Bob Barr

Government's Prying Eyes Get Too Personal
November 9, 2005

Most of us recognize the geek in a dark jacket and horn-rimmed glasses, walking America's cities and neighborhoods, cellphone to ear, asking rhetorically, "Can you hear me now?" and replying, "Good."

If Georgia's Department of Transportation has its way, pretty soon that "cellphone guy" will be replaced by a motorist using a cellphone asking, "Can you track me now?" And the person on the receiving end of the cellphone will be a government computer - or perhaps a private company's computer paid for with taxpayer dollars and accessed by the government.

This project implemented by Georgia's DOT is but the latest example of modern technology's ability to gather, manipulate, store and use huge quantities of information for purposes other than that for which the technology was intended. It also represents that troubling gray area between private companies developing technology, and government funding to use that technology to gather information on its people.

The residents of Georgia, like people of other states in which governments are either considering or have already implemented such programs, should involve themselves in this debate. If they don't, very shortly the program will be entrenched, funded by line item and essentially irreversible; and then it will move on to the next phase.

Of course, as with virtually all programs designed to track people's movements through the use of technology, somewhere lurking therein is the hand of government mandating that information be made available to it. So it is with cellphones, now that they have become so inexpensive that virtually every person has one or has access to one.

Not too long ago, federal "grants" started being made to state and local governments to put "consumer-friendly" surveillance cameras all over America's highways, city streets, business areas, even beaches in Southern California.

The rationale for such electronic snooping? Well, of course, to ease our burdens - to show us where traffic was backed up; to make it easy for us to tell how high the surf is at Malibu Beach; and, of course, to "protect us" from crime. The cameras were not supposed to digitize the images and store them; but once they're in place, things change.

Law enforcement agencies drool at the prospect of being able to access all those images to solve, and perhaps even prevent, crime. So "mission creep" sets in, and cameras put in place for one purpose - with the promise they would never be used for any other purpose - somehow, perhaps very quietly, start recording and retaining images.

Then government officials start using those images for other purposes. California law enforcement officials are attempting to do just that with freeway cams; and officials in other cities and states are debating or moving forward with similar plans.

So it is with cellphones, mandated by the federal government to contain electronic devices enabling them to be located - for "emergency" purposes, of course - by the government. The plan being implemented now in our state, however, is to use cellphones for tracking purposes not for individual "emergencies," but for the "general convenience" of tracking traffic flow and patterns. Can you say "mission creep"?

In Georgia, the handwriting has been on the wall for a couple of years. But the technology is just now being implemented via a partnership between private industry and the government (using your money, of course).

If this partnership has its way, then shortly Georgia will join other states in massive use of this technology to track motorists' speed, location and direction.

That's right, the technology is capable of computing the speed of the cellphone in the vehicle, and thus the speed of the vehicle. "But wait a minute," you might protest, "doesn't that give the government the capability to determine if I am speeding, and then issue me a speeding ticket?" Yes, it does.

But don't worry, the bureaucrats promise, the technology would never be employed for such a purpose. And they vow the information will be forever encrypted and unidentifiable - cross their hearts.

If such promises leave you without a warm, fuzzy feeling in the pit of your stomach, it's with good reason. Already, for example, cameras installed at intersections for the "sole purpose" of catching red-light runners are being outfitted with infrared devices to catch speeders. And, in some jurisdictions, motorists who purchase transmitting devices for their cars so they can save a few seconds by not having to stop at toll plazas are now discovering that the devices also allow law enforcement to ticket them for speeding.

Can you here me now?

Former U.S. Rep. Bob Barr is a frequent commentator on political and social issues and the chairman of the American Conservative Union Foundation's 21st Century Center for Privacy and Freedom