The recent media attention to the use of RFID chips in humans has brought forth many concerns that we all have regarding the ever increasing loss of our privacy. Unfortunately, the invasion into our private lives isn’t going to stop with the implantation of microchips. Each new development in technology brings us closer to becoming a society where every breath we take will be tracked and recorded.

While doing research for a different article, I read a very interesting report by Jay Stanley and Barry Steinhardt that details how advanced surveillance is becoming. What the report contains is very frightening, but it is an eye opener to how we are letting our right to privacy be ripped away. Eventually American society will be very loaded with tracking technology, and having any kind of contact outside of our homes that won’t be tracked, watched and recorded will be impossible.

The American surveillance monster has grown rapidly, albeit quietly over the last decade. Until the terrorist attacks of September 11, people in the United States could go about daily life without concern of constantly being watched. The terrorist attacks gave the government an excuse to pry into the private lives of each and every American.

It is difficult to imagine being downtown window shopping, and a week later, receive a solicitation in the mail with a thank you card for “visiting” the store. Unknown to the window shopper, the store has a surveillance system that identifies lookers by picking up signals from the chip in the person’s driver’s license. The system records name, address, time, date and length of time the window was looked into.

Bits and pieces of surveillance and tracking of our lives don’t mean much, but put together to form the big picture, it is very disconcerting. For example, currently in use to track us and our daily activities are hi-tech computer systems, sensors, cameras, wireless communications, GPS systems and RFID chips. If we add the genetic and biometric elements that are used to invade our privacy, we are also tracked and under surveillance by DNA, iris scans, finger scans, facial recognition, and a new method - brain wave fingerprinting.

Other ways that Americans are being tracked is through the use of data mining. We create data trails every time we participate in or buy something. Most people don’t give much thought to things like product registration forms, sweepstakes entries, customer loyalty programs, questionnaires, surveys, and store discount cards, but all of these things record our purchases or participation, dates, times, quantity, and other information that draws a portrait of our daily lives and habits. Internet usage is tracked and recorded, including information searches, research, shopping, and email. Every mouse click is tracked and compiled into a profile.

Perhaps the most disturbing is where all of this tracking and surveillance of Americans will ultimately lead. The Pentagon’s “Total Information Awareness” project is a chilling reminder of how precious our privacy is, and we aren’t doing much as a society to protect it. The intention of this project was to collect as much data as possible on individuals to create an ultra-large all-information database in which patterns and associations would be tracked in order to detect potential terrorist activity. In this grand database would be transaction data, medical and financial records, travel and communication records, and any other data and records that could be tracked and added. In September 2003, Congress halted the project and eliminated funding; however, similar data-mining projects are still taking place, and more legislatures to allow them are being proposed. Innocent people that have absolutely no thoughts of any kind of terrorist activity will be tangled up in the privacy net, and there won’t be any way to escape.

In light of the government’s desire to control us in every way possible, The Fourth Amendment in The Bill of Rights forms the basis that a person has the right privacy and the right to be left alone. Sadly this no longer applies to our society. Unless we take control of our diminishing rights, freedom as we know it will be a dim memory.

© Copyright 2007 Patti McMann. All rights reserved.