By Rhona Mahony. Marcus Yallow lives in San Francisco in 2010. He is a 17 year-old high school student who likes to program, tinker, and play an elaborate game, part puzzle and part race, whose clues are hidden on the Internet and about the city.
One afternoon when he and his friends are skipping school to play the game, the Bay Bridge explodes and collapses. The Department of Homeland Security arrests Marcus and his friends as suspects in the bombing. After all, they are not where they should be. Their pockets are full of electronic gadgets, some encrypted. Marcus politely asks to call his parents to arrange a lawyer. Instead, a sack goes over his head, the drawstring is pulled tight, and he is loaded onto a boat and, hours later, off of it. Nameless government agents question him roughly for days. When he is set free, back on the sidewalk in San Francisco, his city has changed. All communication is recorded: land lines, cell phones, email, the Internet. All movement is monitored: by closed-circuit televisions, automobiles’ electronic toll booth passes, traffic check points, and frequent ID checks of pedestrians. One of Marcus’s friends was injured when they were arrested and wasn’t released with them. Where is he? Is he still alive? Marcus vows to use his technological creativity to rally the young people of San Francisco. They must thwart the lockdown. They must make adults understand how destructive and how ineffectual it really is.
Marcus knows that–and explains why–all the measures put in place by the Department of Homeland Security in San Francisco are expensive, time-wasting, intrusive, and fruitless. He knows abuse of power when he sees it.
Marcus is the protagonist of Little Brother, a 2008 young-adult book by Cory Doctorow. Doctorow is a writer, activist, and co-editor of BoingBoing who would prefer that people start standing up for themselves and alongside one another, starting with understanding what all this gadgetry can do against us and for us. He has had the pleasure of seeing his book leap onto the New York Times Bestseller List for young people.
Little Brother came out just in time. Its call to action is more urgent that most of us realize. A computer-abetted lockdown of an entire city isn’t only feasible, it’s happening, today, in China. The Communist Party, the Red Army, and internal intelligence officials are conducting an experiment in Shenzhen, a high-tech manufacturing center near Hong Kong. The experiment is called Golden Shield. To promote harmony and safety, all communication is recorded: land lines, cell phones, email, the Internet. All movement is monitored: by closed-circuit televisions, traffic check points, and frequent ID checks of pedestrians. Naomi Klein reported this story in the May 29, 2008, edition of Rolling Stone.
She discovered that the closed-circuit televisions in China use facial recognition software imported–possibly in violation of U.S. federal law–by an American company called L-1. Other surveillance software has come from IBM, Honeywell, and General Electric. When those companies, and the Chinese companies working with them, have fine-tuned their products, to whom shall they sell them next? Who would like to buy them?
In Los Altos, California, on May 22, Doctorow pointed out that people who seek to command and control their fellows first test their surveillance tools on those who can’t speak up. They pick as test subjects state and federal prisoners, mental patients, immigrants, and even well-to-do airline passengers afraid of missing their flight. When Naomi Klein flew back into JFK airport, she was invited to apply for a Fly Clear card. It would let her skip airports’ carry-on baggage search and X-ray lines. If she applies, she will have her photograph taken, her fingerprints recorded, and her irises scanned. Those biometric data will be encoded on her Fly Clear card, courtesy of a U.S. company called L-1.
Many adults feel too harried or powerless to challenge surveillance. Tens of thousands of them can’t even get their names deleted from the No-Fly List. Children and teenagers, though, have more time and lots more energy. I’ve met 11 and 13 year-olds who love Little Brother. Doctorow, in Los Altos, said that the Berkeley High School students he talked to were fired up about it. Thank goodness for Berkeley. This adult feels rallied and ready to take on the Total Surveillance States. Enough with photographing CCTV’s on World Sousveillance Day. How can we help the people of Shenzhen creep out from under the heavy boot of Big Brother? How those of us over and under age 25 make sure this scenario does not strangle our own countries? I’m starting by giving away many copies of Little Brother. It describes tools to start with and it’s an exhilerating adventure. This land was made for you and me. Take it back!
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