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One is hard-pressed these days to know whether to cheer or cry when contemplating the prospects for freedom. It is easy to over-generalize from specific incidents of repression or badly conceived laws and conclude the world is going to hell in a hand-basket. On the other hand, people too readily adapt to incremental losses in liberty such as the spread of social security numbers linked to massive government data bases. (The old "frog in a pot" analogy.) Citizens may wake up one day facing a tyrannical state and wonder how such a disaster could overtake them. (Consider the situation in Germany a few years before the rise of the Nazi Party or Russia prior to the Bolshevik Revolution.) "It can't happen here" can too easily become famous last words.
Regulations and nanny laws proliferate during each new legislative session on both state and federal levels. Any politicians who resist the creation of a greater number of restrictions upon the populace are labeled "obstructionist" or "do-nothing."
More and more people express willingness to violate the constitutional precepts inherent in the founding of this nation. Barely half of respondents in a recent poll support the Constitution as it is. Some do so for positive reasons (e.g., believing the Constitution grants government too much power). Others would be happy to alter the highest legal document in our country because it still minimally interferes with their program of social engineering.
The First Amendment? A frighteningly large number of individuals would limit the press's freedom because its members possess too much "power." Others would outlaw "hurtful" language or ban information on questionable activities such as bomb construction. Such monitors of public sensibilities conveniently forget (if they ever knew) that popular speech needs no protection. They also are blissfully unaware that everyone is a minority in one area or another. Would-be censors blindly assume that they and their cronies will be the ones in control and making the decisions; a dubious presumption.
As for the Second Amendment... "Reasonable" gun control (aka, person control and victim disarmament) garners support despite the fact that the amendment says that there shall be no infringement on one's right to own and carry weapons. Such "reasonable" people must operate from a very idiosyncratic definition of "infringement." The only state not requiring permits or licenses to carry handguns is Vermont. Try slapping a pistol on your hip in plain view of others in any state and see what happens... Carrying mace, knives, stun guns, razors -- let alone automatic weapons -- may also land you in jail. Many opponents of this amendment would revoke it entirely.
Some people support government redistribution of income (which too frequently flows -- not from the rich to the poor -- but from the poor to the rich, e.g., cigarette taxes or agricultural subsidies). Even though such greedy folks may recognize that the federal government generally ignores the Constitution, they do not view that astounding development with alarm. The boundaries on what the State can do are tenuous, at best, and are normally stretched to near invisibility. The politicos enjoy virtual carte blanche in their activities, conveniently ignoring even their own laws.
Such examples barely scratch the surface of areas subject to a tightening of the noose around our collective necks.
The area where the tension between freedom and slavery is most clearly delineated these days is in the field of technology and, more specifically, computer technology.
On the downside, we have nightmares like our government's "Carnivore" and "Echelon" systems. Couched in the benevolent language of protecting us from criminals and terrorists, these technologies are capable of automatically monitoring our email, phone calls, and cell phone communication. Homing in on whatever keywords are of interest, these computerized snoops can sift through massive volumes of information that would have thwarted government operatives in earlier eras. Despite pro forma adherence to the Fourth Amendment, precious little oversight is present as the FBI or other, more shadowy agents dip their noses into the electronic data streams.
With the de facto creation of a national identification card, the stakes ratchet even higher. (Don't be deluded by any nominal defeat of a direct national ID card; we have already been stamped and delivered. Try getting a job without a social security number...) While the State prattles on about commercial threats to our privacy, it conveniently exempts itself from any protections we might otherwise enjoy.
Banks rat us out to the State if we deposit or withdraw too much money. Our incomes are tracked and matched with lists of parents delinquent on child support payments (regardless of whether you have children). Soon, our medical records may tie into this increasingly dense web. Personal profiles of our likes, dislikes, hobbies, and employment; statistical portraits of our credit or "smart" card purchases, our travels about the country, our international visits (via our passports); and analysis of what groups we belong to are all potential grist for the government's mills. (And they do mean to grind us finely.)
