Police officers visit the public schools, telling children to report their friends and parents for suspected drug use. Wanted posters in post officers are so common we look right past them. Snitching has become entertainment, a growing staple of network and cable TV channels. Tabloid programs such as The Jerry Springer Show use informants to shame their guests, exposing hidden love affairs and embarrassing personal faults for our amusement. The constant monitoring is said to reveal the true character of the people in stressful situation.
Viewers vote on who they don t like, punishing unpopular participants with digital banishment.
But the modern surveillance society is not a passing form of entertainment. And its consequences are far more severe than any passing humiliation. Our most personal information is now being fed directly into a massive system of interlocking computer databases maintained by government agencies, law enforcement officials, for-profit businesses and private intelligence networks. Our school, employment, medical, psychiatric, banking, credit, automobile, housing, TV viewing, computer use and gun ownership records are all stored electronically by people we ve never met, accessible at the stroke of a computer key. And now the government is adding our DNA, the unique genetic code found in our every cell, to their files.