Is Your Privacy in Jeopardy?
IT CANNOT be known how the last half of this 20th century would have been affected had certain crucial events been known well in advance—the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941 by Japan; where Adolf Hitler would strike next in Europe; if Hitler had known that Britain, France, and the United States would enter the war; the intentions of Fidel Castro in Cuba after overthrowing its ruling power in 1959; the intentions of the rulers in northern Korea in June 1950 and those in North Vietnam in 1957, to name a few. Because these schemes were kept secret, the world was caught by surprise.
History has shown that nations do not like surprises from other nations. Since the electronic technology is now available to eavesdrop on the intentions of other powers and keep costly surprises to a minimum, a clandestine surveillance war is being waged by the majority of nations to spy on one another. It is reported that “53 lesser world governments” daily sweep their government offices with expensive detecting devices that can locate hidden listening bugs.
As far back as 1952, it was claimed that the American embassy in Moscow was being eavesdropped on by means of an unusual type of bug planted inside the American Seal located behind the ambassador’s desk. In 1985, U.S. officials reported that the Soviets had planted a large number of bugged typewriters in the U.S. embassy in Moscow.
The Russians, for their part, say that they have found many electronic bugs. These are said to include a brick wired with a transmitter, discovered at the Soviet embassy in Washington, D.C. Also, their UN representative claims that a socket for his master television antenna was bugged. So the spying continues on an international scale.
Spying in the Workplace
“One gets the feeling that it’s open season on human privacy,” lamented one lawyer. “What I see is a horror,” commented another. “We have become a nation of spies.” In truth, we have become a world of spies. The swift advance of communication technology—computers, miniature radio transmitters, telephone linkage via microwave and satellites—has contributed to making it so. The new technology has outpaced the laws protecting individual and corporate privacy.
For example, by installing additional computer software on an already existing computer system, employers can now monitor practically every move a user of video-display terminals makes—secretaries, airline reservation clerks, postal workers, and those who work at grocery checkout counters. The list is endless. Experts estimate that more than 13 million Americans alone who work on such terminals are monitored, and the number is growing. By the year 2000, they speculate, there will be 30 million to 40 million video-display terminal users, and as many as 50 to 75 percent of them will be monitored. As the system becomes more sophisticated, says the magazine U.S.News & World Report, “even engineers, accountants and doctors are expected to face electronic scrutiny.”
Already there is deep resentment between management and labor over the loss of personal privacy due to this electronic eavesdropping. One manufacturer of the software that makes this surveillance possible says: “It permits total surveillance of all users, all of the time.” Reports coming out of the workplace indicate that the boast is not an idle one. “I can’t even go to the bathroom without being watched,” complained one telephone operator. Said a director of a national association of workingwomen, “Many employer practices are an outrageous invasion of privacy.” “You’re a nervous wreck. The stress is incredible,” said another enraged worker. “It’s a very oppressive way to work. To be plugged into that boob tube and not be able to move gets under your skin sometimes,” adds another. Is it any wonder when the “boob tube” you have been working with turns on you, berating you with the flashing words, “You’re not working as fast as the person next to you.” Is privacy in the workplace slipping through labor’s fingers?
Corporate Spying
All is not serene with corporate management either. One tiny miniature microphone concealed in its office or conference room can mean the difference between millions of dollars coming in their tills or perhaps massive layoffs. When a major defense contractor lost a two-hundred-million-dollar contract to a rival firm by just a few thousand dollars, a debugging team was called in. A sweep revealed a planted microphone concealed in the ceiling of the conference room. Every word was picked up by a tape recorder in the men’s room down the hall.
In the corporate world, electronic spying has become so prevalent that it has been estimated that 100,000 bugs have been planted in the last five years by rival companies to eavesdrop on everything from contract bids, trade secrets, and new products to secret labor negotiations. It is reported that “hundreds of Fortune 500 companies” daily sweep their offices and conference rooms with spy-detecting equipment. “I think there is a real paranoia in corporations today,” observed the vice president of a large New York debugging firm, “a feeling that there’s no place that’s safe.”
Are you, as a private citizen with little to do with the corporate world or government, likely to have your privacy invaded by some form of surveillance system? Here are some facts to consider. Reports indicate that seven out of ten instances where illegal wiretaps were discovered involved private parties. Prevalent among these were situations within families, usually marital discord. Many times, private investigators were hired to gather evidence of adultery, proof of being an unfit parent, or some evidence of betrayal. According to one report, “Eighty per cent of the devices that telephone companies discover each year are in residences.”
Then, too, one writer said you may be eavesdropped on by a telephone company itself, and he characterized telephone companies as “the biggest offenders of telephone privacy.” Said one former CIA analyst: “Telephone cops, during the only five-year period for which statistics are available, listened in without a single warrant on 1.8 million telephone conversations, ostensibly for the purpose of catching toll cheats.” These eavesdroppers, he notes, had a close relationship with local, state, and federal police officers with whom they sometimes exchanged information.
There are also the law-enforcement agencies themselves. Either with or without a warrant, your phone may be tapped. It was discovered that police in one U.S. city had illegally wiretapped more than 3,000 people in just a few years. There have been similar accusations of illegal wiretapping by police in many other cities. Said one writer, “It wasn’t just bigshots or radicals or crooks who were tapped, but ordinary people.” It was lamented that even the Lutheran Church was among those wiretapped. Other churches have also come under electronic scrutiny.
Finally, one sociology professor made this far-reaching observation: “With a different government and a more intolerant public, the same [eavesdropping] devices could easily be used against those of the ‘wrong’ political ideology, ethnic groups, religious minorities, or those with lifestyles that offend the majority.”
If you are among those who treasure your privacy, who like to be left alone, enjoy it now. There are many who believe it is an endangered freedom.
[Picture on page 7]
Her computer screen says, “You are not doing as much as your fellow workers”
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Boardroom meetings are sometimes bugged