Dear list, If you aren't interested in the impact of technology on the present and what it means for the future of genealogy, please delete this now. I get an newsletter called The Net Economy, always well written, and often having more information on contemporary events than any newspaper or TV news I come in contact with. The latest issue is more scary about privacy as a Constitutional issue than anything I've ever read. The book 1984 has arrived, as a practical matter, and is in effect here in the USA. However, the same data mentioned in the newsletter would hold exactly the information I'd love to have for my grandparents, and earlier generations. Want to know the future of genealogy? Go to the newsletter site and read the whole issue. Your descendants 100 years from now could know every public action of yours, whom you spoke with, how many red lights you ran, where you were outdoors on any day, what buildings you entered at any time. The techniques involved, today's technology, provide the data any genealogist a century from now would delight in: a way to track their ancestors minutely and exactly thru the day and year, knowing just where those ancestors went and who they shared their lives with. Having local, state, and national governments currently able to track and hold and use that information is a most disturbing thought. Whatever the wants of genealogists I haven't met. Please, after my signature, keep in mind I didn't write the copy. The two paragraphs are pasted from The Net Economy newsletter. Go there, either with the hotlink or by copying and pasting, to read the whole newsletter, or hide under the bedcovers, as you would wish. Sleep well tonight, Ashley > > > ***************************************************************** > > DATA PACKET: Optical Networking; Vol. 2, No. 81 > > An e-mail newsletter of The Net Economy > > > > www.theneteconomy.com www.theneteconomy.com > > > > > > > *Tampa, Fla. became the first city in the nation to engage in > > routine facial monitoring of citizens. A network of 36 cameras, > > using the "FaceIt" technology of New Jersey-based Visionics > > Corp., scans pedestrians on city streets and uses biometrics > > software to compare their faces with a database of criminals. > > Other cities, including Virginia Beach, Virginia, already plan > > to install similar networks. This a nightmarish use of > > technology, for which the cities involved and Visionics should > > be condemned by all right-thinking people. Using such a > > network, the government can follow you down the street, knowing > > everywhere you go and everyone to whom you talk in public. A > > more Orwellian system is hard to imagine, and the constitutional > > implications are staggering. The First Amendment right of > > association, for example, is fairly meaningless when the > > government can scan, recognize and record everyone you talk to. > > The right to petition the government in public also is weakened. > > How many people will feel comfortable attending a protest rally > > if they know they are being scanned, identified and recorded? > > > > Here is Visionics' site, with a description of the technology: > > http://newsletters.theneteconomy.com/cgi-bin9/flo?y=eHDm0BIzvX0BNV0BHdO0 > > AU > > > > > > > > I would predict, of course, that it's inevitable that such > > systems will compare pedestrian faces against digitized > > driver's-license photos -- giving the government knowledge of > > where everyone, not just criminals, is on the street at any > > given time. There is no point in predicting that, however, as > > it has already been proposed; cities in Florida, Colorado and > > elsewhere plan to do just that. A time-honored precept that is > > one of the glories of our legal system is that the government > > can't search or detain you or spy on you unless it has probable > > cause to think you've committed a crime. Such technology, if > > allowed by the courts, strips that backbone out of our > > jurisprudence utterly." >