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Jewish World Review
Dec. 13, 2010/ 6 Teves, 5771
Tech-No!
By
Arnold Ahlert
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http://www.JewishWorldReview.com |
Last weekend a friend from out of town came to visit. I have known him for a few years, but our relationship had never gotten to the point where I had ever seen his family or been to his house. Now I am quite familiar with both, courtesy of his I-Phone. And while most people carry around pictures of one's family, his house was another story: in order to show it to me, he logged on to Google Earth and, in combination with the zoom capabilities of his phone, I was able to get a good picture of where he lived. He was thrilled to show it to me. I was decidedly less thrilled that he could.
Last August, it was reported that the town of Riverhead, NY was using Google Earth to locate backyard swimming pools which they cross-checked with permit applications to see if those pools had been built legally. They discovered 250 illegal pools and collected nearly $75,000 in fines. When I read that story I wondered how many people thinking they were sunbathing in private (perhaps nude) had no idea they were being spied upon by their local government. I wonder how many Americans don't realize that such images, once captured, could then be downloaded to the internet--for international consumption.
Far-fetched? The Wikileaks document dump is many things, but first and foremost it is an exposure of information that the purveyors of that information thought was private--exactly what the residents of Riverhead could have reasonably assumed about their own back yards. In both cases such assumptions were completely erroneous.
At airports, Americans' expectations of privacy are now officially irrelevant. One has a choice of a completely revealing body scan, or the groping of one's body by a TSA agent, as a condition for flying. Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) has announced he is putting together a new bill that would include up to a year in prison and fines of up to $100,000 for anyone caught reproducing the body scan images, which like images obtained from Google Earth, could easily be downloaded onto the web for public consumption. No doubt the irony that Mr. Schumer is attempting to criminalize an aspect of a problem created by government itself is lost on the Senator.
As for the scans themselves, al Qaeda is hard at work attempting to make them functionally obsolete. A jihadist online forum translated by experts at the SITE Intelligence Group reveals that terrorist bomb-makers and doctors are combining their talents with the hope of producing a surgically implanted--and completely undetectable--type of bomb composed of liquid explosives stitched into the abdominal cavity. TSA head John Pistole assured the public that TSA agents would not be doing body cavity searches because "you have to have some external device to cause that initiation," he said. "That's what the advanced imaging technology machine will pick up: any anomaly outside of the body" (italics mine.) Perhaps Mr. Pistole can't imagine a fuse being tucked into a certain body cavity or a fuseless device being detonated by a radio signal. One suspects al Qaeda operatives are far less myopic.
The common thread here is that privacy is becoming obsolete, and its demise can be directly traced to the advance of technology. Yet if it were simply the advance of technology and the public's acquiescence to it that were the problems, one might be less concerned where all of this is going.
Unfortunately, a substantial portion of the public is not merely acquiescent. There has been a generational transformation in the public's understanding of privacy. In short, older Americans value privacy. Younger Americans prefer exhibitionism.
That is a paradigm shift in our culture.
Perhaps such a shift was an accident waiting to happen. Yet the idea that millions of Americans spend inordinate amounts of time twittering, posting on Facebook and YouTube and other sites dedicated to Andy Warhol's idea that everyone wants their "15 minutes of fame" is evolving into far more than just a yearning to be noticed. A generation of younger Americans is getting quite comfortable with the idea that privacy has very little, if any, value. It is getting comfortable with the idea that there is virtually nowhere in the public arena where one can have any reasonable expectation that they are free from scrutiny.
And if the town of Riverhead, NY is indicative, the "public arena" now includes the outside of one's private property as well.
There is also something else I've noticed, though I'd be the first to admit such observation is strictly anecdotal. The ability to communicate without talking, or engaging in face-to-face interaction seems to be creating a generation of what might be charitably called socially dysfunctional individuals. That is an observation the friend mentioned above reinforced when he showed his I-phone to my wife and said, "my whole life is contained in that thing." No doubt he was exaggerating, yet that is the sense I also got at a recent dinner party I attended, where the entire conversation revolved around which of the latest phones had the best features.
Pardon me if I could care less.
Is there a line in the sand? If so, it might be temporary. The last generation of Americans who remember what it was like prior to the ubiquity of technological advances is heading toward their golden years. Those behind them will never know a world where the urgency of "being in touch" was superseded by the urge for "a little peace and quiet" at the end of a long hard day.
On the other hand, never underestimate the power of teenage rebellion. Perhaps some day in the not-too-distant future, when mom, dad, grandma and grandpa, are busy tweeting and texting away, the kids may decide the "new frontier" is a world away from the ubiquitous technology that fascinates their elders. And just to tweak the old folks, they might do something "radical" like running around outside--without bringing along their GPS tracking devices so their parents can't instantly locate them.
Am I a Luddite? This column was typed on a computer and emailed to my editor. But if you think you can reach me on my cell phone 24/7, think again. That little annoyance stays off unless I'm expecting someone to reach me, or I want to make an outgoing call. I have this quaint idea that my time is my own, and that includes getting away from technology as much as practically possible. That makes me a man woefully behind the times--or one on the cutting edge of a rebellion.
Here's hoping it's the latter.
Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.
Comment on JWR Contributor Arnold Ahlert's column, by clicking here.
