Little Brother's watching you - The future of surveillance is small, very small by Jim Thomas from The Ecologist
Invisible control is power. The founding editor of Wired magazine once suggested that the more significant a technology is, the less able we are to recognise it as a technology at all. Technologies such as writing and clocks long ago ceased to be noticed as technologies yet continued to be used by those in power to extend control. Today nanotechnology, and microscale technology, already operating in the realm of the near invisible, offer a new platform to do the same. We may be some way away from the molecular surveillance cameras that thicken the air of sci-fi dystopias, but as the fledgling nanotech industry emerges alongside the 'war on terrorism', a trajectory towards a nano surveillance society is coming worryingly into focus.
One leading nano-commentator, Michael Mehta, Professor of Sociology at Saskatchewan University in Canada, has given it a name: the nano-panopticon - describing the emergence of a future without privacy in which every aspect of society will be tracked, measured and visible from the bottom up. Mehta points to the emergence of nano-enabled devices such as 'lab on a chip' technology which can gives insurers and employers fast and cheap access to genetic data - - and are likely to increase genetic discrimination. Alongside this are being developed a host of miniature sensors and tracking mechanisms that could strengthen state and corporate power and undermine workers.
Take farming for example. The US Department of Agriculture recently published enthusiastic proposals for a project described without irony as 'The Little Brother Project'. Nano-sized sensors distributed over fields will be used to measure all aspects of crop development and environmental conditions, wirelessly transmitting data back to computer models which then tell the farmer how to farm. More likely of course is that agribusinesses controlling the farmer will use the data and instruct accordingly -- further reducing the farmer to a mere functionary of larger forces.
Or consider the US military. Nano-defence research has a significant focus on developing battlefield sensors to be spread over the theatre of conflict, relaying an accurate picture of enemy troop movements or presence of explosive and biological agents. The most high profile research in this direction was carried out in the late nineties by Professor Kris Pister of Berkeley who developed 'Smart Dust': millimetre-sized sensors called 'motes' which wirelessly transmit data on temperature, light and movement.
Corporations too could leverage this technology. Pister is now bringing his military motes to market with a new company called Dust Inc. In the short term, he is selling dust sensors to supermarkets to monitor fridges but hopes to mix smart dust with goods or agricultural commodities for tracking through the chain of production. While dust motes are still visible to the eye simpler commercial tracking technologies are being developed at the nanoscale. 'Nanobarcodes' for example are rods of individually striped nanoparticles that can be read only with specialised equipment. They can be woven into cloth or mixed with any number of common materials.
Mostly however it's the 'Homeland Defense' of America that is proving the cash cow for nano-sensors, tracking and detection. Most of the nanosensor projects currently being pursued concern themselves with the detection of biological agents, toxic chemicals or explosives at airports. Some of the more complex devices under development detect the presence of certain molecules, proteins, enzymes or genetic markers and careful questions need to be asked to ensure these cannot be adapted for ethnically targeted sensing.
In particular nano-sensor development is about to be given a huge federal boost with the announcement of the proposed US Sensor Net. Expected to be awarded up to $3 billion of development money by the Department of Homeland Security, the Sensor Net will integrate countless nano and micro sensors into a single nationwide network for detection of biological contaminants. These sensors will feed back to the existing US national network of 30,000 mobile phone masts and 100,000 cellular base stations forming the skeleton of an unparalleled national surveillance network. That skeleton may come into place fairly quickly: Oak Ridge National Laboratory, leading on the development of Sensor Net for two years, has already signed a memorandum of understanding with the company who own a third of those masts and created a strategic partnership with a leading mast repair company. Meanwhile other US government defence laboratories such as Los Alamos and Sandia labs are stepping up the development of the 'nerves and skin' of the network - the nano-sensors themselves, borrowing in part from the existing work on agricultural sensors.
Whether Sensor Net is a sinister stalking horse for wider nano-surveillance or no more than a well intentioned attempt by the most powerful country on earth to protect its citizens, it makes the need for independent international scrutiny of nanotechnology even more urgent. The fear is that as the skin and skeleton of this nano-sensor network settle into place it could provide a pervasive and largely invisible framework for those with more totalitarian instincts to build on later - Another reason to ask the big questions about this small technology up front.
Jim Thomas is European Programme Manager for the ETC Group, the action group on Erosion, Technology and Concentration.
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