NEGATIVE-PRIVACY-SOLVENCY-GENERAL 114

TECHNOLOGY MEANS PRIVACY CANNOT BE PROTECTED

SOON EVERY CITIZEN WILL BE EASILY TRACKED

JEFF KUNERTH, The Houston Chronicle, August 22, 1999, SECTION: A; Pg. 16 TITLE: Trust, privacy endangered; Society's advances in technology could threaten way of life // acs-EE2001

Beyond hidden cameras, government and commercial spy satellites will proliferate. The global-positioning satellites that now help police find stolen cars with anti-theft receivers may be used to locate lost dogs, escaped prisoners, wandering Alzheimer's patients and stray latch-key children.

"Being unreachable for a great number of people will disappear," Marx predicts. "Your physical location will increasingly be noted - whether it's location detectors in our cars, transmitters implanted beneath our skin or cell phones."

TECHNOLOGY WILL DESTROY THE OPTION TO PROTECT PRIVACY

JEFF KUNERTH, The Houston Chronicle, August 22, 1999, SECTION: A; Pg. 16 TITLE: Trust, privacy endangered; Society's advances in technology could threaten way of life // acs-EE2001

Somewhere, on unseen databases, there is information about your address, phone number, employment, income, bank balance, investments, Social Security number, credit card numbers, automobile registration, mortgage payment, medical prescriptions, grocery purchases and much more.

Those databases will expand in the next century as more of our lives are conducted online. E-commerce and the Internet create an electronic trail that details what we look at, what we buy, whom we talk to and what we say.

"In 25 years, people won't have a choice. The Internet will be so pervasive that people will have to use it in order to go about their daily lives," said Michel A. Epstein, a New York lawyer and e-commerce privacy expert. "If you want a checking account, it will be an electronic checking account."

TECHNOLOGY WILL BREAK DOWN ALL OF THE BARRIERS WHICH HAVE PROTECTED PRIVACY

JEFF KUNERTH, The Houston Chronicle, August 22, 1999, SECTION: A; Pg. 16 TITLE: Trust, privacy endangered; Society's advances in technology could threaten way of life // acs-EE2001

Sociologist Gary T. Marx describes a place where information flows so freely, and porously, that every aspect of life can be scrutinized. The old barriers that protected privacy - walls, locks, darkness, distance, time, skin - are permeated by technology.

Surveillance cameras videotape the world outside, while DNA analysis reveals the secrets inside our bodies. Infrared cameras pierce the night as supersensitive microphones and cell-phone monitors penetrate walls.

TECHNOLOGY GUARANTEES THAT IN THE FUTURE PRIVACY WILL BE LOST

JEFF KUNERTH, The Houston Chronicle, August 22, 1999, SECTION: A; Pg. 16 TITLE: Trust, privacy endangered; Society's advances in technology could threaten way of life // acs-EE2001

Trust and privacy - two treasured concepts - may become endangered species in the next 25 years.

Like a telescope to the future, the teddy cam points toward a time when privacy is up for grabs - and often for sale - in a high-tech society of hidden cameras, spy satellites, cyber snooping, computer-assisted data mining, Internet identity theft and genetic screening.