The Cost Will Be $44.95 a Month, Plus Your Civil Rights

How many times have you been watching a movie, and just said "Where's their cellphone?". Let's face it, you really are experiencing a suspension of disbelief if you think that between five, running, scared adults there exists not a single cellie. What's the last thing you check before you head out into the big, bad, world? You check to see if the phone is in your purse, on your hip, or in your wallet. We're Pavlovian beings, even obsessive in this respect.

How did we get to this point in history? The cell phone started out as all inventions do: Science fiction. Good old conjecture. Then it moved to the next stage, as a luxury for the super-rich. A scarce toy with poor service for early adopters. These ultra-wealthy then started buying these for their businesses, partly as a way to get things done in a quicker manner, and partly to keep up with the Jones'.

By the time this invention trickled down to the middle class, the marketing of the product and buying criteria had changed from luxury to safety. "Would you want your mother stranded on a dark road with a broken down car? Buy one." The marketing moved from there, to convenience, with broader business adoption. It then became the toy of rich children, and the point of contact for millions of harried soccer moms nationwide.

Now, we are looking at something that is a necessity for communication, in any form. Pay-phones are now a novelty. Many of us don't even have home phones to make a call on anymore. With the massive adoption of the broadband internet, and the availability of email and information on-command data, why would we waste $25 to keep a landline?

In the wake of this technology explosion, privacy concerns are taking a backseat. We have come to a point in time where anonyminity and privacy are, for all intensive purposes, dead. We have sacrificed our personal lives for convenience, and most of us don't even know it. We are walking around with a GPS, with a backup locator in our pockets. This came about through innocent means.

Triangulation was the first way that 911 was able to locate us in the event of an emergency. Using 3 cell towers, they were able to isolate our signal, and depending on the strength of it, isolate our position to a matter of 500 feet of search area. This has saved some lives, but it has also served as a cover for far more sinister activity: Tracking us. Now, to that, we've added GPS. This was filed under "convenience". "Never get lost again", was the marvelous claim that this was marketed under. Now, instead of 500 feet, we can be tracked within a matter of inches.

New concerns are surfacing, as Google releases their new Android powered series of phones. What exactly are those concerns? For starters, Google has come under fire for the way the store and utilize the search and history data of their users. With the further merging of phone and internet by the release of this phone, privacy is on the verge of being obliterated completely.

The argument goes like this: Between the phone companies and Google, any government or entity could access both the public and private digital communications of a user, in violation of the 5th amendment, search and seizure laws, and any law on the books. If a user cedes their rights to a private entity, and hidden in the user's agreement, a loophole for turnover of that data to a government or marketing entity exists, then the 5th amendment is negated, and you are on the hook.

We will all laugh, as the first wave of "stupid" criminals is caught using this method. We will express concern when something that is a little more in the gray area passes by, say a mother buying alcohol for her son, and a few friends. By the time they start taking on regular citizens, it will be too late, either because we love the convenience too much, or we are powerless to stop it.

How will it work? Currently, Google is lobbying the FCC for permission to use "white space" in the broadcasting spectrum for universally free internet access. There has been some mention of free voice plans, should you grant Google the ability to run ads on your phone. While creating huge revenue for Google, you would also have to provide demographic information to Google. At best, it will be used for a razor-sharp, targeted marketing campain. At worst, it could make you the target of a wrongful investigation by the US government. Who cares? It's free internet access! Once again, intrusion masquerading as convenience.

I'm not saying Google would be complicit in this, but they are considered a trusted source. Who are more people going to believe in the event of crime? Someone who provides them with reasonably reliable information on a daily basis, or someone who just walked into a courtroom off the street. What if someone finds a way to manipulate Google? People will laugh, and innocents will go to jail based on trumped up charges.

Am I just a crackpot, living in my basement, who wears a tin-foil hat? Nope. I drink aspartame, fluoridated water, and hold my cell-phone close to my ear. I use Google for darn near everything, because resistance is futile. This is how things really are, and to not say so at this juncture is comparable to selling out the human race.

We are headed towards a surveillance society, if Great Britain is any harbinger of what is yet to be. We need to recognize this, and take whatever precautions we can to delay it as much as possible. There is a gradual encroachment on basic liberties taking place, and it is taking place with our consent.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to take a call.