WHERE ART THOU? –
AND WHO NEEDS YOU ANYHOW?
By George Medina, Intercontinental Licensing
I was walking down a long crowded street— brought credit cards to the middle class and to lionth of a millimeter and can only be observed
maybe it was Broadway—or Oxford Street or many whose infrequent demands for credit had through a special electron microscope—can you
the Champs Elysees. Lots of pedestrians kept usually been met by their local banks. Retail- believe that this nano-Bible was subsequently
rushing by …. And what did I see? I saw me! ers formed into chains who issued credit cards photographed and the image expanded 10,000
There was only one thing wrong…everyone and discount cards. More and more new houses times to be put on display at the Technion?
was staring at me and pointing at me and then were constructed and purchased via mortgages. Wonders over wonders.
I went past a set of mirrors and noticed to my More and more business was done over large But let us return to our topic: PRIVACY and we
shock…I was totally and embarrassingly naked. distances and required the giving of credit to might add to the questions “how much?” Are
Bumps, warts and all! organizations you could not know personally. the boundaries of privacy needed, invaded, out-
No! dear reader…it was only a dream. But There was a need for Dunn and Bradstreet and moded?
what a scary dream…and then, just before I other credit reporting organizations that assidu- The collection of statistics described in the
woke up I saw Michelangelo’s “David” and he ously collected data and in turn sold that data to earlier part of this column was comparatively
had no bumps and no warts at all..and I liked their members. labor-intensive to assemble, store or exchange.
that even less! Mail order businesses flourished, catalogues Therefore it had natural limits.
Awake, I started to muse: had anyone counted that had started with the yearly telephone-sized We need to consider a basic philosophical syn-
the number of my warts and recorded them for Sears and Roebuck tome gave birth to hundreds drome as we delve further into this study: As
later use, maybe for easier identification in case I of glossy special interest mail order soliciting James B. Rule says in his written works, “such
passed out and by lying on the sidewalk became catalogues that became the bane of the post- data collection systems share a distinctive and
a public nuisance about which something had to mans’s existence but the lifeblood of the postal sociologically crucial quality, they do not only
be done! Or maybe for a statistic of seven-wart business’s volume. collect and record details of personal informa-
people like me – possibly they were more likely No one was particularly concerned about this tion…they are also organized to provide basis
to have tendencies to criminality than say, four- expansion and surfeit of information that was for action toward the people concerned. Sys-
wart people. Or might they be not as bright and cheerfully offered to most individuals who saw tematically harvested personal information, in
dedicated as the four-wart people, and might in the exchange of information a part of the other words, furnishes facts for institutions to
this work against me the next time that I would comfort, labor-saving devices, and enrichments determine what treatment to mete out to each
apply for a new job, or try to apply for a new of “modern living”. individual.”
credit card. Or, heaven forbid, a seven-warter He calls such operations practiced generally
was on the anti-terrorism list. AND NOW ENTERS TECHNOLOGI- “mass surveillance” because whereas it is a ran-
CAL CHANGE dom exercise, it creates after the fact, statistical
HOW DID IT ALL BEGIN Computers arrive on the scene, the internet or specific analysis that can give it selected and
Keeping track of burgeoning populations started is created and expands way past its inventor’s wished-for purpose.
hand in hand with increasing demands. Democ- modest dreams and humanity, almost unawares, There is no question that, as you can see at
racy helped individual citizens to make demands sails into an unchartered new world driven by many points of observation in everyday life, mass
on their local or national governments already systems increasingly guided, directed and de- surveillance is now a distinctive feature of our
late in the 19
th
century. If you wanted to have veloped by generations of a minority of techies times. Whether it is carried out by government
good schools, you needed to know how many who experiment and understand a plethora of agencies or private sector organizations, it helps
children of a certain age you might have to plan uses and techniques on behalf of the rest of us shape the ways we approach major institutions
for. The old church records of names, birth date, who vaguely only fathom the “what?” and only and importantly our treatment at their hands.
marriage and death dates gave way to ever more dimly perceive the “how”. We can also safely postulate that ease of as-
sophisticated record keeping. This was needed Each generation pushes ahead with breathtaking sembly of facts is a self fulfilling practice. The
for the administrating of old age pensions in speed, past its progenitors. Famously, our four faster and easier facts can be assembled, the
the USA. Especially immigration and passport year olds can maneuver computer simulations more enthusiastically will the practitioners of
requirements added needs. By the mid 20
th
cen- that their parents are still struggling to under- such systems continue to assemble and analyze
tury, again, social security programs and income stand! additional information. They will be anxious to
tax required more information. There was a I just read to my total astonishment that scien- use their investment and knowledge for further
need for drivers’ licenses and car registrations. tists at Haifa’s Technion-Israel Institute recently conquest of further detail. This is a natural ten-
The growth of medicine brought more medical inscribed the whole Hebrew text of the Bible dency of the expansion of knowledge whether
records. onto a silicone surface smaller than a crystal in space exploration or genetic studies. This is
The consumption economy expanded and of sugar. A nanometer itself is equal to one mil- how our ancestors discovered the wheel and
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