that promises virtually unlimited government control and monitoring.
End of story.
The end point of the curve is where one individual can destroy the planet;
Somewhere well before we reach that point we need to be sure that nobody
will want to, or have access to the means, or at the very least, cannot
get us all at once.
Alfred Bester, in ‘The Stars my Destination’ posited a society which
built its cities as a sort of array of egg cartons: A Tactical Nuke
explosion would be contained within, and directed upward by, the
hollow in which it went off; Not an optimal solution.
Why exactly do they need information on whose phone it is for this radiation detection? Phones could simply be designed to send out the information sans identification information. In fact, why does it even have to be a phone, why not just use the cell phone infrastructure and allow patriots to buy unidentifiable, untraceable detectors with a hardwired sim card that uses almost no energy. See, giving up our rights is not needed for the benefit, but statist people invariably always see the need to reduce liberty in order to provide a benefit.
Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Juvenal)
… …. …. Who will guard [us from] the guards.
Why cannot these hypothetical radiation detection devices be planted all over the city. To light poles, door ways, buses, taxis, trains, cross walks, coffee carts.
No need to involve the citizens cell phones.