John Whitehead's Commentary
The Electronic Concentration Camp: Chips, Satellites and Databases
"Government by clubs and firing squads is not merely inhumane (nobody much cares about that nowadays); it is demonstrably inefficient--and in an age of advanced technology, inefficiency is the sin against the Holy Ghost."
--Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Caught up in a web of fear, the American people are nervous about terrorism, terrified of crime, leery of foreigners and suspicious of their neighbors. In fact, Americans have become almost paralyzed by fears both imagined and real.
As sociologist Barry Glassner points out in his book The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, Americans often "compound our worries beyond all reason," overreacting to the slightest concern. "[H]igh levels of fear and anxiety also create unfortunate social conditions, like people being more willing to give up civil liberties, like people not participating in the life of their community and political institutions and so forth."
It is within the context of this culture of fear that we must view America's current love affair with law enforcement. Alarmed by the government's vague warnings about terrorist attacks that could take any form, at any time, anywhere, many Americans have willingly embraced the questionable security provided by the police, exhibiting an amiable tolerance for intrusions into their private lives.
Thus, there is little public outcry when surveillance cameras, enhanced with face recognition technology, are used to monitor movements on public streets. Even the private sector's efforts to compile vast amounts of personal information for marketing and sales purposes--increasing the risk of highly confidential data winding up in the wrong hands--have raised few objections.
Indeed, from government watch lists to secret wiretaps, Americans, especially since 9/11, are increasingly and willingly becoming targets of government surveillance. For example, under the guise of aiding in the search for terrorists, the Pentagon's Total Awareness Program was designed to collect a person's financial, medical, communication and travel records in a massive database. Yet the definition of a suspected terrorist under the infamous USA Patriot Act is so broad that it can include anyone, even American citizens.
The technological apparatuses of the police--local, state and federal (including intelligence agencies)--are not being applied exclusively to criminals. Innocent, law-abiding citizens are being watched, photographed and catalogued in government files. The logic is deviously simple: to be sure of apprehending the criminal minority, it is necessary that the law-abiding majority be supervised. In this way, every citizen would eventually be thoroughly known to the police and would live under conditions of discreet surveillance. As Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU has said, "Many people still do not grasp that Big Brother surveillance is no longer the stuff of books and movies."
If the ends justify the means, then the proffered rationale for this super-surveillance--this use of technology to create an electronic concentration camp--is to anticipate and forestall crime. However, unlike the torturous methods of the Nazi regime, there will be no overt suffering associated with this national/international concentration camp in the world of the near-future. In this world, the police exist only to protect "good" citizens.
Such protection will require that the police track the movements of all citizens with the use of computers and electronic devices. Low-cost microchips are currently available and can be engrafted under the skin (some test humans have already had this done), planted in wristwatches or even on the clothes you buy (a technique presently being used by many clothing retailers). Pinpoint computer chips and tiny antennae--less than the size of an ant's head--are also being used to track inventory and prevent theft of items like razorblades and medicine in grocery stores and pharmacies. Within two decades, the miniscule transmitters are expected to replace the familiar barcodes.
These chips can also act as homing devices to locate you anywhere, at any time, through a multitude of special sensors or by satellite. Called radio frequency identification, this technology will eventually allow whoever is in control to access all the information contained on a chip, including its exact location, even from great distances.
As the specter of an electronic concentration camp takes on an all-too-real form, those who hope to disappear--to blend into their surroundings and become unnoticeable--will find it has become an almost impossible feat. Supporters of these surveillance systems suggest that only individuals who are "up to no good" would object to having their whereabouts known at all times. Others insist it is simply the price we pay for the luxury of progress--or that's what we will be told by the media and our government.
Protests and campaigns against electronic surveillance have, in some quarters, been quite strong. Given the willingness of the populace to buy the argument that such intrusions into our private lives are necessary to combat crime or the ever-present threat of terrorist attacks, life in the electronic concentration camp seems inevitable.
If we are to slow the process and maintain our privacy and rights, it will require an aggressive vigilance that protests invasive technologies at every turn and pressures our governmental representatives for protective legislation. And as Glassner contends, rather than becoming a nation of fear, we might do better to confine our worries to the things that are truly amiss in our society: inequality, poverty and racism.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
--Aldous Huxley, Brave New World
Caught up in a web of fear, the American people are nervous about terrorism, terrified of crime, leery of foreigners and suspicious of their neighbors. In fact, Americans have become almost paralyzed by fears both imagined and real.
