How much privacy do we really have? Considering what can be
found on the internet, I’d say not a whole lot. Over the past three years, Hubs
and I have enjoyed watching “Person of Interest” about this guy who invented a
machine that can determine who is about to become a victim or perpetrator.
Fiction, right? The program shows the main characters watching closed circuit
television cameras all over the city. The characters, using those CCTV cameras, track down the person
then help the intended victim or bring the perp to justice. Satisfying ending
usually in forty-three minutes.
Remember how I mentioned my Amazon Prime accident? A rather
fortuitous accident, I have to say, since we (mainly, I) have been watching
movies and TV shows I never heard of. Like “The Last Enemy” from PBS
Contemporary. I watched it because I
like Benedict Cumberbatch (from “Sherlock” and Star Trek: Into Darkness). The five-part series deals with “total
information access” where everyone is watched everywhere, either through CCTV cameras (even in their homes), trackers sewn into clothing, or a rice-size pellet injected into a
person’s arm. Now that’s scary.
No, no, no, the developers claimed. It will be a wondrous aid.
If you’re in an accident, EMTs only need to scan your arm for your medical
info. No need to carry credit cards. Just wave your arm and the purchase is
yours. No need to carry keys. Another wave and you can open doors and start
your car. Toddlers or the elderly with dementia who wander off can always be found.
Real or fiction? Convenient or scary? Maybe conveniences can
turn scary. A car can be a convenience or a weapon that kills. Online banking
is convenient until a hacker steals our info.
My father was nearly paranoid about not wanting people,
especially the government, to know his business. Was he in a dangerous
profession? Hardly. He was a tool & die maker. The most dangerous thing he did was
get cut on steel chips from a lathe. But he was so afraid of the government
knowing anything about him, he wouldn’t let my sister fill out a financial aid request for college. In later years, I
wondered if he learned that paranoia from his father whose family came from
Eastern Europe in the 1880s, where the authorities could do almost anything to
anybody. Yet despite his fear of the government, Dad enlisted in the Army Air Force (where he had to reveal a whole lot of personal info) and fought in WWII to protect our country. Go figure.
Despite growing up with his attitude, I’ve never been that
afraid of the “government.” The outrage over them listening in on
cell phone conversations didn’t really faze me. So what if they want to listen
in while my grandkiddies sing “Happy Birthday” to me? Or my sister telling me
the latest family gossip? Come on. I’m not a threat to the security of our
country. And if listening in on phone conversations will help them stop
terrorist threats, that's great.
But what if what is supposed to be for our good gets perverted? For us fiction writers, this is fodder for exciting novels. Didn’t we all
read 1984 in school? Big Brother is watching. And what about movies like Enemy of the State and Minority Report? Well, “The Last Enemy”
made me rethink some of my previously-held concepts. I’ve never thought of
myself as a conspiracy nut, but maybe my dad had the right idea about privacy,
after all.
What do you think? Is true privacy an illusion?
