Who's Doing This?

This past Monday evening, the Massey Tunnel (the tunnel that goes under the Fraser River on the main north-south highway into Vancouver) was closed for several hours after a 1981 Volkswagon pickup with a single driver had an accident while driving through the tunnel around 8:50 p.m.  The pickup then caught fire.  Unfortunately, the driver was killed.  Closing that tunnel in both directions, even for a short period of time (the accident was in the northbound section, but there was smoke in the southbound section) must have caused a colossal traffic mess, even that late in the evening.

The next morning, we were driving east on Highway 17, barely 6K from the Massey Tunnel, when we saw traffic backed up forever in the westbound lanes, near Ladner Trunk Road.  Just past the intersection, a trailer truck had turned right over on its side.  No curves in the road there, no wind happening; the driver seemed to have made the turn (if he was turning) before the truck turned on its side because it was stretched right straight out on the shoulder.  Many, many police cars around, lights flashing.  Many, many cars not getting to the Tsawwassen Ferry Terminal.

This, my experience of the beginning of the Olympic phenomenon here in Vancouver.  Today, the newsmedia report that they are trucking snow in from the interior to Cypress Bowl because it's 45-50 degrees F. all this week, all last week, all next week from all appearances.  My neighbors up here in the Sunshine Coast are not speaking kindly about the Olympics and the Premier who thought having it in Vancouver was such a great idea.

But here's the bright side.  If the Massey Tunnel closure had occurred in the U.S. on the first day of the Olympic schedule (that's when the various road closures began), somebody somewhere would have asked, suggested, insisted that the driver of that 1981 truck was probably a terrorist.  That the overturning of that tractor-trailer truck, barely 3 miles away the very next morning, was the work of a terrorist.  That the absence of snow and the high temperatures were part of some terrorist conspiracy.  And the official response, at the very least, would have been to let only one car at a time drive through the Massey Tunnel for as long as the Olympics lasted.

In B.C., there has been no indication that anyone thinks it was the work of a terrorist.  Although some people have wondered how you get a 1981 Volkswagen pickup to drive at all.

Privacy Theft

It’s been almost a year ago that I got my Nexus card renewed; that would be the time at which the Nexus agents gave me a new name, one that I have never, ever used, and insisted that that was to be my real name from now on. Next time I have to renew the card, I guess we’ll go through some further unhappy conversations since my Nexus card now has a name that doesn’t match any of my other official ID cards.

But in the meantime, they’ve issued us all NEW Nexus cards. These cards are said to contain some amount of private data (which I take it means data that they have, not data that I have, although I may have it as well, I suppose), encoded in their little plastic bodies by means of microchips. And, this fabulous little microchipped card comes with its own secret covering, which looks to be the same kind of covering that the bank gives me for my ATM card, but may, indeed, be made of Kevlar, or have its own microchips for all I know.

I must always keep my Nexus card in this little coat. I must immediately destroy my old Nexus card, which has no coat and no microchips upon activating my new Nexus Card. I don’t know what happens if I don’t destroy it, but my first intuition was that the new one probably wouldn’t work, so I’d better hang on to my old one for awhile in case I need a backup.

But I used the new Nexus card yesterday, and it did work, so I guess I can bear to get rid of the old one. Actually, I’d be happy to get rid of the old one: it has a picture, alleged to be of me (with the odd name, of course), but it actually looks like a fish with glasses. The new Nexus card has the same picture, but it is covered up by some kind of holographic seal or something which almost completely obliterates the picture. Couldn’t happen to a worse picture. An act of kindness from Nexus.

But my question is about the little coat that the Nexus card is obliged to wear at all times. I am told (by whom I do not know—street talk) that I must keep the coat on the Nexus card at all times because people driving around with radio frequency scanners (And who would that be? The police? Terrorists? Identity thieves?) will pick up the secret information off my Nexus card and drive away to do something with it. Become identity thieves? Become terrorists? I really am not easily able to imagine this happening with any frequency. But it is technology and I’m not all that techno-savvy.

