TECHNOLOGY: FRIEND OR FOE?
By Karin Pekarcik Stand up for freedom or we just might end up without those rights we naturally took for granted.
By our nonattention and lackadaisical attitude we allow others to control our lives. One day (in the not too distant future) we may wake up and find that what we believed to be our rights have been taken away and denied to us while we were busy watching our televisions and worrying about making a living.
Does this sound too far-fetched?
Take a look at what technology has brought to our door (and there are new and exciting discoveries being launched every day):
· Closed circuit video cameras placed throughout banks, stores, and most public and private property
· Computers providing everything you ever wanted to know about anything or anyone (and what you didn't want to know)
· Internet access connecting the world in seconds
· Eavesdropping devices from sound to picture
· Dataveillance - Computers tying together unrelated databases of information for security, police, and government
· Credit cards - tracking each purchase we make
· Credit checks without us even knowing
· Computers programmed to monitor all aspects of our personal life
Does this sound like Twilight Zone? This is what we have become - a highly sophisticated technologically based society. But what is the cost we have paid and will pay in the future?
We have lost our individual privacy without most of us recognizing it. There is George Orwell's Big Brother watching us in living color from just about every corner of the world.
Computers are now running word recognition software and voice recognition software to monitor us from whatever phone we may use. And then there is mapping software now being used that shows a city map and the locations of who called who. And we thought our phone conversations were private! What about our personal and business e-mail and fax communications? How private are they? Recently I witnessed several instances of my personal e-mails showing up in someone else's hands (to be used in the legal arena).
In our neighborhood there is a new device installed on a street light. It monitors the speed of cars driving by, and if the car is traveling at a faster than allowed rate, the device takes a picture of the license plate of the car and sends the driver a surprise in the mail - a hefty ticket. This type of monitoring is also installed at all tollbooths along the highways.
Technology has brought us both positive and negative influences. It is all in how we handle these gifts that are given to us to help us lead better and more efficient lives. But as a result of all this technology we have been loosing every ounce of privacy that we once thought was our unalienable right.
How long are we going to ignore these warning signs of abuse on our personal and private lives?
Because we are one of the few questioning our rights and the lack of those rights, will we be the dissidents that are constantly being monitored with surveillance information being obtained for our eventual harassment and detainment?
Think this is outlandish? A nightmarish tale?
Think again. Observe what is happening in the news and behind the scenes. Watch how new laws are being born that affect our right to privacy. Who is in control of our lives now? The legislators? And who is behind the legislators?
Why are we willingly giving away our right to privacy to those who seek to monitor and control our every move? It's too easy to go with the flow and not question what we see happening. It's too easy to sit on our complacent couch of mediocrity and watch our mundane shows that fill our mind with nonsense.
Are we going to be among the living dead walking around in a daze of incoherency and uncaring? Or are we going to stand up for our rights and the rights of our children?
Take a stand for freedom before it is too late!