A Dogwalk Look Into The Future

A while back a reader, who works for a government agency, told me to be careful.  I was being watched.  For what? This blog? I find that hard to believe.

However, with the recent news, which really isn't "news", of phone record surveillance and now computer content oversight, I guess maybe I am.  Not the way the pundits were worrying themselves over on all the shows last evening.  Governmental data mining isn't looking for me personally, but rather whether or not the patterns of my activity might indicate I am a terror threat.

I doubt it.  I'm just an aging malcontent that is having trouble adjusting to a changing country.  Heck, every time I turn on my computer the information from the time  I sign on to the sites I visit go into someones data bank.  Why is everyone so surprised the government is doing it?  Are we more afraid of our government knowing as much about us as Google or Facebook?  I'll leave that as a question.

I will suggest this is nothing new.  It just gets massaged different ways depending what they want to know.  Since the President has told us the war on terror is no more, it's curious why this continues, but then we know the truth about that war, now don't we.

So what's down the road?  My crystal ball shows me something like the identity chip that was in my dog.  I expect before the next generation gets to be my age, similar chips will be placed in all of us at birth with the history of every preceding relative of the new born embedded in it.  "They" will be able to track every move we make from that point until death.  Unless we figure out how to disable it but there will be technology to prevent that from happening.  Just think what fun hackers will have when they figure out how to alter those chips to make us all electronic age Manchurian candidates.

Before that I wouldn't be surprised to see the national identity card become a reality.  After all the government already has access to the information we so fear them getting. Okay, if they make those cards a national driver's license I'd not mind.

I understand and don't disagree with a certain amount of flexibility to search data for patterns that might lead to a national security risk.  The problem is any such activity is open to abuse which is why it's making headlines now.  When we're told the government is so large and unwieldy at this point that the President can't possibly know what's going on I wonder why we need him?

Obviously we can't depend on our government officials - either hired, elected or appointed to act responsibly.  That being the case it seems a pretty good arguement for shrinking government back to a size of which the President can keep track.

Unfortunately that idea isn't appearing in my crystal ball no matter which party is controlling the computers.  I wonder what are adversaries are doing with their electronic skills. Are they ahead of us or behind us?  If they have their secret organizations and courts and permissions like or better than ours I wonder if they can make us switch our mind set?  Nah.  That won't come until the chips do.

Carrying Security Efficiency Too Far

I rarely carry a topic over to a second post but after writing yesterday's about the lack of privacy due to over zealous camera surveillance, I had to chuckle about the TSA firing five and suspending scores more for not properly screening passengers in a Florida airport.

Supplemental screenings were not performed on 300 to 400 passengers during a time in 2011.  It makes me wonder if those passengers got through and nothing happened on any of their flights if we're not being told something no matter how subtle.  All the screening isn't necessary!  Just multiply it out to all the airports and how many more passengers may have been spared the hassle if other agents, too, had been lax.
 
On the other hand, maybe the wrong people are being screened!  Forget sending the drones to focus on the sanitary habits of cattle, just focus the cameras on the TSA workers!  Okay, the diatribe on the cattle was meant to be tongue in cheek playing on the mental image of cows being spied upon.

The TSA worker issue is another matter.  Quite often there are tidbits in the news about people having items stolen from their checked luggage, but when your carry on luggage completely disappears while you are being scanned it's quite another.

A writer for The Financial Times lost her luggage between the time she put it on the belt at JFK and the time she exited the body scanner. A search of the area turned up nothing except the irritation level of security personnel.  Certainly the cameras would show what happened to it.  But no.  Cameras are only placed where they can see you place your luggage on the belt.  There are none on the other side of the x-ray machine so if you're off being scanned it can disappear without a second glance. The article didn't say, but I'd like to know if this is the case because it's less expensive and more efficient to have only one camera?

It also made me laugh because this is a government entity that is proving to be extremely expensive considering the return on our money.  More passengers have been robbed by TSA employees than terrorists caught.

I'd suggest sticking with the drones and the cattle but what if some errant drone operator decided to take out a poor cow because it was defecating too close to a water source?  Of course they are highly trained and professional at what they do, but cattle aren't like people.  They can be herded, but they are not sheep!

