Employer Tracks Employee With GPS Phone --Like the Coming Google Phone

Welcome to your future. An article in the New York Post today provides us with this startling glimpse of what your life will be like once you sign up for your free Google phone service and get your Google phone.

Some deserving miscreant has the poor misfortune of being our first victim. Yes, as the article describes, he has been hammered by his employer for claiming to be at work in the late afternoons, when in reality he had cut loose early and was sluffing it at home, many times.

But the crucial element here is not some run-of-the-mill time-clock milking, rather it is how his employer was able to determine this guy's whereabouts. And how did they know? Well, they tracked his every movement using the global positioning function (gps) on the company cell phone that they gave him! That's right, though Mr. LeaveEarly claimed he was at the job site, the employer trumped his claim with the gps data from his phone. Case closed.

Now do I side with a guy cheesy enough to cheat his boss out of $50 a day? No. I don't care if the kid gets fired and ends up flipping burgers. But, as far as how he was tracked, I side very strongly with this guy. And we all should be hopping up and down about it. He was given a company cell phone. (Actually it was a school district cell phone because he worked for the school district.) But when he received the cell phone, he was NOT told about it's gps functionality. He did not know that he was able to be tracked.

Frankly, a person who only behaves when someone is watching is not necessarily someone I would want to personally hire; such character flaws will inevitably bite you in one way or another, but that is not at all the point here. The point is the human tracking system that has been put in play here.

Of course the justification for such a decision to issue a gps phone to an employer is based on a protection issue: the company wants to protect its assets by not paying money for services not rendered. Or maybe to prevent theft, as it were. This type of justification is always the type of reasoning that is used to add another layer of security and has certain merits. But such merits do not go nearly far enough to justify such an implementation. Not with all the implications that a human tracking system brings with it.

Why doesn't the school district, rather than to insult and threaten all of humanity with the deployment of such an ominous tool, just hire people who aren't turds? How about having a responsible structure of supervision like everybody else. Because the administration of the school cannot figure out how to supervise its employees does not mean that it needs to bring in such a threatening weapon. Its like bringing Godzilla into your house to get rid of the cockroach you found in your kitchen. Sure Godzilla eats the cockroach, but he also devours and destroys the whole city.

Yes, fear is always the justification for new protection measures. Always has been, always will be. Fear of losing possessions or fear of losing life. But I think we can eliminate the fear of losing life in this case since that was not at all a concern here. It was fear of losing possessions; money.

Well, regardless of the fear factor here, there is a much more important issue at hand. And that is the issue not of losing possessions, but of losing freedoms! We as humans are not a herd of anything that needs to be tagged and monitored. Because it is possible does not make it right. We are not fodder for some database. Our normal comings and goings on a daily basis are, frankly, no body's business.

In fact the tracked-and-busted employee might have a good case that the gps system followed him not only at his job, but on his private time as well which to me, is clearly a case of invasion of privacy. Had the employee given the company permission to track him on his actual free time, off the clock and off the job? No? Then this is invasion of privacy.

But ironically, fear will not be the hook that Google uses to justify its own implementation or spreading of this preventable disease. No, Google will invoke the Tracking Monster in the name of 'information.' That will be their sales pitch; and they will dress it up with more flavorful benefits than Baskin Robbins: free cell phone service, universal phone number, free messaging, call screening, etc., etc.

Despite how appealing the benefits are, despite how altruistic their sales pitch, 'gathering the world's information,' seems, their underlying motivation reveals that indeed, there's nothing new under the sun. For what drives and supplies Google's quest to put your movements on a database in Mountain View boils down to just plain money.

Other institutions may be seduced to implement Godzilla out of a fear to protect money. Google, (let's call it Googzilla) will drop it upon mankind to get money.

Simple greed all dressed up and someplace to go (as in -- go with you...everywhere.)

Google's CEO Gives Snow Job in Aspen

If you missed Google's CEO's recent escapade at the Progress and Freedom Foundation's annual conference last week you're out one job. Ya, it's good that that conference was in Aspen, which is used to a lot of snow, because what he did was give everybody present a big snow job.