So I accept that you have to keep its coat on at all times (except when going through the border because if it has its coat on then the border people can’t read it anymore than the scanner thieves can read it) to protect something. But what’s actually on the card that needs protecting? My name? Well, actually, not. My Social Security number? The places that have my social security number are legion. When I lived in Massachusetts (1970-75), that’s what they used for your driver’s license number, which was then copied onto every check you ever wrote. My passport number? My awful photograph? My bank accounts, my brokerage accounts (not much left there), my insurance? My secret diary? My passwords????

Somehow, I have the feeling that this is just one of the last acts of incompetence brought to us by the Bush Administration. After all, if it’s so dangerous to have this information floating in the air, couldn’t it be encrypted? And if it’s so dangerous to have this information floating in the air, maybe the government shouldn’t have the information in the first place or shouldn’t be putting it on a card that is highly likely, sooner or later, in my hands or those of someone else, to lose its coat, its hat, its mittens, its every protection? And then will it be my/our fault if the terrorists come again? I'm checking with Dick Cheney about that.

Counting Border Policy Perceptions

I ran into an opportunity to participate in modern science today that may be of interest to those who live near the border. A psychology professor at Western Washington University in Bellingham is conducting an internet survey (not very long) about our perceptions of border security policies. It’s a funny survey (as surveys almost invariably are. If only one could have a little conversation with the instrument designer to determine what exactly they have in mind when they ask me to assess, e.g., ‘how knowledgeable [am I] about what should be done for effective border security?’ I mean, if they are asking the public to respond to the survey, do they really think that there is some large group of people out there who are technically knowledgeable or who know whether they are knowledgeable or even agree about what constitutes “effective border security’? Do I know what to do to keep foreign lemons from coming into Point Roberts? Is not the prior question why would we want to keep foreign lemons from coming into Point Roberts?)

I think about asking these questions of Israelis, perhaps. How good a job are they doing keeping Palestinians out of Israel? I would guess the answer to that is pretty much based upon whether they are currently having experience in Israel with terrorism. And they are and years more experience has not shown much in the way of effective border control in their arena. But the more important question, perhaps, is what else are they doing as a result of their border policies besides sometimes keeping Palestinians who are interested in doing violence out of the country? You can be somewhat effective at one thing but, at the same time, be doing a whole lot of other harms by virtue of that effectiveness. Is the one worth the other? Isn’t that the more important question?

I guess our border policies are wonderfully effective at keeping terrorists out because there have been no terrorist incidents in recent years. At least that’s what George W says. But what else are those border policies achieving? And how do I know they’re being effective? How do I even know whether terrorists are trying to come across the borders? George says so? I don’t think so. He pretty much lacks credibility on this or any other topic. Maybe the terrorists have all gone to the tribal areas of Pakistan or to the central drama of gee-what/gwot in Iraq, and nobody at any of our borders has prevented anything, although they certainly have managed to irritate considerably a very large number of people. Oh, I know, they’re only doing it for my benefit. Why am I not feeling benefited?

Another question: Do we need more protection on the border? What more could we be doing? Something comparable to the Berlin Wall? All around the country? (Reagan would come back from his grave to say, "Tear Down that Wall, Mr. Bush.") I could go on but won’t. The survey puzzles me greatly. I cannot quite imagine how to answer most of the questions nor, if I and others could, what kinds of conclusions could be drawn. But, you may do better. You can describe your own unhappy experiences, but the problem is that if YOU are having an unhappy experience at the border, it may not have any effect whatsoever on keeping terrorists or illegal immigrants out, unless, of course, you fall into either of those categories. The border policy could be very effective, even though you are having bad experiences. You may just be what we like to call collateral damage, no?

I feel like we pay our dues to live in this country (especially today, April 15, when I have just been in touch with IRS). Somebody ought to care about what we think. Maybe the psychology professor has something going for him that I missed. Certainly he's more interested in our views than our local congressman. Go here and you can have a run at it.