Last night I managed a bad connection somewhere in the chain of connectors and adaptors between my laptop and the Chinese power supply, and as a consequence my laptop battery failed to charge. And I wasn’t anywhere near a Chatea and their friendly power sockets today, so I now find myself in an internet cafe rather than using my own laptop. It is about twenty to one on a Sunday morning. This internet cafe is a gamers cafe and not a tourist cafe, so it is full of Chinese people playing Counterstrike and the like. In short, lots of people around twenty years old enjoying themselves. Which is fine.
However, to check into this internet cafe, I had to present my passport at the front desk of the cafe. The concierge then filled out a form with my details on it, and then entered them into a computer. She then took my passport, scanned the personal details page, and entered the details into the computer. A scanned picture of me then appeared on her screen, and a new directory of personal information about me was created on her computer. I was then given a plastic card with logon details, and every page I now look at is probably being logged somewhere. I think it is unlikely that I will be identified as a Samizdatista and taken out and interrogated at the end of the session, but who knows?
In actual fact, I am lying. The above is not what happened, but was more what was supposed to happen. I did indeed hand the concierge my (Australian) passport. She then looked at it for a couple of minutes, and then pointed to a page in the passport and asked if that was the passport number.
She was not actually pointing to the personal details page, but to the page with my UK residence permit attached to it. This looks rather like a personal details page (it has a photo, and some machine readable codes on the bottom and a few other details) but isn’t quite, and she had opened the passport at the wrong page and copied down details until she had noticed the differences and become confused. When I pointed out the correct page, she put the details in correctly and attempted to scan the passport. A picture came up on the screen, but it was a picture of the ID card of some Chinese guy, not the personal details page of my passport. She repeated the process seven or eight times, and kept getting the photo of the Chinese guy. She called over a supervisor. He clicked on different options, and said something to her. Then he want away, she scanned my passport again, and a picture of the same Chinese guy’s ID card came up again. Then it happened again. Then the supervisor came over again, said something else, and she finally did something and got it right. This all took maybe 20 minutes. After that, I was eventually allowed to sit down and do some blogging. (Throughout this time, Chinese people came, presented ID cards, and were dealt with fairly rapidly).
Now in terms of safety or surveillance, what does this identification and surveillance process actually achieve. Unless I am really stupid, the only answer I can think of is “nothing”. I have been using wireless hotspots in hotels or just randomly picked up in restaurants and coffee shops all week. I have never had to identify myself, so using the internet in China without identifying yourself is not that hard. (This is not to say that this kind of surveillance doesn’t catch people doing things the government doesn’t want – as any law enforcement agency will tell you, a gread deal of criminals are in fact very stupid). Any smart criminal, terrorist, or dissident who wants to step around this internet cafe surveillance system can do so relatively easily, however. When the Blairites force such a system on us, as they appear to want to, I can’t imagine it will be very effective at increasing security for them either. (It will be very useful at allowing bureaucrats to be petty and malicious, but in terms of increasing security, I expect it will be close to useless).
However, the twenty minutes of bureucracy, confusion and computer screw ups are the future, I fear. An additional level of dealing with incompetence and computer systems and bureaucracy that doesn’t work is going to be added to our lives. And any person who tries to live in a way that is unusual or a little out of the ordinary (for instance like a Chinese person in Britain, to reverse what just caused my problems) is going to find that it is much worse for them than for the conformists.
But this is apparently what the Blairites want.
I think Bleh and his crew of miscreants have been watching too many Pirelli ads and its gone a bit to their heads.
“Power is nothing without control!”
The Dune Series by Frank Herbert (fiction I know and not really something to base a political opinion on but what the hell) has some interesting things to say about those who grip power too tightly, in that they tend to lose their hands when it is finally wrested from them.
He also mentions that any bureaucracy is a form of aristocracy, but I suppose you know all about that.
Procedures of this nature are to make you think that you might be being monitored and kept track of and therefore will put you on your best behaviour. They accomplish nothing aside from making you think that something might be being accomplished.
In the US it is done to make us think that the government is doing SOMETHING to keep us safe: i.e. the theatre of the TSA makes us think that we are safer when it is likely that we are not. Many foreign visitors now get photographed on arrival. Why? Because we humans personalize everything to a degree that is almost solipsist: “They have a photo of me! Dear God, I better not do nothing.” But it is nonsense. There is no way our bureaucracies could effectively use many or any of those photos.
In police states, these hoops are meant to put you off your game. Go to many a third world country and you will still have to turn over your passport (sometimes for the length of your stay, sometimes just so they can make copies) making you feel a bit uncomfortable and as though you are put in a system of some sort. In the old USSR they had agents purposefully and obviously follow anyone who looked Western to make them feel as though they were being watched 24/7. They weren’t really but they did have a show of it just enough for paranoia to set in.
While the fact that a lowly internet cafe schwoogie can pull up all your stats and photo from a national database was unsurprising (being China) but still bothersome to me, I’m surprised they had your info there too.
Here in the Free State, when I need to use a Kinko’s (the ubiquitous copyshop/net cafe now known as “The UPS Store”) computer, the counter dude may ask for my personal info/ID. I say, “No, excuse me, HELL no” and hand them cash. “Gimme a card”.
“What name do you want on it?”
“George Bush”
I get my card, go and log in, create a password, etc.
Store manager weenie comes over. “Sir, we need to see your ID.”
“No, you don’t. If you were not aware, the state legislature declared the REAL ID Act repugnant and illegal in NH. It is a crime for you to attempt to force me to comply.”