Omnipresent surveillance cameras continue to sprout across the landscape. In Great Britain, they are ubiquitous and linked to face recognition software that can single you out for intensified scrutiny, disguise or no. Some in law enforcement in the U.S. would delight in such tightly woven nets.
The capability exists or soon will to follow the movements of our vehicles and to pinpoint the location of our cell phone calls. DNA data bases are burgeoning in the land of Locke. Innocent, charged, or convicted of a crime makes no difference. The trend is likely to expand across the Atlantic to our own shores. In the name of fighting crime, we may all have our genetic identity catalogued and filed away for future fishing expeditions.
Even more horrifying are injectable computer chips that can be traced via global positioning satellites. They even obviate the need for separate ID cards (or tattooed bar codes?). Every time you pass through a doorway, a scanner will be able to log your identity. Incredibly, there are some who welcome such a "convenience." They would subject themselves to the State's microscope in order to avoid the "hassles" of carrying a plastic card, memorizing a PIN number, or bothering with fingerprint or retinal identification systems.
Fearing the intertwining of these technological developments may smack of paranoia to some. It is safe to say, however, that these inventions and applications are mere foreshadowing of future avenues for control of citizens. How the widespread adoption of these and other techniques will affect our privacy, freedom, and culture is difficult to predict.
Opposing these depressing trends is the creation of strong computer encryption available to the average citizen. The more transparent the use of this type of encryption becomes, the more likely individuals will be to routinely encrypt their files, emails, and hard drives.
Already the Internet provides sites permitting anonymous surfing and email exchange. Secure phones priced without the reach of consumers are making their way to market. The diffuse nature of Internet connections makes it nearly impossible for governments to clamp down on controversial sites or information they deem inappropriate or dangerous. For each site censored, others quickly spring up, often in foreign countries free of oppressive jurisdictions.
Publishing is no longer the province of physical presses and delimited by narrow distribution networks. Individuals can place their contrary ideas into cyberspace for international audiences to find and peruse. Desktop and on-demand publishing bring the tools of information dissemination within the reach of nearly anyone; democratizing the process, if you will.
In an information economy, companies can readily shift their operations and money out of countries attempting to restrict their actions too greatly. Off-shore or island havens offer avenues for freedom-loving folk to escape excessive taxes or intrusive banking rules. Digital money has the capacity to free us from the watchful eyes of Big Brother when we shop at home or away.
Further advances in technology will open up other ways to subvert the system or to slip through the grasping fingers of the State.
These opposing trends will one day collide in a struggle for the fate of our freedom and privacy. Which current will win out? No one can legitimately say. Probably neither tendency will emerge completely victorious. The continual "struggle for freedom" discussed by Jefferson and others will not disappear in the foreseeable future. There will always be those eager to clamp down on others for a variety of reasons: good intentions; power; money; ego. There will also always exist ornery, innovative, and stubborn citizens who refuse to abandon their money, their lives, or their liberty to the whims of others.
In my review of the movie, "Colossus: The Forbin Project," I examined some of the implications of a society in which all aspects of life are under the electronic thumb of an omnipresent and seemingly omnipotent (and infallible?) computer. Since that movie appeared, computers have blasted far beyond any expectations of the the time. Today, the power of a super-computer can be had on the desk of any private citizen.
Overall, the issue and problem of freedom and computerized systems, in particular, and the prospects for freedom or oppression, in general, are less ones of technology and more ones of attitudes, beliefs, and values. Far too people today view government as their all-benevolent, all-caring, all-powerful caretaker, a la Colossus. They relish the promise of cradle-to-grave "security" and will eagerly abandon both personal responsibility and freedom in order to obtain that illusory safety. Colossus is merely a metaphor for that kind of stifling State and society.
But in a world where the Soviet Union and its satellites collapsed of their own onerous weight; where ideas on liberty speed across artificial borders at electronic speeds; and where reality and the requirements of the human spirit demand freedom and moral autonomy, we can lift our faces to the future with hope, trusting in our hard work and an intransigent devotion to our cause to liberate us from the chains of our enslavers.
