Garvey's Ghost: Black Talk

Big Brother abounds

I have an old car. previously I had a car that did not have GPS or any of those types of systems. I also do not have easy pass. Why? I don't like being tracked. No I don't do anything illegal nor do I plan to, but i don't like tracking. When GM first announced Onstar I resolved that I would not be a GM customer. Of course now just about every car maker has some type of GPS device on their vehicles.

I do however, have a cell phone. It stays on all the time and is on vibrate because I'm not that important or vain to need to have my phone calls annonced to everyone. Besides I'm a long time believer that phone calls are basically an intrusion on ones personal time and therefore should be regulated with generous amounts of "let it ring."

The NYT has an interesting article about the use of cell phones as monitoring devices. I remember watching an episode of "The Wire" where rather large GPS devices were put onto various vehicles for the purpose of tracking them. With the miniturization of such devices they will no doubt become prevasive (like RFID chips). I agree with the safety aspects of the technology. I would defintely keep a cell phone on while hiking or doing something that would have me away from people. But I'm not sure that tracking your teenage child's whereabouts with a cell phone is a good idea. I don't even think teens with cell phones are a good idea, but thats my opinion. A part of growing up is becoming independent of your parents and yes venturing out and taking risks. it's not whether your child truthfully tells you his or her whereabouts it's whether your child has been raised to take responsibility of themselves. After all if it really was about safety then why not allow the children to track teir parents. Last time I checked parents are victims of crimes, speed and go where they feel like too. This reminds me of my gripe with parents on playgrounds who follow thier children and "help" them with every piece of play equipment. Let the child learn by doing and by failing and sometimes hurting themselves. Let them get into arguments and sometimes fights with other children. Conflict is normal and children need to learn how to navigate these things and sometimes the parents job is to let mistakes happen.

Links:

http://nytimes.com/2003/12/21/technology/21WATC.html