“Bbbut what about validating your payment?”
“I paid cash. You still believe that Federal Reserve Notes are legal tender, do you not?”
“Um, yeah.”
“Okay, then we’re done here. Thanks for your help.”
They accomplish nothing aside from making you think that something might be being accomplished.
But that, Garth, is sufficient. If people believe they are being watched – or that they might be – it will help to keep them docile. That’s why obvious surveillance (real, performative, or transactional) and ‘security theatre’ are so popular with both governments and authoritarian segments of the public.
Further, the very act of compliance with a bullying bureaucracy reinforces the habit of subordination. The more obviously futile and inconvenient such procedures, the stronger this effect, and the greater the chances of inculcating compliance and helplessness as part of the moral order.
Forgive my ignorance, but what in tarnation was the point of the post? That Chinese women don’t know how to use a scanner? The comparison between someone having to learn to use a scanner versus the fingerprint and photo system that the UK Passport Office will be using is somewhat tenuous to say the least.
A Chinese person in Britain, by the way, doesn’t have to provide their passport in order to use an internet cafe. A small point, but one worth noting.
I would have thought it obvious – in fact it is explicitly stated:
An additional level of dealing with incompetence and computer systems and bureaucracy that doesn’t work is going to be added to our lives. And any person who tries to live in a way that is unusual or a little out of the ordinary (for instance like a Chinese person in Britain, to reverse what just caused my problems) is going to find that it is much worse for them than for the conformists.
Heh. I never present my passport. Always say I left it at home, then write a made-up name and number — but that’s only when I go to the cafes where they bother to ask. If you hit an Eastday and it’s not near People’s Square, they probably won’t even ask for ID (though they’re supposed to, legally).
The internet cafe I used in Shanghai didn’t ask for ID, but they weren’t allowed to open on weekends by way of government edict – no idea why.
Julian: it wasn’t so much an issue of not being able to use a scanner so much as that she appeared to be using a supposedly integrated application that wasn’t really intregrated. It was a matter of click on this icon, then select something from this menu, then check this box etc. It annoyed me to have to wait 20 minutes for something so pointless.
Although the Blairite ID card plan is different in scope, it is inevitably going to be something that we produce for verification regularly, and it is inevitably going to be paired with IT systems that are confusing to operate and/or barely work. And inevitably some of the gatekeepers aren’t going to be very good at operating it. And this will lead to the same sort of problems.
You seem to be a visionary activist kind of person. I know you are quite busy with your own projects, but perhaps you would be interested in helping me to promote this project, or even have stories or ideas for stories to contribute.
I have been working on creating a project to write a series of flash utopian fiction [flash fiction=ultrashort stories] pieces around an imaginary federation of diverse villages each working out their methods of community life. I am visualizing little dramatic impacts that also impart information about how the people of the community involved solve their social problems, dramatic storytelling with a purpose — speculative fiction with which to fashion visions from which to expand our collective view of how collective life can be more happily structured.
I want to do a fictional project because I figured that way I could go outside of the currently “possible” and promote ideas in an easily digestable and enjoyable form, like a chain story — each person involved adding their bits to the overall project, although its seems to be turning out more like wheel spokes out of a hub idea.
So far, this project is basically just a figment of my imagination, easily able to morph to fit whatever results from it. I have had some interest expressed by other writers, and even a couple of possible stories have been sent to me. I would love eventually to publish, if I get enough stories for a book. I am hoping eventually to have a whole world of ideas created through these short bursts of fiction, little vignettes or as one person suggested, peeks into open doors. So, at the moment there is no set format to fit. What you write, if you choose to participate, in fact would be helping to create the structure itself.
I don’t know if you have any interest in such a project, but perhaps you are aware of someone who does. I am totally open to collaboration and inspiration. If you have or know of or feel inspired to create such stories, please let me know about them.
If you are interested in participating in this project or have other ideas to add, please respond directly to me at:
libramoon42@mindspring.com
If this project actually works out, it will result in a book in need of publication. If any of you have affiliation with or knowledge of any small press that would be interested in working with such a project, please let me know.
I am posting information about the projects it evolves on my blog under the heading Flash Utopian Fiction Project, so if you like you can check there from time to time to see how it’s going:
http://people.lulu.com/blogs/view.php?user_id=38353 libramoon’s observatory
I have posted there the first (and so far only) story I’ve come up with, an example of what I mean, called “Sanctuary.”
If you would like to help promote the project, here is a blurb you can leave where you go:
Laurie Corzett is seeking collaboration for her Flash Utopian Fiction Project: series of flash fiction pieces around a federation of diverse villages each working out their methods of community life — little dramatic impacts illustrating creative solutions to social problems. Got ideas?
http://people.lulu.com/blogs/view.php?user_id=38353 libramoon’s observatory (blog); libramoon42@mindspring.com
Peace,
Laurie
Teehee. Can I claim that Laurie’s referring to me? No one’s called me a “visionary activist kind of person” before.
Isn’t the requirement to take ID at cyber cafe’s already part of the EU data retention directive?
James: You can claim anything you want. Obviously though, I am a visionary activist kind of person.
Michael Jennings says: James: You can claim anything you want. Obviously though, I am a visionary activist kind of person.
OK. Where are the Friday cats then? I ask you that. One minute, Friday cats. The next minute, no Friday cats. Are you telling me this was the result of a decision on your part? If so, then we can live with it. But some people around here like Friday cats. No offence.