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[Paksoy, Hb]

>From the issue dated August 2, 2002
 

  How to Put Our Security Concerns Behind Us
By MICHAEL MARGOLIS

As reported in The Chronicle not long ago, "The U.S. Justice Department ...
says a new, computerized database designed to improve monitoring [of foreign
students] won't be ready by the January 30 deadline. The new database, the
Student and Exchange Visitor Information System (SEVIS), will be an advance
for the beleaguered Immigration and Naturalization Service but 'will not
solve the problems of the ... tracking of foreign students'" ("INS Database
Won't Make Deadline," May 31).

The Justice Department has confessed. Entrusting the federal government to
design security systems to protect the homeland will fail to prevent future
terrorist attacks. Even a revamped INS will have no effective means of
tracking the most dangerous evildoers -- foreign students, who enter the
United States every day.

But must all efforts to protect the homeland from such evildoers fail?
Emphatically not! This essay points to an effective means of tracking not
only dangerous evildoers, but potentially dangerous evildoers as well.

For starters, the government need not reinvent the wheel. Private enterprise
has already demonstrated how established technology could be used to keep
close track of foreign students. Last summer, Acme Rent-A-Car monitored its
cars on the road with the civilian Global Positioning System. That enabled
Acme to bill customers $150 for every time they exceeded the legal speed
limit.

As our successes in Afghanistan have shown, the military GPS is even more
accurate at pinpointing the location of any moving target.

As an interim solution, therefore, why not use increased INS appropriations
already in the pipeline to strap an unobtrusive GPS receptor onto every
foreign student who enters the homeland? Personalized GPS receptors would
enable the INS, the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central
Intelligence Agency, and other federal agencies to keep each student under
constant surveillance.

Such a security system would provide peace of mind for Americans as well as
convenience for foreign students. The students would experience fewer
background investigations when applying for visas and would need no special
identification cards. At the same time, terrified Americans could rest
assured that the GPS devices were monitoring the students' every move.
Furthermore, once the system has been perfected for foreign students, it can
easily be extended to cover all foreigners who enter the homeland.

But a GPS, as noted, is merely an interim solution. Refinements like
miniaturized chips full of critical information, suitable for implantation
in human beings, are already available from Applied Digital Solutions of
Palm Beach, Fla. So far, the chips are only being implanted voluntarily in
senior citizens and others who anticipate requiring medical attention or
other aid in circumstances where they will be unable to articulate their
needs. Economies of scale would make it possible to implant such monitoring
devices in all potential evildoers.

But why stop there? To guarantee a secure future for all Americans, we can
inject each newborn's buttocks with small GPS chips no bigger than grains of
rice. (A tasteful tattoo could mark the spot.) In a few years, the same
technology could be extended to children, and then to adults. Everyone who
enters or resides in the homeland would be eligible for a chip. No more
profiling based on race, sex, age, religion, country of origin, sexual
orientation, veteran's status -- or any other undemocratically
discriminatory characteristic.

Think of the safety and convenience. We would come to appreciate how much
information can be packed into a chip. No longer would we have to lug around
wallets full of plastic cards or cash. All the information about private
charge accounts, preferred-customer discounts, bank accounts, and the like,
as well as Social Security numbers and other governmentally issued
identification data, could be stored in one's buttocks.

Sensors would read the chips just as they now read bar codes, magnetic
strips on ordinary credit cards, or the chips embedded in the increasingly
popular smart cards. Everyone could get a monthly statement of the times and
locations of all their movements and transactions by post or by e-mail. For
a small subscription fee, people could retrieve all their information,
together with surveillance photos of themselves, on the Web 24/7. Privacy
software would enable communication devices to recognize unique passwords
encrypted in the chips. Identity theft would become a thing of the past.

To be sure, nothing is perfect. Some vexing questions remain. For example,
should religious objections to implanting GPS chips be considered a valid
reason for offering someone an externally mounted device? Should private
individuals or the government pay for the occasional minor surgeries when
chips need replacement? As a political scientist, I am confident that those
difficulties can be worked out.

We Americans celebrate democratic values like liberty, privacy, and the
principles embodied in the Bill of Rights. But historically, we've always
been ready to compromise those values for the sake of security. We feel it's
better to be safe than sorry. The war on terrorism is no exception.

Monitoring implanted chips would enable the proper authorities to track
every person's activities with godlike accuracy. Potential evildoers -- not
to mention would-be terrorists -- wouldn't stand a chance.

Michael Margolis is a professor of political science at the University of
Cincinnati. His latest book is Politics as Usual: The Cyberspace
"Revolution" (Sage, 2000), written with David Resnick.