Continuous Surveillance Continuous Surveillance: Tomorrow's "Air" Traffic Control
by Jim Amrhein
Whiskey & Gunpowder
Baltimore, MD
December 2, 2005 Jim Amrhein examines exactly how close the United States is to being in a state of Continuous Surveillance. Greg's note: Here's Jim, dishing out another heaping plate of scorn to the privacy-impinging surveillants that surround us at all times. Below he details how certain cellular phones - through the seemingly helpful goal of tracking collective traffic patterns - could easily track an individual's movement. And people looked at me funny when I refused to get a cell phone for privacy reasons. I bristled enough when the unannounced cameras sprung up on my neighborhood street corners, coldly watching me and recording each step and peccadillo...But please read below - you'll see that some warnings may not ring so paranoiac...please send any opinions on Jim's essay to your watched managing editor here: greg@whiskeyandgunpowder.com Tomorrow's "Air" Traffic Control "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground."
-- Thomas Jefferson "Big Brother is watching you."
-- George Orwell, 1984
RECENTLY, I WAS at the rifle range, enjoying my freedom to shoot guns on a crisp fall day in America -- and doing a pretty fair job of punching snug clusters of holes in bull's-eyes a football field away, I might add. While taking a break to let the barrel of one of my rifles cool off, I noticed a man a few stations down the firing line whom I'd seen and talked to several times before, both at the range and at various gun shows and sportsmen's gatherings in the area.
He was taking a break, too, and we struck up a conversation. One rifle I had was a model that interested him, and he asked if he could take my number and ask me questions about it in the future, should he decide to buy one for himself... "Of course," I said, always eager to exchange information with another firearms enthusiast. At the end of our shooting session, we packed up and walked out together, and at our trucks, I pulled out my cell phone to take down the man's number. I thought it a bit odd that he didn't reach for his own (it hung right there on his belt) to punch in and save my number. Instead, he fished around in his truck for a pen and paper, and asked me to write it down for him. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~Special~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
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Of course, the Sun article maintains Cingular stipulated that no information about any customer of theirs would ever be released to anyone -- not even to cops bearing warrants. And likewise, the Delcan folks insist that their embedded software technology is not aimed at pinpointing individual signals, but at complex algorithms that combine multiple signals into a snapshot of average speeds through their many coverage zones... But it doesn't take a genius to figure out that somewhere in this technological muddle lies the capability to track individuals -- it must, for it's individual cell phone signals that are mathematically combined to provide the "rolling average" of speeds and routes used to measure traffic flow. According to the Sun piece, an attorney for at least one group of privacy advocates (the Electronic Frontier Foundation) claims this system unquestionably offers the surveillance infrastructure to do just that. Just because it isn't being used that way YET doesn't mean it won't be in the near future.
Above all, let's not forget that cell phones are RADIOS. And as such, they ultimately fall under the purview of the FCC. So believe me, if the feds want Delcan or Cingular or whoever to cough up data on an individual's travels badly enough, it has the power to force the issue, especially if the trend in law enforcement techniques continues on its present course. And if they want to listen in on your conversations, they could probably do that, too. Keep reading... Continuous Surveillance: Star of the Great American Reality TV Show: You I wouldn't be so worried about all this except for some of the news I've been hearing about government abuses of surveillance power in contemporary America. A few cases in point: - The government's issuance of special "national security letters" (in existence since the '70s) allowing for federal access to people's phone and e-mail records, Web usage, and financial data has skyrocketed 100-fold since the passage of the Patriot Act -- to a modern total of 30,000 per year. Under the Act, persons whose lives are scrutinized need no longer be under suspicion of a federal crime. This provision of the Patriot Act is permanent, unless struck down in federal court. (Source: Associated Press, Nov. 6, 2005)
- Heavily censored, incomplete records collected as part of a lawsuit to enforce the Freedom of Information Act reveal that the FBI engages in a startling amount of "domestic spying" on U.S. residents without proper oversight and with little accountability. These papers reveal extended surveillance periods on individuals of as long as 5 years in violation of Justice Department guidelines. At least 287 such violations were identified by the FBI itself between 2002-2004 in just 13 cases referred to the Intelligence Oversight Board. Imagine how many there are in the 1700 such cases opened in court last year alone. Remember, these are just the ones in which there's enough of a paper trail to make a case. (Source: The Washington Post, Oct. 24, 2005)
Now before you dismiss me as a paranoiac, let me just say this: I have no doubt that the immediate intent of this newest surveillance stunt is indeed to help better manage traffic flow at the local level. After all, it's in states' best interests (in some ways) to avoid building or expanding roads if they can merely place electronic signs every few miles in tricky traffic zones warning folks to circumvent an approaching slowdown... The problem is that cutting-edge technology rarely stays contained. GPS itself is a perfect example. Originally designed as a military-only tool for targeting and troop movement coordination, the system is now on boats, in cars, in hand-held navigation units and in cell phones. And once Big Brother figures out that the average citizen won't make a fuss about his or her cell phone being tracked (and most won't even know it's happening), that's one more way in which the government will be able to insinuate itself into your personal life -- and one more way in which you'll be living "on the record." It's not hard to imagine the ramifications, just hard to imagine it actually happening in the United States. Sign Up for Whiskey & Gunpowder
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So before you scoff at the notion of "continuous surveillance of everyone" as being impossible, consider this: 15 years ago, if I'd told you that there would be cameras instead of cops enforcing traffic law; that you'd be on screen at every cash machine and in every store at the mall; that when you went to the airport, your face was being scanned, computer-analyzed and recorded in some government monster-computer; that marketing companies would be able to access and analyze your online browsing tendencies and spending habits, and then target specific ads to you based on the information; or that your every trip was being tracked by your portable phone, would you have listened and believed?
Or would you have thought of me the way I thought of that man at the rifle range who wouldn't give me his phone number? Here's another way to look at this: I'm going on an overnight trip to Florida this week. On the way to the Baltimore/Washington International Airport, I'll drive through the camera-equipped stoplight near my house and a half dozen more just like it before I hit the highway. I'll drive under at least a dozen bridges on the Baltimore Beltway and I-95 south approaching the airport. If I have my cell phone on, some logarithm will have been keeping track of how fast I was going and what route I took to get to there. I'll enter the airport parking garage under security cameras. I'll walk through the lobby cameras, get snapped again at the cash machine, and finally scanned and photographed a dozen ways from Sunday at the security station before heading for the gate... I'll have been on 50 different cameras and been tracked every inch of my journey -- and I won't even have taken off yet. Still think I'm nuts to believe we're heading for a state of continuous surveillance? Not believing what they're seeing, Jim Amrhein
Contributing Editor,
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