Behind a dichotomous plea for freedom and openness, were four points that pretended to be discussing real freedom and real openness, but were shamelessly transparent . Remember when you used to watch your brother or your sister lie? You know, they were caught in something or were trying to get away with something, or trying to manipulate your parents, and you would stand by as they presented a version of things?

And not only were you watching, but you also knew the truth. Remember how your parent would discuss the uncontroversial aspects of the issue and your sibling spoke one way. But then when it got to the part that was about to be covered up, or manipulated, the presentation changed, and there were slight differences in how your brother or sister said things. You noticed those differences. Let's say that your Brother-Sister (BS) meter went off that day and you became familiar with subtle communication nuances as it related to truthfulness, and, a snow job.

Well, if that ever happened to you, watching Google's CEO's presentation would be a familiar experience. If it has not happened to you yet, your first lesson is just a click away.

Mr. Google started out his presentation's main points with a terrible feint. He claimed that his first concern, or point of action, for the Foundation was the importance of the Freedom of Speech. Did I fall asleep or something, and wake up in Cuba? Freedom of speech is at risk here in the USA? This is a relevant action point for the Progress and Freedom Foundation? Not only could Big Bird have made a more profound statement to the Foundation, but if General Eisenhower feinted like Mr. Google, we all would be speaking to Fantomaster in his native language.

And you could tell it was something that set off the aforementioned BS meter, because when he said it, he himself wasn't convinced. At all. The man must have a monster conscience or be a terrible poker player because the level of conviction with which he uttered this proposed action- point borders on about how excited you would be to go pick up your prom date at the Clampetts, thinking you're going to get Ellie May, and instead you get Granny. I mean Freedom of Speech is such a non-issue in this country (never mind its precepts are in the Constitution!) and that forum that he may have hit closer to home if he suggested Crayola put a little more purple in their periwinkle crayon next year.

But, you see, he had to come up with something. I mean he couldn't just stand up there and immediately start spitting out his (read: Google's) agenda (let's call that a Googagenda). He had to dress it up a little. He had to make it seem that he was interested in openness and freedom, that Google was really interested in issues that would benefit Americans, and not just in amassing its own unlimited power so it can rape the good citizens of their freedoms later on down the road.

I mean is Google really interested in free speech? Then why are those who advertise for term- paper assistance in the UK no longer permitted to use Google AdWords? Are they really interested in openness (we will get more to that shortly)? Then open up that algorithm. Be open and truthful with your real plans and agenda. Go ahead and demonstrate that walk and don't just talk about it. For your talking without you, yourself, walking, makes it seem a little bit like manipulation, Mr. Google.

So then the Foundation was treated to the second action-point, that Everyone Should Work for Universal High-Speed Bandwidth. Sure. And maybe if the president of Coca-Cola speaks next week, he will admonish us all to work to put soda vending machines in every home and classroom. I mean, I'm not against broadband for the masses, but its a little too convenient when it is suggested by the internet's Pope. And having everybody else subsidize a monopoly for Google was not mentioned, but certainly is not a very veiled implication.

Nonetheless this was an actual Googagenda point that he tried to smoothly work into his presentation. It was about as smooth as Colorado. His believability-rating that this was a proposal common to the the general mandate of the Progress and Freedom Foundation, and not a purely self-serving scam, ranks about a coal mine below O.J.

But it gets better. Then, speaking with Al Gore-sincerity, he tried to say that the spirit of openness dictates that the US Government Share It's Information. I suppose having access to a Congressman's email, browsing history, location (cell phone gps) and peeking into his house is not enough for Google, now they want all of the governments information in their database. Whom do you suppose would be the master, then, if Google controlled the government's information? This idea is not only a bad one, it is extremely presumptuous, it is beyond dangerous and it is arguably treasonous. Google's been caught with its knickers down this time. Internet democracy does not a democracy make. (Not that the USA was born a true democracy...)

How DARE Google propose that we place our private government information on their servers for every enemy and terrorist to cherry-pick! But I guess that's the kind of world a bunch of 20-year olds would create if they had the chance. Little do these adolescents realize that with such information available to our enemies, their Googleplex jungle-gym would quickly be Mecca-West, Beijing-East or something similar. Google can not be allowed to be Lord of the Flies.
Besides, I do not recall them even being on the ballot in the last election.