新编大学英语第三册unit4 Text D: Watch Out - You're on Camera
UNIT 4 AFTER-CLASS READING 3; New College English (III)
Watch Out You're on Camera
1 It might be more than 10 years behind schedule, but George Orwell's nightmare vision of a 1984 with an all-seeing, all-knowing state is starting to take reality on the streets.
2 The British are among the most surveyed people in the world. In 95% of towns and cities it is impossible to walk without having your actions recorded on videotape or observed from hidden control rooms.
3 Soon, all our car journeys will be recorded electronically at toll booths. Electronic passports will keep a record of our trips abroad. And within the next few years it is likely that we will be carrying electronic identity cards. These cards, produced on demand, will give government agencies, insurance companies or the police instant access to medical, employment or criminal records.
4 Gradually, over the past few decades, people have come to believe that mass surveillance is for the public good. "A generation ago privacy was seen as a fundamental right," says Simon Davies, director of the pressure group Privacy International, "but the public attitude has changed. If you look at the language of government, technologists, and the private sector you find that the idea of privacy no longer enters into the debate."
5 It is not just pressure groups that are worried. Sir Jon Smith, former deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan police, expressed his fears last week when he warned that the public's interest in crime is prompting a disturbing growth in public and private surveillance. He wants the government to think again about its plans for an identity card. "The relationship between the police, the state and the citizen would be quite dramatically and adversely affected," he says.
6 Davies believes that private industry and successive governments have gradually manipulated the language of surveillance to make it acceptable to the public. Surveillance has gained acceptability because it is called voluntary when in fact it is compulsory. The government has taken this approach with identity cards. The problem is, says Davies, that anyone who does not comply will be seen to be acting against the public good. They are likely to face, at best, inconvenience and at worst, discrimination. "Getting a passport might be difficult if you have not got an identity card," he says. "And you might find it harder to get a job."
7 Identity cards are portrayed as a measure to combat crime. But remarkably there are no research findings to support the idea that identity cards do reduce crime. And some criminologists fear that, rather than hindering crime, identity cards will encourage it by making it easier for criminals to create false identities.
8 Another system is on trial in the US. The Immigration Department began testing an electronic passport for frequent visitors to the US in April. The passport, a smart card, allows business travelers to bypass the queues and pass through the airport in a few minutes. Electronic scanners verify the card holder's identity by taking a palm print reading. The system, called Inspass, is likely to be extended to European airports if the trials are successful.
9 The government distances itself from the scheme by describing it as an international collaboration between the airlines, says Davies. But is it really voluntary? Davies believes that few people will want to opt out of Inspass when the alternative is long queues for a manual passport inspection.
10 Opinion polls show that the public is enthusiastic about the closed-circuit television systems which monitor town centers. And they have been successful in reducing, or at least displacing, crime.
11 But, says Davies, when people are told that the cameras are so powerful they can see tiny details of your face from 50m, even in the dark, they start to get nervous. Few realise that the cameras also have a powerful tracking ability. Davies saw a demonstration in Liverpool where supervisors followed a boy, seen as a troublemaker, through a shopping center. The cameras watched him meet and talk with friends and followed him into McDonald's. They watched through the window as he went upstairs to eat a burger.
12 New technology will increase the capability of surveillance systems. A helicopter surveillance system under development will be able to send pictures back to the police station from police in the street with miniature cameras in their helmets. A police helmet under trial in Cleveland and Tayside will enable photographs of suspects and records from police computers to appear on a tiny screen in front of the policeman's eye. Computer links to patrol cars will give instant access to the Police National Computer, local police files, and vehicle records.
13 In America, plans by the government to allow government agencies and intelligence services easy access to telephone conversations and electronic mail have caused considerable concern. Individuals and organizations will be encouraged to use computer chips designed by the National Security Agency to code confidential voice and computer communications but they will be required to lodge the secret keys with government agencies.
14 Britain is at the center of discussions to establish a similar system of codes in Europe. Plans are advanced, with at least one European country intending to have a system in use by the end of the year. A recommendation by the Council of Europe calls on member states to introduce legislation requiring telephone companies to design in mechanisms to make it easier for government agencies to tap phones.
15 The Department of Trade and Industry is funding research into a coding system for the next generation of digital mobile telephones at London's Royal Holloway and Bedford New College.
16 The miners strike in 1984 showed that systems designed to monitor crime can be, and are, easily manipulated by government to keep track not only of criminals, but of those with alternative political views. In his book The Enemy Within, Seumas Milne reveals government phone tapping and bugging of activists in the National Union of Mineworkers on a scale so huge that the security services were unable to cope with the information mountain produced. The strike is also said to have sparked trials of electronic number-plate recognition systems to keep automatic tabs on the movements of officials of National Union of Mineworkers.
17 There are fears too that the growth of computer databases resulting from the introduction of identity cards and other surveillance mechanisms will increase the amount of misleading and inaccurate information on individuals. The Campaign for Freedom of Information quotes one recent example where a British holidaymaker was refused entry to Spain because Europe's Schengen database, which keeps tabs on 700,000 individuals, had wrongly identified him as undesirable.
18 Everyone has a right to privacy, says Davies. And even the most enthusiastic supporters of surveillance have things they want to keep from the public gaze. But unless technologists and the public start to take privacy more seriously, he warns, George Orwell's Big Brother could sneak in through the back door.
