Throughout the Federal Government as well as State Governments, we are seeing more and more uses of technology to create greater efficiency, stop fraud, protect voting rights, and create greater public safety. The question that arises in the use of these technological innovations is no longer can we do this, but SHOULD we do this. The Liberty of a free people is a very fragile thing that can be stolen in a moment if we are not constantly vigilant. Benjamin Franklin once said, “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.” We would be wise to heed his words in a world that is rapidly changing due to technological advances. It is important to define what liberty means here. To paraphrase Lord Acton, Liberty is the freedom to do what you ought to do. It is not freedom to harm others.
Note, this article does not discuss the use of Artificial Intelligence. We will discuss the impact that Artificial Intelligence can have on liberty in a future article.
Checks and Balances
Far too many government technology implementations have no checks and balances built into them. In a society where the predominant belief is that people are generally good, this can create systems that will be misused by future autocrats. This is in direct contrast to what the founders believed: people are sinful by nature. James Madison stated in Federalist 51: “In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.” Instead of questioning whether technology impacts personal liberty, safety has become an overriding concern for governments today.
Liberty and Personal Information
If you have recently read a credit card statement or a heath insurance statement, you will come across the phrase “Personally Identifiable Information” or PII. This type of information includes drivers license numbers, drivers license photos, social security numbers, passport numbers, bank account numbers, credit card information, etc. A lot of this information we need to be able to operate in today’s world, but it has to be protected as the potential for misuse is beyond belief. You can lose your liberty in seconds if this gets compromised, either by hackers stealing your assets or by committing crimes in your name. More dangerously, people can lose their liberty instantly if this information is misused by an autocratic government.
There were a lot of good bills passed this legislative session in Idaho. However, two bills came before the Legislature this session that stood out in their potential to compromise the Personal Information of Idaho Citizens, HB 339 and HB78. HB78 would allow Idahoans to use digital drivers’ licenses that would be stored on their cell phone. This is a classic example of something that we can do but shouldn’t. A digital driver’s license stored on a cell phone is easily hacked. Cell Phone Security Statistics – From Certosoftware.com
- Approximately 70% of online fraud is accomplished through cell phones.
- 83% of phishing sites specifically targeted mobile devices.
- 85% of people use their smartphones for accessing email, 71% for managing social media, and 51% for digital wallets.
- 45% of people use the same PIN for their phone, apps, and bank accounts making them more vulnerable.
In addition, the specifications allow for remote reading of the license by a deputy with your permission. But worse than information leaking out, is the potential impact to liberty. This bill assumes that the people in government are good and have the best intentions at heart. The infrastructure required for this would easily allow any government entity to gather the licenses, which leads to the personal information of everyone in an area. It doesn’t take much imagination to see that an authoritarian government would quickly take advantage of this capability. There are really no ways to place checks and balances on this technology once implemented. Fortunately, the members of the Senate transportation committee did the right thing and stalled the bill in committee.
HB339 is a bill designed to help clean up the voter rolls and prevent non-citizens from voting. This is certainly something we would all support and want to see additional safeguards that only American Citizens can vote. The issue is the security of the implementation and taking all possible steps to safeguard Idahoans’ personal data. After an amendment that mandated the data is pulled together on a secured system, checked and then deleted, the bill passed and became law. It was a good thing that the committee recognized the lack of security in the original bill. Is the security that we are gaining through this implementation causing a loss of liberty? At this stage, probably not. However, this bill does set the stage for pulling together information that could be used against the citizens of Idaho in the future. This is an example of the price of liberty, constant vigilance.
Federal Technology Intrusions into Liberty
After 9/11 in late 2001, the federal government started implementing streaming databases in telecommunications data centers to look for terrorist activity over the internet. A streaming database works by scanning for data that matches what it is looking for and making copies of it while the data is going by. Think of it like a police officer standing on a corner, looking for traffic violations and calling them in to other police officers to investigate. During the Obama administration, the NSA created a large database that gathered together massive quantities of data that were then searched for terrorist activity. As we have since learned, the NSA database was used for all sorts of privacy and liberty violations.
Currently, DOGE is working to find fraud, waste and abuse in the federal government. Needless to say, they are finding a lot of fraud and waste. Government entities have created unbelievable bureaucratic fiefdoms that not only don’t talk with one another, many times they actually fight with one another. For example, within a government technology department the storage team will not talk with the networking team and the mainframe team won’t talk with any of them. In fact, they will build their own little domains. This creates unbelievable opportunities for fraud. It wastes all sorts of taxpayer money and is an abuse of the good will of the American Citizen.
A recent article in wired magazine indicates that DOGE is working to create “one API to rule them all” for the IRS. API stands for Application Programing Interface. This API would allow the IRS to access data instantly from all its databases at the same time, pulling together this data for anyone who has access to the API. This implementation would certainly make it easier to root out and prevent fraud. However, it would be very easy to connect this API to a digital dollar which could be used by the government as part of a way to rule with an iron fist. This would be a clear violation of American’s liberty.
What price will we pay for technology?
Technology is a tool, and like any other tool it can be used for good or evil. Where technology differs is in its ability to be used to crush liberty. Social media companies are specifically designed to addict users to their product by building psychological profiles of every single user. These profiles are being used to market products to users, but more dangerously they are used to identify people with the greatest level of influence who can be easily manipulated. Social media companies then amplify those voices and lower the volume on voices they don’t want to speak. As we saw during the Biden administration, disinformation was peddled by thousands of voices and anyone who dissented was silenced.
Should we continue to use technology this way? How can we restore checks and balances in the way technology is used? What price will we pay for technology? If it is essential liberty, then this nation is headed toward authoritarian rule.
