EFFECTIVE GOVERNMENT MONITORING
OF ALL TELEPHONES & CELLPHONES
WOULD  BE  A  HERCULEAN TASK

Why do people talk so loud on cellphones,
disturbing  everyone  in  public  places?
 
By David Maril
 
It’s unnerving in our democracy when the first confirmations surface that the government, in the name of defense against terrorism, relies on expanded surveillance of us through our telephones, cellphones and Internet use.

Is Big Brother — or to avoid being labeled chauvinistic, Big Sister — watching every move all of us make?

But you know something? Now that we have all been warned eavesdropping is in and privacy is on the way out, everyone knows what to expect and it’s your own fault if you say something or text a message you don’t want repeated or filed in some type of top-security folder.

Even though we are being assured conversations are not being listened to and recorded, you’d be foolish to believe the surveillance levels won’t be increased without notice if some high-ranking bureaucrat deems it necessary.

However, if you stop and think about all the shallow, babbling and texting that is taking place so many people can avoid making personal contact, it would be a herculean task to effectively monitor our communications.

Think of all the unavoidable silly chatter of people broadcasting play-by-play of trivial details in their lives we all learn to tolerate walking through a store or even sitting in a restaurant. Even to do a thorough job of eavesdropping on just cellphones alone would require hiring millions of new security workers.

Thinking back to a recent Amtrak train trip I took from New York to Baltimore, it’s apparent to me that effectively bugging cellphone chatter is impractical and unrealistic.

Just after the train rolled out of the tunnel into New Jersey, the ring of a cell phone interrupted the reassuring clickety-clack cadence emanating from the tracks.

In the middle of the third annoying jingle-ring, which sounded like the ESPN theme song played in A-minor, a woman answered in a voice loud enough to echo through the half-empty car.

“It was terrible,’’ she yelled into the phone. “He had dinner and then all of a sudden he was sick. He had some kind of attack and something ruptured in his stomach. I think a lot of it is stress related.”

You could almost sense a collective groan coming from the other dozen or so people spread out through the car. The last details in the world you want to overhear are specifics of someone’s illness. It’s even worse when the information is about a person you don’t even know.

“I had to rush him in right away for treatment, and they operated on him within 20 minutes after we arrived,” she continued.

With sickening detail, she went more deeply into the symptoms of the affliction and the procedure of the operation. Trust me, it was not the kind of description you want to hear within a couple of hours of eating.

The woman became even more annoying as she kept dispensing gorier details. To a point, you sympathized for her having to deal with a stressful situation. But on the other hand, she was giving intimate details about something that was none of the other passengers’ business.

A few minutes into this agonizing hospital report, it was hard not to turn around and get a glimpse of what the woman looked like. She was in her early 40s, well dressed and had the look of a successful business executive.
It was only natural to begin trying to figure out who the patient was. Could it be her husband, or father? Maybe it was a boyfriend or brother.

He came through the surgery OK but I have to find out what he’ll be able to do and what he can’t do for a while,” she hollered into the phone. “I have to see how he’s doing. I’d been away a week and hadn’t even gotten a chance to spend any time with him when this all happened.”

You could imagine someone not being allowed to drive for a while or being forced to miss a week or two of work. Maybe he’d have to use a cane, or walker, while recovering, and stay away from alcohol and avoid fried, fatty foods.

Then she revealed some startling news.

“I’ll tell you, I can’t say anything but good things about the treatment at the animal hospital,” she told the caller. “They are really professional there and they may have saved his life. And that dog health-insurance policy I bought is more than paying off. I’d be $2,600 in the hole if I hadn’t bought the policy last year.”

This 15-minute conversation had been about a pet dog and not a person. You could hear a sigh of relief spread through the train.

Thinking back to her telephone conversation and the ongoing public debate about government eavesdropping, I can picture a bunch of federal eavesdroppers listening in to millions of conversations thinking one thing and then finding out several minutes later the subject is about something else.

It’s impossible to comprehend how much time and manpower would be needed if our national security depends on the government expanding its surveillance to listening in on the conversations of regular U.S. citizens.

Except for solving the unemployment problem by creating millions of jobs for all of this eavesdropping, what a waste of time!
 
davidmaril@hermanmaril.com
 
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