Suspects and Citizens

The White House has proposed easing restrictions on tracking those who visit federal Internet sights. While most restrictions on tracking visitors to those sights remain in place, the restrictions lifted can be reinstated if the government determines a "compelling interest" to do so. Who decides which interests are compelling? The government of course. The technology available to monitor the public has been improving for some time. It is claimed that it is in the interest of businesses to know who buys or uses their products and services, and where and how often those products and services are used or purchased. The reason given is that this tracking is helpful to businesses to better meet the needs and desires of the consumer. Cameras have been installed at intersections and along roads to monitor traffic flows and catch scofflaws; also for our benefit. Schools, airports, malls, federal buildings, and countless others, use cameras to monitor who enters, who leaves, and when. We are told this for our safety (and no doubt theirs as well.) Private companies monitor who uses the Internet, when they use the Internet, and which sites they visit. This is done for the benefit of the users, and of course, by web sites that want to know who visits their websites, how often and when and to make it easier to visit their site - often whether we want to or not. Unless one uses cash, tints his car windows (border line illegal), and obscures his licence plate(definitely illegal), does not use a phone or the Internet, does not enter shopping malls, public buildings, or travel further than they are willing to walk, someone is going to know what you are doing, where you are and have been, and, most likely, how and when you got there. In the future, that someone might just be the government.

Such monitoring usually has been ignored or tolerated, and in the cases where it is done to "protect us", embraced. Now, the federal government wants in on the action. The technologies developed by the private sector to "better serve" the public are proving irresistible to the government. We are told that this monitoring is increasing so the government can better serve and protect the public. But who knows what technologies will be available tomorrow, who will be using them, and for what purpose? I find cameras in airports and public buildings reasonable, but still irritating. I am troubled by cameras at intersections, and in public places. I am apprehensive about phone taps and tracking Internet use. I am downright scared of GPS monitoring chips and developing technologies that would allow police to see and hear through walls.

The police dramas where the criminal is caught because of a traffic camera, a credit card, or a phone call, serve the reinforce notion that tracking and monitoring are in the interests of public safety. Some people have already installed security cameras in private homes so as to better protect against child abusers, burglars, and thieves. Is it possible the government might take a cue from this? After all, isn't catching rapists, molesters, and terrorists more worthy of government surveillance than catching red light runners and scofflaws?

Who knows what security concerns in the future will be claimed to require surveillance? Who decides which people will be the targets of that surveillance? And who will decide which interests will be "compelling" and why? The government, of course. This is why the Constitution was written; because you cannot predict what the government will want or do tomorrow. Surveillance and monitoring were once restricted only to those suspected of committing or plotting a crime. Cameras do not, and cannot, distinguish between the innocent and the guilty. They watch everyone, all the time. Neither will software monitoring government sites distinguish between innocent and suspicious visits. It will track everyone who visits a site. Do they suppose only criminals and terrorists will visit those sites or enter public buildings? Apparently, we are all suspects. Now, where did I leave my tinfoil hat?