Previously:
12/08/10: A Lethal Military, Inclusive or Not
12/06/10: The Unexpected Consequences of Progressivism
12/01/10: Leakers and Losers
11/29/10: We Won, Part One
11/22/10: Keep Your Hands Off My Constitution
11/17/10: Grope and Change
11/14/10: Taking Back Our Country, One School At a Time
11/11/10: Checks (and Balances), Please
11/08/10: Curtain Up, Progressives Down
11/04/10: Last Chance, Republicans
11/01/10: By Their Own Words Shall Ye Know Them
10/28/10: Progressive Determination to Undermine American Elections
10/25/10: Shock, but more importantly, action: De-Unionize Public Schools now
10/20/10: Multiculturalism? Check, Please
10/18/10: Healthcare: Alice in Wonderland vs. The Constitution
10/11/10: Vote for Restoring the Rule of Law in November
10/11/10: Dems: Running From Clarity
10/07/10: Hypersensitive Hogwash
10/04/10: Comprehensive Con Artists
09/29/10: Why Dems Are Going Down in November
09/27/10: The Unholiest of Unholy Alliances
09/22/10: Two Words for Republicans to Remember: I Won
09/20/10: Purging Me First Politicians
09/17/10: No More Lesser of Two Evils
09/15/10: Recovery Arms Race
09/13/10: Bigots in the Majority --- Again?
09/09/10: Giving Voters Something to Vote For
09/07/10: Irresponsible Dems, Incomprehensible Bills
09/02/10: War Weary Americans vs. Implacable Islamists
08/31/10: A Dream Debased
08/25/10: American Bigots Versus Media Propagandists
08/23/10: Recovery Bummer
08/19/10: An Unholy Alliance of Radicals
08/16/10: You've Lost America, Mr. President
08/13/10: The Twin Towers of Progressive Disconnect
08/11/10: A Far Better National Discussion
08/09/10: It's Only One Dead Nun
08/06/10: Incremental Tyranny
08/04/10: Ground Zero Mosque: Context Counts
08/02/10: The Arizona Ruling: a Gift for November
07/29/10: The United Cities of America
07/26/10: JournoList: Coordinated Ideological Bankruptcy
07/20/10: Go For Broke Or Get Out of the Way
07/14/10: You're a Liberal/Progressive if You Believe…
07/12/10: $33-an-hour--For Sleeping On the Job
07/08/10: Extortionist Government
07/06/10: Commerce Clause Totalitarians
07/01/10: Another Public School Travesty in MA
06/30/10: Calling YOUR Bluff, Mr. President
06/28/10: A Trifecta of Progressive Corruption
06/23/10: Plug the Darn Hole --- In Our Border
06/21/10: Our Empty-Suit-in-Chief
06/16/10: Betraying Our Children
06/14/10: Who Gets the Benefit of the Doubt?
06/07/10: Politically Correct Warfare
06/01/10: Bill Maher's Black President
05/25/10: A Mosque At Ground Zero
05/23/10: Libs Stand Tall --- For Mexico
05/19/10: The 'Unintended Consequences' of Liberalism
05/17/10: 'Los' Suns: Stuck on Stupido
05/12/10: Union Audacity: Yes We Will!
05/10/10: Greeks, Leaks and and Double-Speak
05/05/10: Twelve Million Illegals --- or Thirty?
05/02/10: Republicans: Playing Not to Lose Doesn't Cut It
04/28/10: Arizona: Progressivism's Waterloo?
04/26/10: Son of Amnesty
04/22/10: Mortgages and Moral Meltdowns
04/20/10: Bashing Christians Or Gays?
04/15/10: Personal Integri-tea
04/12/10: Fools, Tools and Ghouls
04/08/10: (Tea) Party On
04/05/10: The Triumph of Mediocrity
04/02/10: Two For the Road
03/29/10: The Innate Immorality of Liberalism
03/24/10: The Art of War
03/22/10: I Want My Country Back
03/18/10: A Perpetual Process
03/17/10: American Exhibitionists
03/15/10: A Light Bulb Moment of Clarity
03/10/10: Little Things Mean A Lot
02/03/10: Budgetary Fork in the Road
02/01/10: Liberal Economic Illiteracy
01/27/10: Roe-ing and Wade-ing Back to Reason
01/25/10: Arrogance When Up, Denial When Down
01/20/10: Connecting the Educational Dots
01/19/10: The Next Tea Party?
01/15/10: The Myth That Keeps on Giving
01/13/10: Airport Security Begins Away From the Airport
01/11/10: Secrets and Lies
01/08/10: Embracing Bigotry or Rejecting Bullying?
01/06/10: Hanging by an Ideological Thread
01/04/10: Our Wonderama Bureaucracy
12/30/09: A Day Off
12/28/09: Dangerous Myths
12/25/09: I, Me, Mine
12/23/09: A Very Harry Christmas
12/21/09: My Opinon
12/18/09: The Party of Repeal
12/15/09: Privileged Exemption
11/30/09: Settled Science and Unsettled Children
11/30/09: American Sharia Law
11/23/09:The Trial (Travesty) of the Century
11/04/09: American Vampires and Their Political Enablers
11/01/09: Opting Out of Insanity?
10/28/09: Cell Phones Cause Brain Cancer. Brain Required
10/26/09: Communism: Nazism With Better PR
10/21/09: Just Asking
10/16/09: Cost Projections vs. Actual Costs, or Hope and Change vs. Reality
10/14/09: News you can use …
10/07/09: Incremental Insidiousness
10/05/09: MIA: Common Sense and Common Decency
09/30/09: Iran: Bad Options and Unpreparedness
09/21/09: Crying Racism: the Last Refuge of Scoundrels
09/11/09: 9/11 Cannot Be Sanitized
09/08/09: Truthers and Consequences
09/01/09: A Paper Trail Challenge for the Mainstream Media
08/31/09: Drowning in Amorality
08/26/09: The Republican Recovery Program
© 2010, Arnold Ahlert
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