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Law Quadrangle (formerly Law Quad Notes)

Article Title

Faculty News

Abstract

The computer, with its insatiable appetite for information, its image of infallibility, its inability to forget anything that has been put into it, may become the heart of a surveillance system that will turn society into a transparent world in which our home, our finances, our associations, our mental and physical condition are laid bare to the most casual observer. The same electronic sensors that can warn us of an impending heart attack can be used to locate us, track our movements, and measure our emotions and thoughts. The identification number given us at birth might become a leash around our necks and make us the object of constant governmental surveillance. Even the idea that there is no place in the world where we cannot be reached through our number is somewhat frightening. Finally, a high degree of information centralization gives those who control the recordation and preservation of data a degree of power, which, if abused, might make the alleged "credibility gap" of today look like a bridge table bidding misunderstanding...

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