Letter 2 America for July 9, 2013

Dear America,

I had a disagreeable experience yesterday with the MDC (Metropolitan District Commission) in the area where I live.  The MDC provides much of the water for residents and businesses in the Hartford metropolitan area under a charter issued by the member towns and cities.  It handles all of the water related logistical and supply issues, including not just providing potable water but also managing things like reservoirs and boat launches.  We, of course, pay for all those things plus the cost of administration, and no doubt the CEO and the other managers do quite well as I can see no sign of any critical oversight mechanism.  In fact, it seems just the opposite in that the MDC appears to be almost completely autonomous...and in my opinion autocratic too.  What happened yesterday was a continuation of a problem I have been having for a couple of years now.  We have lived in this house for more than twenty years and the water meter in the house is located in our utility room.  It is completely mechanical with no electronic components, and in the past, the way in which the amount we were billed has been calculated was by the completion of postcards onto which we entered the meter reading.  We did that for almost twenty years without incident, but now the MDC wants to install a new meter inside our house that will electronically transmit our water usage data out to the street, where I gather it will be collected either remotely or by some drive-by process.  The problem I have with that is that I don't want any government agency...or Microsoft or Google either...to electronically transmit anything out of my house.  The MDC's response to my concerns is that the transmitter will be in a box outside my house like the ones on the electric meter and the gas meter, and that it will be connected to the meter by only a three element, low voltage telephone wire, and there will be no sensor involved.  But that is impossible.  There must be some kind of sensor that will convert water flow into data that can be transmitted, and if there is a sensor in the meter that can do that, there might be others that do other things, and frankly, I was as concerned about the fact that this MDC employee didn't understand his own equipment as I was about his insistence that I allow it in my house.  Ah, I can hear the groans among my fellow Americans about paranoia and delusions of grandeur, but maybe my concerns aren't so far fetched.  The NSA tracks your and my cell phone usage, which they have denied doing in the past, but now have had to admit to doing.  Microsoft places all kinds of software aimed at informing the company about your and my internet usage--Google does too--and now we come to find out that the NSA also subpoenas their information, so in effect, Microsoft, Google and who knows what other corporations that collect data every time we enter a keystroke are working to provide data about us...personal data...to our government, which is supposed to respect our privacy.  The net result is that corporate America is providing to our government agencies information that The Constitution prohibits the government from collecting for itself.

Here's what troubles me the most about all this.  It all started when I spoke to an MDC customer service representative...a nice kid...about the fact that the estimated usage on which my bill was  over twice what my reading the meter indicated: about $150 worth of water.  He informed me that he couldn't adjust the bill (which made me wonder who can, but that's an issue for another time) but he calculated what the proper billable amount would be and gave me that figure.  When he added that I needed to get a new meter so as to obviate these unrealistic estimates, I explained to him why I didn't want one and he asked me to talk to his "manager."  I declined, but I told him that if his manager wanted to talk to me, he could call and I gave the kid my cell phone number.  Not thirty seconds later the manager called, and he gave me the explanation of the meter that I limned above, assuring me that all that would go into my house were those three little wires.  I tried to explain to him my concern about sensors to which the wires would of necessity be attached, and that if there were one sensor, there could be more than one.  I also pointed out what I said above about the role of corporate America in monitoring our every move, to which he replied that if I wanted the 10% discount, I had to tolerate their placement of cookies and other software on my computer.  "You want the 10% discount, don't you?" the manager said.  My response was, when I want it I'll ask for it, at which point he added something about the War on Terror...the universal government justification.  I was about to ask him if he objected to universal background checks and gun registration--from his tone and what he said I was sure that he owned guns--but instead I simply told him that I didn't want to argue with him.  References to The Constitution would have been useless in a discussion with someone who feels that the government is always right except when it deals with his guns, so I just declined to have the meter installed again and agreed to read the information he wanted to email me about them.  Incidentally, all that information dealt with was RF interference and radiation exposure, which was never my concern.  We get enough exposure to that kind of radiation from our cell phones and internet modems that a small source in my utility room would be the least of my problems.  But transmission of information about my cell phone usage, internet use or even personal conversations isn't something I am willing to abide.

Setting aside democratic principles, the problem in the final analysis is the extent to which all this spying by our government avails us of greater safety from malevolent forces, and I don't doubt that there are such out there.  With all the information being collected about our cell phone use, no one knew about the Boston Marathon bombers despite the fact that the government had enough concerns about the older brother of the two killers to interview him more than once.  Even the Russian government was expressing concern about his activities, but none of that stopped him, nor did gathering his cell phone records accomplish anything.  Nor did they know about the Times Square bomber until a hot dog vendor pointed out to the police smoke coming from his car.  The underwear bomber got so far as to set his underwear on fire, as did the shoe bomber...none of them being detected before their dirty deeds by all of the intelligence gathering being done at the expense of the fourth amendment's force and effect.  Still, I don't mind some generalized spying on the populace at large; maybe it will stop some of what the lunatic fringe wants to inflict on us.  I just don't want the government in my house watching every move I make.  I have my wife for that.

Your friend,

Mike