Digital Police State
By Amit Singh | Sunday, February 19th, 2012 | Policy, Politics, TechnologyIn the first 2 miles of my commute every morning there are 3 speed cameras, all strategically placed to achieve the highest amount of revenue for the District of Columbia. After receiving $600 in speeding tickets in the past month it got me wondering, how much would it cost using today’s technology to implement an Orwellian style surveillance system. With GPS receivers at $30/each, HD video cameras at $35/each and RFID tags at $10/each, cell phone tracking and facial recognition software, it is conceivable to me that for a mere $25 billion dollars (less than what is spent on the War on Drugs), the US govt could monitor and track the movements of every man, woman and child in America. With the constant and aggressive dismantling of the Fourth Amendment in the name of “security”, why is it so implausible to think that a few “concerned” politicians couldn’t make a case for national ID cards embedded with RFID and GPS tracking on every vehicle?
Of course I don’t think the American public even with the very real threats of terrorism and issues with illegal immigration would subject themselves to such abuses of their privacy but unlike the past, technology has actually made the monitoring of millions of people possible at a relatively affordable cost. What I suspect will happen is that much of the surveillance will get implemented incrementally with convenient excuses to justify each step such as cell phone tracking for 911 calls, GPS tracking for stolen cars, and facial recognition to locate fathers behind on child support. Over time we will be like the frog who hasn’t realized they are in boiling water because it happened so gradually. Luckily though, I am not aware of anyone who has developed criminal prediction techniques likes those in the Minority Report!
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12 Responses to "Digital Police State"
“I don’t think the American public even with the very real threats of terrorism and issues with illegal immigration would subject themselves to such abuses of their privacy”
Seriously? Ha.
The US Department of Google is our future.
Some men fail to appreciate what a treasure a intelligent and beautiful woman really is.
Oh for cryin’ out loud… stay on topic
BMP,
Why don’t you take it over to Match.com or ask William Goose to send you a few links.
Amit,
Just because you are paranoid, doesn’t mean that they’re not out to get you. However, you are obviously not an IT guy. Do you have any idea what the technical challenges would be to conduct the data aggregation that you are postulating? Take just the voter registration polls as an example. According to a recent report by Pew Research, 24 million voter registrations in the US have “significant errors,” with many of them being duplicate registrations in multiple states. Meanwhile, the voter rolls include 1.8 million registrants who are dead. Do you really suppose that the “government” could track every man, woman, and child accurately? The I/O devices are hardly the big ticket items. It is building and maintaining a relational database to manage the data that would cost more than the entire Defense budget. Speaking of which, do some research on the Information Awareness Office project and retired Admiral John Poindexter (yes, the same Admiral Poindexter of Iran-Contra). How’s that coming along?
@MD Russ, obviously you’re not an IT guy, just because the govt doesn’t have the technical competence to build the system doesn’t mean it can’t be done at a reasonable cost. And why in the heck would I use a relational database for such a system when I could use Hadoop and MapReduce? I’m pretty sure the guys over at Visa and Amazon.com don’t have 1.8 million dead customers in their active transactions.
And yes I am pretty aware of Poindexter’s efforts.
Amit,
Well, if it is all so simple then why did Poindexter and DARPA crash and burn? I would think that someone with your IT expertise would be worth tens of millions of dollars.
Oh, for cryin’ out loud, MD, do not encourage him! Next thing I know, I’ll be getting a bill for $150 a post.
Jim,
Good point. BTW, the number of fraudulent account transactions in Visa is a closely-guarded secret. But security experts estimate that the amount of fraud that Visa writes off every year to be somewhere between $100M and half a billion in the US alone. In the UK it is estimated to be up to half a billion GPS. You would think that a genius like Amit could buy some shrink-wrapped off-the-shelf software and make a ton of money fixing the problem.
@MD Russ, perhaps my expertise is worth tens of millions, guess someone is getting a pretty good deal. IMHO, the primary reason for TIA’s failure was Poindexter himself. Regardless, I think you’re missing the point of the post which is saying that the technology today is making things possible that we thought could only happen in novels and movies.
@Jim, when I invoice you, you better pay in gold and not those Haitian coins you’ve been collecting!
“…making things possible that we thought could only happen in novels and movies.”
No, Amit, they are still only possible in novels and movies…and, of course, in the twisted, paranoid imaginations of the Paulistinians.
Can I interest you in some death ray technology I have an investment in?
@MD Russ, sorry, I wouldn’t buy anything from you but perhaps Chavez will.
lions tigers and bears
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