As sociologist Barry Glassner points out in his book The Culture of Fear: Why Americans Are Afraid of the Wrong Things, Americans often "compound our worries beyond all reason," overreacting to the slightest concern. "[H]igh levels of fear and anxiety also create unfortunate social conditions, like people being more willing to give up civil liberties, like people not participating in the life of their community and political institutions and so forth."
It is within the context of this culture of fear that we must view America's current love affair with law enforcement. Alarmed by the government's vague warnings about terrorist attacks that could take any form, at any time, anywhere, many Americans have willingly embraced the questionable security provided by the police, exhibiting an amiable tolerance for intrusions into their private lives.
Thus, there is little public outcry when surveillance cameras, enhanced with face recognition technology, are used to monitor movements on public streets. Even the private sector's efforts to compile vast amounts of personal information for marketing and sales purposes--increasing the risk of highly confidential data winding up in the wrong hands--have raised few objections.
Indeed, from government watch lists to secret wiretaps, Americans, especially since 9/11, are increasingly and willingly becoming targets of government surveillance. For example, under the guise of aiding in the search for terrorists, the Pentagon's Total Awareness Program was designed to collect a person's financial, medical, communication and travel records in a massive database. Yet the definition of a suspected terrorist under the infamous USA Patriot Act is so broad that it can include anyone, even American citizens.
The technological apparatuses of the police--local, state and federal (including intelligence agencies)--are not being applied exclusively to criminals. Innocent, law-abiding citizens are being watched, photographed and catalogued in government files. The logic is deviously simple: to be sure of apprehending the criminal minority, it is necessary that the law-abiding majority be supervised. In this way, every citizen would eventually be thoroughly known to the police and would live under conditions of discreet surveillance. As Barry Steinhardt of the ACLU has said, "Many people still do not grasp that Big Brother surveillance is no longer the stuff of books and movies."
If the ends justify the means, then the proffered rationale for this super-surveillance--this use of technology to create an electronic concentration camp--is to anticipate and forestall crime. However, unlike the torturous methods of the Nazi regime, there will be no overt suffering associated with this national/international concentration camp in the world of the near-future. In this world, the police exist only to protect "good" citizens.
Such protection will require that the police track the movements of all citizens with the use of computers and electronic devices. Low-cost microchips are currently available and can be engrafted under the skin (some test humans have already had this done), planted in wristwatches or even on the clothes you buy (a technique presently being used by many clothing retailers). Pinpoint computer chips and tiny antennae--less than the size of an ant's head--are also being used to track inventory and prevent theft of items like razorblades and medicine in grocery stores and pharmacies. Within two decades, the miniscule transmitters are expected to replace the familiar barcodes.
These chips can also act as homing devices to locate you anywhere, at any time, through a multitude of special sensors or by satellite. Called radio frequency identification, this technology will eventually allow whoever is in control to access all the information contained on a chip, including its exact location, even from great distances.
As the specter of an electronic concentration camp takes on an all-too-real form, those who hope to disappear--to blend into their surroundings and become unnoticeable--will find it has become an almost impossible feat. Supporters of these surveillance systems suggest that only individuals who are "up to no good" would object to having their whereabouts known at all times. Others insist it is simply the price we pay for the luxury of progress--or that's what we will be told by the media and our government.
Protests and campaigns against electronic surveillance have, in some quarters, been quite strong. Given the willingness of the populace to buy the argument that such intrusions into our private lives are necessary to combat crime or the ever-present threat of terrorist attacks, life in the electronic concentration camp seems inevitable.
If we are to slow the process and maintain our privacy and rights, it will require an aggressive vigilance that protests invasive technologies at every turn and pressures our governmental representatives for protective legislation. And as Glassner contends, rather than becoming a nation of fear, we might do better to confine our worries to the things that are truly amiss in our society: inequality, poverty and racism.
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He can be contacted at johnw@rutherford.org.
ABOUT JOHN W. WHITEHEAD
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. His most recent books are the best-selling Battlefield America: The War on the American People, the award-winning A Government of Wolves: The Emerging American Police State, and a debut dystopian fiction novel, The Erik Blair Diaries. Whitehead can be contacted at staff@rutherford.org. Nisha Whitehead is the Executive Director of The Rutherford Institute. Information about The Rutherford Institute is available at www.rutherford.org.
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