Privacy No Longer Exists

A headline caught my eye today.  It would seem the EPA is now using drones to spy on farmers in Iowa and Nebraska.  Though they don't have the authority they are doing so anyway as a cost efficient way of keeping their eye on water quality in regions where cattle are raised.

The poor cattle!  They've been getting a bad rap for years because what exits their bodies is deemed bad for us.  So bad the government has to use drones to keep an eye on their wanderings?  Do drones also test the ground water?  If not there goes your efficiency.

I started wondering about what else they keep an eye on while coming from where ever they come from and returning.  The farmers themselves?  I wonder how many one finger salutes they pick up.

Actually, none of us seem to be free from surveillance.  Cities have cameras mounted on buildings, businesses do too. Stop signs are watched.  Our phones have them. Just ask a politician who has been caught in a compromising situation by a cell phone camera. Our pads and computers have them. My computer has one looking at me though I never use it.  Can it be triggered remotely?  I hope not. I don't photograph well.  We can't go through airports without having our nakedness scanned.  There are high altitude spy planes and satellites that can detect a quarter in your hip pocket.

Police have them on their dashboards and on their uniforms.  You can get pens that have them and place it in a shirt pocket and no one knows the difference.   They're everywhere.  Facebook has come under fire for it's privacy practices.  At least they have some if you're inclined to dig deep enough.  Of course they're betting you won't and you probably don't.

Maybe it's just me, but as long as it's my computer or a friend's cell phone I consider it an annoyance at times, but when the government has free reign with spy in the sky technology I get uneasy.  Not that I have anything to be afraid of other than embarrassing myself, but still.  The thought that I can go out in my yard and have every move recorded without my even knowing it seems an appalling invasion of privacy.  At least it would be if there were such a thing. Privacy.

These Guys Are Scary!

Where have I been?  Our favorite companions for wine tasting had a few free days so we got together in Chelan to try the juice of the fruit.  More on that later.

From there we headed for Seattle then on to Canada to meet our friend the gallery owner to pick up a piece of art.  We had agreed to meet in Delta which is a small burg south of Vancouver.

Crossing the border is not our favorite activity, especially coming home.  I guess they resent the fact that we might have spent money in Canada rather than here or some such.  Who knows.

One thing we never expected, however, was to be stopped on our side of the border by our security people on our way to Canada!  As we approached the Peace Arch we saw the road was barricaded and a half dozen men with automatic rifles and flak jackets were stopping each car.  The two in front of us were waved through.  We were not.  We were driving our van.  What the...?

As one grilled Hub the others were busy checking out the vehicle including "patting down" the sides.  The security officer, from Customs and Border Security according to their caps, was especially interested in how much cash we had with us.  It seemed odd in this day of credit cards.  Hmmm.  He had trouble with the intent of our trip.  To meet the owner of a gallery from Port McNeill and pick up a totem pole.  Would it fit in the van?  Yes.  It is a small one - 5 feet or so.  Did we commission it?  No.  We just saw it and liked it and bought it.    We had been looking for one for quite awhile.  Did we have a place for it on our property?  It's going in our great room.  And so it went.

We got a similar grilling on the way home.  Curious.  Who could possibly have manufactured a tale about picking up a totem pole?

We asked our friend if he had any idea what it was all about.  It seems that one thing it could be is that since the Canadian dollar is now stronger than ours, they're coming to the states to shop.  While at the big malls smugglers hide drugs in or on their vehicles.  When they leave the smugglers follow them.  If they get caught, the smugglers get off scott free while some unsuspecting shopper is subjected to the drill or worse.  If they aren't caught the smugglers follow them to their destination, retrieve the drugs and go on their way.

Pretty neat, eh?  The only problem with that theory and what we went through is that they seek out cars with B.C. plates.  Ours, obviously, are not and who knows where our destination might have been!

'Tis a puzzlement.  What were the CBP agents looking for?  A couple of elderly gray hairs on an outing?  If we fit some type of profile, I'd sure like to know what the heck it is!