Setting a Good Example

It is reported some time back that hospitals and medical businesses have begun to adopt strict rules intended to weed out smokers in their midst. Increasingly, they are refusing to hire people who smoke or use tobacco. Some employers are reaching beyond the workplace and administering urine tests to screen out tobacco users. Two reasons are given for the adoption of strict policies against tobacco use. First is the concern over appearances. It is felt by some in the medical profession that smoking by health care workers sets a bad example. Secondly, there are economic concerns. People who use tobacco tend to have more health problems than those who don't. Because of that, they increase health care costs and diminish productivity when they fall ill. In this reasoning, the medical profession is simply falling into line with the economic casuists in evaluating human behavior in terms of costs and benefits.

While the move can be considered part of the growing impatience with tobacco users in this country, there is a more troubling component to this thinking that even those who do not use tobacco should be concerned about. If health and economic productivity are to be prime measures of human behavior, the door which is being pushed against will be kicked wide open. Many habits and behaviors work against health and undermine economic productivity. Chief among those are eating poorly and not exercising. The health and economic costs of obesity in the U.S. exceed the costs of tobacco. Over 30% of Americans are currently obese. Obesity is defined as being 30 or more pounds overweight. While the number of smokers goes down every year, the number of obese goes up. People who are overweight are more prone to injury and illness and more likely to miss time at work than those who are not overweight. From diabetes and heart disease, to bad knees and fatigue, overweight people cost time and money.

If the health care industry is going to ban tobacco use by employees in order to set a good example, they should do something about overweight doctors and nurses as well. They should consider penalizing health care workers who are over weight. They should also prohibit them from eating hot dogs, french fries, and other unhealthy foods, at least in public. If a doctor smoking a cigarette sends a bad message, what message does an overweight doctor eating a cheeseburger send?

Welcome to the Future

Welcome to the United States of America, where everyone is a suspect. It has been revealed that the federal government is engaged in the largest data collection program in the history of mankind. Emails, phone calls, toll tags, the Internet, credit cards, traffic cameras, drone surveillance, spy satellites, DNA, facial recognition, and more, are all being consolidated into one huge data base that will span the globe and allow the government to monitor and identify every single person in the U.S. and beyond.  The jigsaw puzzle lives of Americans is being put together by the NSA.

The FBI has claimed the authority to secretly sweep up voluminous amounts of private information from data aggregates for data mining purposes. In 2007 the FBI said it amassed databases containing 1.5 billion records, which were predicted to grow to 6 billion records by 2012, or equal to "20 separate ‘records' for each man, woman and child in the United States." When Congress sought information about one of these programs, the FBI refused to give the Government Accountability Office access. That program was temporarily defunded, but its successor, the FBI Foreign Terrorist Tracking Task Force, currently has 360 staff members running 40 separate projects. Records show analysts are allowed to use data mining tools to establish (not investigate) "risk scores" for U.S. persons. A 2013 IG audit questioned the task force's effectiveness, concluding it "did not always provide FBI field offices with timely and relevant information."

More than a few seek to minimize the reach and scope of the government's data collection efforts. They argue that rapidly evolving technology provides "obligations and opportunities that never existed before".  They are correct, the opportunity open to the government has proven irresistible. The ability of the government and others to collect and analyze data is near impossible for the layperson to comprehend. Indeed, most Americans likely have no clue to the extent to which they are open to observation. Cell phones, traffic cameras, credit cards, and Internet tracking all provide windows into the personal lives of Americans. Rapidly evolving computer technology makes possible the ability to vacuum up the trail of bread crumbs Americans leave behind as they go about their lives and organize those crumbs into the loafs that are their lives.

