The "Cyber State":Threat to Civil Liberty and Personal Autonomy

The most disturbing aspect of Orwell's dystopia in 1984 was the image of "big brother" watching everyone with his system of spying and invasion of privacy. The atomization of civil society into a million individual pieces so well brought out by Orwell has already become a reality in most parts of the world, especially those with a high degree of computer and cybernetic integration. In fact, many years ago, Robert Jnuk, the survivor of one holocaust, spent the rest of his life pointing out the dangers of wnhat he called the Atom Staat or Atomic State, a concept he used to gloss the national security-militatary-industrial complex. Where is the individulal in all this. As can be seen from quite a few studies, the work place in the US and parts of the developed world has become a "zone of engagement" in which the management is able to pry into the lives of ttheir employees, violating the bill of right and the fifth ammendment which protects individuals from self incrimination. I argue that privacy includes the right to protect e-mails and othetr personal documents that include weblogs, blogs and web sites from the prying eyes of the employer.Thirty years ago mangements had to rely on informal channels in order to get information about their employees, in less polite terms, tattlers from the shop floor. Now the scene has changed to the disadvantage of employees and it is time for the civil society organisations to think of legislation to protect the privacy of individuals in the AGE OF THE COMPUTER.

The fact that in Korea at least managements have installed software in all computers in the workplace which enables the management to track the entire usage of the computer and even provide access to the websites visited and documents sent and downloaded. In Japan and Korea and also increasingly, in South Asia as well, employers are engaged in spying on their employees and there by violating their personal space.I do agree that the employer has to protect trade secrets and data bases and I also agree that some employers have negotiated positions for themselves by trading the secrts of the organisation they work for. However, prying and spying are not solutions to the problem. In one country defence secrets were copied on to a pendrive and sold to interested parties and the Ministry of Defence responded by banning pen/flash drives. A poor solution to a difficult problem. Managers routinely use sophisticated soft ware to dredge the e-mails of their employees in order to get incriminating evidence. Just imagine how we would react if letters and correspondence were subjected to such search and seizure. My soulution to this problem is to ensure that the personal e-mail IDs are not handed over to the employees, and employers must assign mail IDs from their servers which alone the employees must use for carrying out their official work.The rise of a cashless economy and the use of plastic money has changed the pattern of consumer behavior. Now it is possible to track the spending habits of select targetted individuals by following the trail of plastic money. This technique is ofcourse used to track drug money, criminal enterprises, anti terrorist operations and the like. However when used against individuals for gatering evidence in divorce cases and other civil disputes, I think is not al all justified. One empyoyee in the US was sacked from her job for logging on to her blog site when in the workplace. A minor distractin like that should not call for drastic action.Companies are using software to monitor all transactions passing through their servers. The justification for such monitoring is to prevent unfair and illegal industrial/business spying. But cannot a better way be found.All in all, the rise of the computer and the increasing use of e enables transaction is posing a grave and present danger to civil liberty and it is time to fight back.

Where are the US primaries headed to

One may say that November is still far away, and so there is no need to hurry over the nominations. However, this is the first time in recent memory that so late into the primaries, and yet no clear front runner is in sight. For the Republicans it appears that John McCain will, falling short of a major catastrophe, be the Republican nominee. The Democrats are doing, as always, what they do best, destroy each other with a vehemence that even the Republicans cannot match. The exit of John Edwards, not unsurprising, takes place at a time when the electorate was beiginning to see that he was indeed a candidate with a message and a new direction. I think he will endorse Barack Obama and will be assured of a major role in a Obama administration. He was above the petty bickering that marked the Clinton campaign and at least I felt that he emerged as a credible voice after the Mrytle Beach debates. I still feel that since the Florida primary did not really matter, John Edwards could have gone on to Super Tuesday. But it is the end of the road and he did fight fair and square and unlike Clinton did not mount a negative campaign.The exit of Rudy was long overdue. He really did not jell with the Republicans and though he was a front runner at the start of the campaign. see how fortunes change in politics. The Mitt Rooney- John McCain exchanges were very rough and Mccain did throw a few low blows at Mitt. But at the end of the day, John Maccain will be annointed the Republican candidate and if the democrats make the mistake of nominating Hillary Clinton, then I am certain that Mccain will win the Presidency.Unfortunately, John Maccain is trying in bring in National Security as an issue in the elections while everyone knowns that it is the economy stu....The cutting of the Fed rate and the Bush tax plans will stimulate the US economy on the short run but the recession will take at least 6 months to abate. The credit crunch and the foreclosures that threaten the American dream of homeownership has not really been addressed by any candidate and Hillary Clinton's solution of a 90 day morotorium will not help at all. Obama does have a point when he says that the Federal Government will have to step in to prevent foreclosures but how is he to accomlish that.In November it will a tight to the wire finish