Loss of Privacy

Photo taken by me at the American Museum of Natural History, December 2006.

Tokyo is about to go Minority Report. Starting next month, the Tokyo Ubiquitous Network Project will launch its services in Tokyo’s Ginza district, sending shoppers ads via its RFID networks.

Shoppers can either rent a prototype reader or get messages on their cell phones. The tags and transmitters identify a reader or phone’s location and match it to information provided by shops.

Along with this nifty way of shoving more ads down people’s throats, there are, yet again, calls of concerns about privacy.

Researchers, for instance, have suggested that a sensor designed by Nike Inc. and Apple Computer Inc. to keep track of running distances could also be used to track runners’ whereabouts — such as by installing readers along running paths.

Others worry that tags embedded in clothing could give a retailer valuable details on how long a consumer spends trying on sweaters.

While RFID has good uses, such as tracking pallets of merchandise in warehouses, modern day uses seem to go too far. Children are being tracked at schools, teaching them that it is okay to have their every move logged into a database somewhere. They no longer think it’s a big deal that their every move is being kept somewhere to be analyzed later. Many regular people balked at the idea of RFID tags, forcing companies to target the wealthy first, then children and, now, the public at large. When being tracked is ubiquitous to breathing, those that argued against RFID will be the minority and no longer count.

The Justice Department is increasing its database, OneDOJ, to allow state and local law enforcement from around the country to search millions of federal case files.  The files are from the DEA, FBI, and other federal agencies and currently hold a million records.  This number is projected to triple its size in the next three years.

The files include investigative reports, criminal-history information, details of offenses, and the names, addresses and other information of criminal suspects or targets, officials said.

The database is a welcome addition amongst law enforcement across the country as many officials have had problems with federal cooperation regarding criminal investigations.  It has been a pilot project in Seattle, San Diego, and a few other places for the last year and a half, with little attention being paid to it.  Deputy Attorney General Paul J. McNulty announced that the program is going to be accelerated with more effort to share open and closed cases.  He hopes that this will help to create and centrally controlled mechanism for law enforcement to share among each other.

Much information will be kept out of the system, including data about public corruption cases, classified or sensitive topics, confidential informants, administrative cases and civil rights probes involving allegations of wrongdoing by police, officials said.

If strictly controlled, this could be a huge help for law enforcement but there must be more testing and public debate before it is put into wide use.  Privacy advocates are also concerned because the contents of OneDOJ will give local law enforcement access to personal data about people who were never arrested or charged with crimes.

This will also lead to some, unscrupulous, law enforcement officials targeting people.  If you have a DUI conviction, what’s to say that you won’t be pulled over for speeding or a broken taillight under the guise of trying to catch you driving while drunk again.

What about the background check that is required for most jobs today?  With nearly everything you do listed in OneDOJ, how likely is it that you aren’t going to get a job because of that one screwup ten years ago or the fact that you witness a drive-by shooting?  What about those records that were supposed to be expunged or are inaccurate?  How is that going to affect you when it’s checked by potential employers?

Law enforcement agencies already have the ability to look for suspects in other state’s databases.  This has been happening for decades.  It’s called NCIC. While it is good to be able to search nationally, having the ability to track and search people who have never been arrested for a crime is an invasion of privacy.  Even if you have been a suspect in a crime, once you have been cleared, you should not be in any database.

This can, and most likely will, end up being a database that includes nearly all Americans.  All that needs to happen is that you are questioned at the scene of a crime and you will be entered into the database.  The police can suspect you one minute, then clear you the next.  But, it will be too late.  You will have already been placed into the database.  Anything you do after that will be added to your file.

What is going to happen to the state and local laws regarding data retention?  If State A destroys records after 5 years and State B destroys after 15 years, will State B simply be able to copy the data from State A and keep records around longer than they should be and then share them with states C, D, E, etc.?

What is going to happen to the accuracy of the database when a case in State A is copied by State B and, later, State A seals the case?  Will that automatically be copied over to State B or will the case just be left without its proper attachements and open to anyone with the right amount of money to see it?

You will no longer be able to clean up your life, move elsewhere, and start over.  Whatever mistakes you have made will follow you.  Your school teacher’s constant nagging that, “this will go in your permanent record,” will no longer be a joke.

If you continue to keep track of innocent people, you will eventually find them doing something wrong, thus making them a criminal.  It is inevitable that this will happen.  No one is perfect 100% of the time.  It’s impossible and that’s the way they want it.  We will first start with the undesirables, then move on to “protecting the children” and, by then, nearly everyone will be guilty of something.  To invoke Godwin’s Law, this is exactly what the Gestapo did and why it was so easy to implement without public outcry.

The Supreme Court of the United States has already declared that it is legal to accumulate data on American citizens when it suits them and release this data publicly in the name of safety.  These particular citizens are pedophiles and they have set precedent.  We also have a no-fly list that is accessible to only a few people.  If you are on the list, you cannot fly.

Americans wanted the allusion of safety and gave up their freedoms to satisfy themselves without thinking of the consequences.  Now, there is nothing they can do about it.  We have allowed freedom of speech, the 2nd amendment, habeas corpus, ex post facto, and the commerce clause to be corrupted and nearly eliminated so that we can pretend we are safer than we were pre-9/11.  It is our fault and the slippery slope is too slick to climb back up.

Our only hope is that the FBI and DOJ continue with their massive incompetence in regards to their IT department.  They have still failed to upgrade since 9/11 and don’t seem to be able to tell the difference from their ass to a hole in the ground.  Hopefully, this program will fail miserably as well and, for once,  we can praise government incompetence.  In the meantime, remember, you gave up your privacy by doing nothing.  I hope you enjoy everyone knowing everything you do.