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When we use Google or other search engines for searching
something like a book or any other item, we begin to find advertisements
on our pages that are similar to items we have purchased, urging us
to look at those similar items since we liked the item we bought.
Some have thought this is a convenience, thinking someone else has
done the legwork in searching out those things that match our
personal likes and dislikes. It is a technology that can be used in
many different forms.
The continued debate regarding the National Security Agency surveillance practice has sparked a nationwide discussion regarding
the protection (or reduction) of civil liberties. A giant data
storage facility has been built in Utah where a vast amount of
personal data may be stored for each individual citizen in America:
telephone calls, emails, social media postings, locations of
telephone usage, incoming telephonic messages, items purchased,
travel plans and a myriad data set of information that outlines
specifically the routines, practices and desires of each individual
citizen. Regardless of the motives now for collecting that enormous
metadata, it is the future use that may have the greatest impact on
our individual lives.
Many are concerned that the personal information may be collected in an
effort to control future behaviors of people. Privacy is important
to Americans even if they don't think of their privacy too often;
privacy is just assumed to be protected since the Fourth Amendment
ensures that it will be. The Fourth Amendment states: "The right of
the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and
effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be
violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause,
supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the
place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized."
The large digital footprint each American leaves behind during each
daily walk of life affords the "data-watchers" the opportunity to
build a profile of personal information that would nullify the
Fourth Amendment at the very moment the information is exposed. That
leaves the individual in a position of being controlled by the
person or entities who possess that personal information and
threaten to release it publicly.
During the NSA debate of spying on individual Americans, the
administration has insisted no one is "reading" the information
being collected. Yet we know that currently technology has the
ability to "read" the metadata to establish categorical data
showing trends, correlations and similarities. Hence, Amazon can
recommend other books by the same author who wrote the book we
purchased. If that is a reality presently in commercial ventures,
what kind of tracking and trending can the giant computer facilities
in Utah accomplish? So it is feasible to believe the administration
when it says, "No person is reading this collected information," but
is that also true for the computer reading and categorizing the
information? It is only a short leap from collecting and storing the
information to analyzing and using the information. Since we have
since found the president and a number of his administration telling
much less than the truth regarding other matters, can we really
believe they wouldn't mislead the American people regarding privacy?
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Think of some future date when some administration more unscrupulous
than any we have ever seen is in power and has all the stored
information available for use. How easy would it be to have the
director of national security have the computer generate reports
on the life of every opposing senator or representative or federal
judge to uncover some embarrassing incident from their "digital
footprint." Not just the particular senator, representative or
judge, but each member of the official's family, spouse, children,
siblings, grandchildren. Possession of that kind of power could
cause sway over decisions for laws or other positions of power. Such information just lying in storage accessible to those in
power has unlimited uses to gain and maintain control to make
people virtually dependent on those in power.
From a biblical viewpoint there is precedent (or prediction) that
some sort of identification process will be used sometime in the
future for people to engage in normal commerce. In the Book of
Revelation in the Bible we read, "He also caused everyone (small and
great, rich and poor, free and slave) to obtain a mark on their
right hand or on their forehead. Thus no one was allowed to buy or
sell things unless he bore the mark of the beast — that is, his name
or his number." (Revelation 13:16-17) This passage in Revelation is
not presented here to imply in any way, shape or form that the NSA
surveillance practice is the process described in the Bible. It is
merely presented to remind us that we are living in a world where
this process has been invented and the conditions are now available
to implement such a process.
Christians need to remember that our faith in Christ is our
assurance that He has already won the battle over all evil. We may
be subjected to such man-made surveillance processes, but in the
final analysis. ours will be citizenship in the kingdom of God rather
than the oversight of the kingdom of man.
[By JIM KILLEBREW]
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