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[jya@pipeline.com (John Young)]

   21+C, Scanning the Future (UK), February, 1996: 
 
   "Dataveillance." 
 
   A global trend is emerging toward citizen surveillance. 
   While authorities speak of the need for data regulation and 
   people become digital shadows, watchdogs are doing some 
   monitoring of their won. With interviews of Phil Agre, 
   Roger Clarke and Simon Davies on invasive and privacy 
   technology. 
 
      These technologies face an uphill public relations 
      battle. Digital cash has already been widely accused of 
      providing money launderers, drug barons and other 
      criminals with the perfect means of continuing their 
      activities. It's the same argument that was used in the 
      Clipper Chip debate, in which the US government proposed 
      a central encryption software, and it will no doubt be 
      directed towards pseudonymous techniques as they emerge. 
 
      Simon Davies is familiar with this type of argument. He 
      says there has been a change of political winds in 
      recent years. Where once privacy was used to protect 
      individual freedoms it is now officially deemed by 
      governments and corporations to be an aid to criminals 
      and a barrier to administrative efficiency. "In a 
      generation, we now have privacy as almost like an 
      ancient forgotten wisdom," he says. Then he adds: "The 
      point that needs to be made very clear is that 
      technology has been misused. It always did have the 
      capacity, the capability to be a friend to people. 
      Instead, it has become a potential tool of enslavement. 
      And it has rendered society vulnerable on a scale that 
      has never been seen before. It is technologists and 
      politicians and financiers who have misused the 
      technology and should be brought to account for it." 
 
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