Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

In spite of everything I know about technology, I remain confident that our government is not watching us. There is simply too much incompetence built into the bureaucracy to accomplish such a lofty goal.

Consider this blog post a public service announcement:

The American government is not watching you.

The government isn’t tracking what books you buy, what movies you rent, what websites you view, or any of that other stuff. I am confident of these statements.

I have this confidence in spite of my background. I have a BS, MS, and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering. I know computer technology and how little it costs. I know software technology and what it can do. I also worked for the U.S. government for 28 years. I know how big the government’s science and technology budgets are. The budget is big enough to buy the stuff to watch everyone.

Still, I have confidence that “big brother” is not watching us. This confidence comes from my years in government. One example – just a few years ago I worked in a group of five people. The boss wanted us to enter where we were and what we were doing into a calendar program. That would help him do whatever it was he was supposed to be doing as a boss of five people. This flopped. The calendar program didn’t work.

That’s right folks – the government couldn’t keep track of five of its own employees. How in the world is the government going to track the spending habits of 300 million people if it couldn’t keep track of five of its own employees?

Take comfort in the incompetence that is built into a bureaucracy the size of our government.

I still oppose new initiatives to create a smart grid, national electronic voting, national electronic health records, and such. It isn’t so much a privacy issue as a waste of money. The incompetence that prevents the government from spying on citizens also ensures that such large programs will spend large amounts of money and accomplish little.