[Mb-civic] Looking Back at Big Brother - Sebastian Mallaby - Washington Post

[William Swiggard]

Looking Back at Big Brother

By Sebastian Mallaby
Monday, July 18, 2005; Page A15

Steve Mann's Web site features many pictures. Mann in an MIT sweatshirt 
(the photo is captioned "Early 1990s"). Mann in the same MIT sweatshirt 
(this time captioned "Mid 1990s"). Mann always with a basement-dwelling, 
"Wayne's World," slacker-hacker aura. But the point of these pictures is 
what Mann has on his head: a futuristic visor, an assemblage of 
electrical components and stray wires, a beetle-like antenna. Once, when 
Mann tried to board an Air Canada flight with all this gear, he was 
pulled aside and searched. Electrodes were pulled out of his chest so 
naturally he sued, alleging discrimination against "cyborgs."

"I know there are a lot of people out there who will read this and say 
'This doesn't affect me, I'm not a cyborg,' " Mann told Canada's 
National Post in 2002. "But the way I was treated by Air Canada, it 
could happen to anyone."

<>Indeed. These days, as Mann warned us, any airline traveler risks 
being searched, and the London bombings look certain to bring a new 
level of surveillance. Suddenly security cameras are everybody's 
favorite fix: Mayor Tony Williams has promised more in Washington, and 
Sen. Hillary Clinton has demanded more in New York. The London 
authorities, who already have cameras up the wazoo, are considering 
X-ray scanners that reveal weapons and bombs and, regrettably, all else 
under your clothing.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/17/AR2005071701077.html?nav=hcmodule 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://www.islandlists.com/pipermail/mb-civic/attachments/20050718/16b7f9e3/attachment.htm