The U.S. government is engaged in the largest data collection program in the history of mankind. It makes Big Brother look like an amateur. Emails, phone calls, toll tags, the Internet, credit cards, traffic cameras, drone surveillance, spy satellites, DNA, facial recognition, and more, are all being consolidated into one huge data base that will span the globe and allow the government to monitor and identify every single person in the U.S. and beyond. It was revealed that nearly every phone call made in the U.S. has been logged. Sure, they may not have been listened to, but they can be. They are on file should the government have occasion to take interest in someone. The issue however is not what is done or not done with the data collected, it is that the data was collected in the first place. Suppose the government had compiled a complete profile on you. Would you sleep easier believing no one had looked at it yet? Or would it trouble you that there was a profile on you to begin with?

Some are attempting to minimize the threat that government surveillance poses to our liberty by asserting that there is no evidence that PRISM, the government surveillance program at the heart of the issue, is being misused. We are assured that the program is operating to our benefit. But how can that be determined if the program is secret? The vast majority of Americans did not even know the program existed until Snowden blew the whistle on it. Others may have been aware that the government was collecting data and monitoring the Internet, but very few had any clue as to how wide a net the government was casting and that the government was collecting the phone records of every American. The effort put in to protect the program from the public eye was exceeded only, but the effort to create the program.

The reason given by the government for collecting the records is that it will provide authorities not only the information needed to ferret out plots before they come to fruition, but also to provide a comprehensive data base. What is neglected in this argument is that the data being collected is the lives of the American people. The government is not tapping the phones of suspected mobsters or tracking down Internet pedophiles. It is not pursuing a drug cartel through the brush. It is collecting data on everyone, everywhere. School teachers, mechanics, truck drivers are all being caught up in the dragnet without the slightest hint that they are being monitored.

What is truly remarkable about the revelations of the size and scope of the government's data collection efforts is the muted response on the part of the general public. By and large the public has met the news with a shrug. Perhaps people feel that the ordinariness of their lives will keep the government from taking an interest in them. Even if the government did turn its eye towards them, what would it learn?  That they like to watch Gilligan's Island and eat ice cream? That they belong to the local gym and have a kid on the school soccer team?  These are the people who will carry on a phone conversation in public oblivious to the fact that everyone can hear. Maybe it is due to life in the age of facebook. In the age of facebook people have become comfortable in making public every aspect of their lives. The more people who know what they do, where they go, and what they like, the better. Facebook is their own, personal paparazzi. In that light, what difference does it make if the government is watching and listening? Maybe the government will sign up and follow their posts. Who doesn't want as many people as possible tuning in to their antics and exploits?

It has repeatedly been asserted that only people with something to hide fear scrutiny. For those who hold this belief, privacy is no longer a right unto itself that needs no justification, it is only important as a means to an end. Where privacy does not serve a specific end, such as the case with priests and doctors, it is frequently viewed as little more than a convenience.  Privacy has become only of situational importance. People who would protest their neighbor listening to their phone calls and reading their mail easily brush off government surveillance. The fact that their neighbor is no threat to their liberty carries no weight with such people.

Where are the agitators and protesters? Most of this is being done in secret. Where is the public outrage? Just because Obama is a democrat should be no reason to ignore what he is doing. Once the police state is set up, it will not go away. The way technology is developing, the U.S. government will soon make Big Brother look like an amateur. Neither should we harbor any illusion that the steps taken to "protect" the nation are temporary measures to be abandoned once the war on terror is won. Like the wars on poverty and drugs, the war on terror will be endless. The security apparatus being erected in Washington is here to stay.   Even, or rather especially, if it succeeds it will never be dismantled. Tranquility and peace will be directly attributed to it. Any attempt to trim it will be met with protest that the nation will be put at risk if the bulwark that keeps terrorists at bay is weakened. Like the wars on poverty and drugs, the war on terror will be endless. Unlike the wars on poverty and drugs, the war on terror threatens to sweep every American in because every American is a potential suspect. We cannot know who the suspects are so we suspect everyone to be safe.

If we are not careful, we might soon find that we are only one spectacular terrorist attack away from a police state. The machine is being assembled. It will only take a word to turn it on.