He who has seen what has happened and who sees what is to happen

I’ve been watching Alias - the one where Jennifer Garner gets to wear lots of revealing dresses and silly wigs and run around pretending she’s a spy, right? And, well, it kinda got me to thinkin’ (as the Americans say in their folksy idiom). Now, I’m the first to admit that perhaps I read too many thrillers, and I’ve always been a big fan of James Bond, but I think it’s having a weird effect on my brain because I’m starting to be seriously paranoid. There are bugs in my radio, listening devices in my MP3 player, and that little hole in the wall above my bed? Obviously a concealed microphone. There are people reading my text messages and emails, and I’m longing for the day when that self-destruct paper they had on Mission: Impossible back in the seventies really exists. Even some of the catering staff in College look suspiciously like Mata Hari.

In order to allow myself some chance of sleeping at night, therefore, I thought I’d have a quick scout around to see what I could find to put my mind at rest. Imagine my surprise, dearest Reader, when the most cursory glance over the BBC News website provided me with the following…

Article #1 - a senior lawyer’s email communication with his secretary ended up all over the news. I bet the poor man wishes he’d never heard of the modern wizardry that is Outlook! And further on the subject of computer privacy, the organisation Privacy International reports that “As consumers engage in routine online transactions, they leave behind a trail of personal details, often without any idea that they are doing so. Much of this information is routinely captured in computer logs.”

Article #2 - all about how your mobile phone can be bugged, or even turned into a bug, without your knowledge. Apparently the answer is to live inside a little silver tent.

Article #3- the case of a Welsh woman who discovered, well, not to put too fine a point on it, some pretty raunchy text messages on her husband’s phone. It turns out that he’d bought the phone second hand, and the messages were left over from the previous owner (who was a very lucky man, by the sounds of it…)

Article #4- the so-called “snoopers’ charter”, allowing a whole series of agencies and authorities to use surveillance.

Privacy International’s UK Big Brother Award shortlist, 2005, includes nominations for “The Land Registry. For openly placing details of all house purchases and purchasers online for a fee.”, “Richard Granger, head of the NHS IT project. For his project's lack of regard for patient privacy and for his policy of non-accountability to the public.” and “The European Union. For consistently approving bad policies that even failed at home. Including data retention, identity cards, biometric passports, passenger surveillance, ... and that's only this year.”

So, what can I say? I don’t suppose I’ll be losing too much sleep over it, to be honest. After all, even if they are listening in, all anyone’s going to hear are my conversations with my stuffed-toy bunny. And I should have learned my lesson about text messages the day that a missive intended for my at-the-time dearest boyfriend reached another person entirely. (I have been more embarrassed, but not since I was about five.)

But this really is scary stuff - and what's the remedy? To avoid all forms of electronic communication? To resort to semaphore and hope the government has forgotten how to use telescopes? Or just to be practical and never, ever, communicate in an email or text message or telephone conversation anything we would not be happy being read out in court?

And as for all these government agencies and corporations and criminals and random perverts, well, as Ira Gaines kept warning us, “that’s right… we’re watching you…”

References: Article #1; Privacy International on computers; Article #2; Article #3; Article #4; The Big Brother Awards