Liberty vs. Security
Today I want to get on my soapbox. I hope you will forgive me if I stray out of the tech realm just a bit – although most of what I will talk about is related to technology in our lives.
Oh those spying eyes…
Most of you have probably heard and maybe even followed what has been happening in the Lower Merion School District in Philadelphia. For those of you who haven’t here is a quick refresher. It seems that the school district issued MacBook laptops to all its students. These were mandatory and could not be substituted with a personal laptop. A piece of “security” software was installed on the laptop so that if it was reported stolen a photo could be taken with the built in webcam of the person using the computer. This software would be remotely activated by the IT staff at the school. The problems started when one student was called in for disciplinary action for “inappropriate behavior at home.” The student was shown pictures of himself at home as proof of indiscretion. (At this time we do not know what those pictures entailed but the student has said it was of him eating some Mike & Ikes that were mistaken for drugs.) A class action lawsuit was filed and the FBI and every civil liberties group known to man are now involved.
It doesn’t matter what you think of class action lawsuits or whether you think the student is trying cover up something that he did wrong. The fact is you should be scared silly that a government entity is taking pictures of people in their own home without a warrant or proper procedure. Even the manufacturer of the software involved has said that you should not take the recovery of stolen equipment in to your own hands. If the laptop had been reported stolen (reports indicate that it had not been), the information should have been turned over to the police.
Security?
This is just one case of the troubling trend of sacrificing our liberties for security. We are afraid of bombs on planes so we chemically test baby formula before it can go on a plane. We take off our shoes because one person tried to light theirs. We except the fact that much of our email is being analyzed by the government because we think it will help catch some bad guys. And last but not least in the next couple of years you will be essentially photographed naked before you get on a plane with the new full body scanners that are now rolling out to the airports.
We have given up so much so that we can feel safer. We don’t even really know if it has made us safer or just given the illusion of safety to placate us.
Gimee, gimee, gimee
What is even more disturbing may be that we are willing to sacrifice our liberties for “stuff”. I will be the first to admit that I am in the same boat. I have subscribed to many “free” services from Google and as we all know this is really just selling our personal information.
Some of the parents in the Lower Merion School District have come out and said that they don’t care about the webcam access because their children get a good education. I’m sure it doesn’t hurt that their kids are given a free laptop too. For so many things these days we are willing to give up our choice and our privacy just because someone will give us something.
At what point in time do we say enough is enough? And for that matter, how do we say it? What form will it take? I won’t venture a guess but the time will come when we have to decide what is more important to us, freedom or security.
March 4, 2010
This ties in with some hard questions many of us in the Librarianship field are having to ask ourselves. Librarians have traditionally been very committed to patron privacy, to the point of taking a seat next to reporters thrown into the clink on a “contempt of court” beef.
Schools on the other hand, are just the opposite. The primary school, after all, was set up in response to a need for factory workers that could read, maybe do maths, possibly even write, but certainly not understand the need for collective bargaining units. Thus school administrators are about control, both for historical (and hysterical) reasons and to escape parental lawyer bombs.
School Librarians? They have headaches.