Technology poses threat to privacy

Sometimes it's a big news story that calls your attention to the need for a national conversation on a serious issue. And sometimes it's an accumulation of smaller stories. With the issue of the ways that technology threatens our privacy, it's been a combination of the two.

The big news item has been the debate over Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act legislation, a debate that is sure to be rejoined soon, with the current legislation set to expire in February. In the wake of 9/11 and revelations about the federal government's warrantless wiretapping, the Bush administration and Congress have been trying to agree on new rules for electronic surveillance that reflect the realities of changing technologies while respecting civil liberties. Now the effort to balance these opposing forces - which a senior intelligence official labels a "zero-sum game" in a current New Yorker article - will land smack-dab in the middle of the presidential campaign.

The potential downside to this is that serious and nuanced matters of national security and constitutional rights will get boiled down to black-and-white demagoguery. The potential upside is that the American people might finally be forced to pay attention, in a prolonged way, to an issue that is not going to go away anytime soon.

Because the technology-versus privacy debate goes far beyond the realm of national security and terrorism. If we don't try to come to terms with it, it stands to touch on every aspect of our public and private lives. Or, put another way, it could make every aspect of our private lives public. This is where the smaller stories come in.

One, as recently covered by Time magazine, has to do with the increasing use of Radio Frequency Identification computer chips in everything from shipping containers to cell phones to family pets. These tiny chips, when "called," transmit back information that can contain everything from GPS coordinates to credit data.

Using RFID chips to, say, track a company's inventory makes a lot of sense - the kind of innovation that helps to keep our economy competitive. But it seems self-evident that, as with other rapidly emerging technologies such as cloning, we need to

think through the ramifications of RFIDs before we go putting them in everything just because we can.

Those who express concern about this issue risk being branded conspiracy

theorists, paranoid or worse. But when people start talking about implanting these chips in people - something that's already being done - it's not hard to see the potential for abusing this technology. Want to track me wherever I go, as I go about my life within my own country? No thanks.

The extent to which even the notion of what is private is endangered was brought home by another story that ran this week in England's The Times Online, which claims that Microsoft is seeking a patent for "software capable of remotely monitoring a worker's productivity, physical well-being and competence." If - underscore "if" - true, and if such a product ever comes to market, it could have the potential to mark a new degree of intrusion into what we call "personal space."

But even if this particular story turns out to be bunk (according to The Times, Microsoft refused to comment directly), it offers a glimpse of a future that could arrive sooner than we realize, if we don't heed the alarm.

History should teach us two things. One is that technologies, once developed, tend to be put to use. The other is, civil liberties, if not guarded jealously, can be too easily lost - not only in the name of national security but also in the name of convenience and efficiency. Almost a quarter century since 1984, it's high time Americans started talking about these things in earnest.

Dan Rather, a Wharton native, was Managing Editor of the CBS Evening News for 24 years. His column appears by arrangement with King Features Syndicate.