Columnist Scott Dickensheets: Life is becoming 'I Spy'

Prepare for a long future of saying "Cheese." Because you will be watched, says author David Brin. All the time, from every conceivable angle, you'll be the focus of someone else's focus. From official cameras mounted in public spaces and from micro-optics strung by your neighbors. It's Surveillance Nation, and it's coming, Brin insists. Smile, you're on candid spycam!

To the privacy-loving modern American, Brin's theory of a "transparent society" is chilling. In his recent nonfiction book of that title, the California scientist and sci-fi writer predicts that before long, we'll all live our own "Truman Shows," welcoming strangers into our so-called lives. Except perhaps in your home (if it hasn't been bugged by gnat-sized flying video feeds), the world according to Brin will be wired for pictures and sound. Privacy will vanish. We'll be bar-coded, databased and cross-indexed in a peep-o-rama of snoop technology.

Brin can hardly wait.

Where most of us recoil at the obvious Orwellianism of it, he sees this as an opportunity. Brin's optimism is partly simple pragmatics: Surveillance Nation is inevitable -- you can't uninvent the spycam. Might as well make the best of it. The way to do that, he says, is to democratize the access. Let everyone look. A nation of Joe Blows plugged into mega-databases and vast video nets will be able to keep tabs on Big Brother, potential criminals and threats to the social order.

It is, you have to admit, thought-provoking: a real global village, one huge small town where everyone knows everyone, with all the good behavior of a virtual Mayberry. After all, when everyone's watching, you won't do anything Aunt Bea would be ashamed of.

As the information flows unimpeded, our elaborate masks and false identities will be stripped away, freeing us at last to be our true selves. No more secrets. Greater knowledge will equal greater freedom, Brin believes, and privacy for freedom is a favorable tradeoff.

If this sounds like a product of his sci-fi imagination, think again. Or better yet, go to a 7-Eleven; wave to the nice security camera. Same at your bank's ATM or in your favorite casino. Marketers track your every stroll around the Internet; your employer reads your e-mail; and somewhere a credit service you know nothing about has a file on you.

In some British cities, public cameras have helped cleanse crime-ridden areas, to great citizen acclaim. Closer to home, Clark County Commissioner Lance Malone wants roadside cameras snapping speeders and checking intersections. Soon, your every freeway nose-pick will be on film. We've already met Surveillance Nation halfway.

So there's a definite extrapolative logic to Brin's thinking, an allure, even -- if you're an IBM Thinkpad. Because what he's describing is a computer's idea of liberty. The data stream will set you free! While I applaud any future in which I can peep ... er, spy on... er, harmlessly observe Sports Illustrated swimsuit models at will, I don't share Brin's zest for it.

Sure, it's human nature to be intensely interested in the doings of our neighbors -- until we realize they're as dull as we are. We get bored easily. The kick of gazing through freeway monitors and security cameras would wear off -- it sounds like C-Span without the excitement -- and we'll turn back to "Third Rock." The vigilance Brin is counting on to ensure our freedom will wane quickly.

Mostly, though, I think he underestimates the extent to which privacy is freedom. If the unexamined life isn't worth living, it still beats the overexamined one. I, for one, have stage fright; my true self emerges better in protective anonymity than with all eyes on me. Brin at least acknowledges this, if he can't bring himself to agree. "As Americans, we adore our privacy even more than freedom," he's said.

Brin seems to think that only libertarians and conspiracy freaks would balk at his brave new world. Not so. While my politics may have a tiny splotch of libertarian DNA, I'm basically just a guy who believes that if I pick my nose as I drive -- I don't, of course, but if I did, you know, hypothetically -- it's none of Lance Malone's business, nor yours.

Then again, if Brin is right, I may have no choice. "It's over," he has declared of private life. "It was fun while it lasted."

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