March 22, 1981
'BIG BROTHER' IS RACING '1984' DEADLINE
By CHARLES E. RODGERS Jr.; Charles E. Rodgers Jr., a marketing executive, lives in Briarcliff Manor.
GEORGE Orwell's novel, ''1984,'' exploded onto the American scene in 1949. The war was over. People were getting re-established. Troops had come home. Readjustment to a normal life was the prime objective. ''1984'' -hardly the type of book demanded of the times - was hardly written to satisfy folk wishing to forget living under wartime government controls. The book's chilling vision of life in a totalitarian society was startling. It stunned millions who could not believe such a way of life would ever develop. It shocked thousands who saw that such a society was possible but thought it would never come about in their lifetime.
Since that time, ''1984'' has made an extraordinary impact on the American literary scene. It has had 64 printings. Upward of 10 million copies have been published in the United States alone. After 32 years, it is still on the recommended reading list of Westchester County Schools.
''1984'' pictures in disturbing detail a regimented society totally beholden to a single benefactor, ''Big Brother.'' Before the reader reaches page seven, he is haunted by a compelling thought. Yes, maybe it could happen here.
Let's look at the possibility. The year 1984 is but 33 months away. That we could realize, in three years, the loss of privacy described in ''1984'' is impossible. However, the fact remains that we have already been subjected to extraordinary invasions into our private lives by government and industry.
How could this have happened? Because our benefactor, our ''Big Brother'' has been very busy. He has been able to invade our once-inviolate areas of privacy with frightening success. Let's face it. Each year we have been compelled to disclose more and more personal data to this ubiquitous guardian. Many of us do not realize fully the inroads this faceless character has made in our private lives. But he has made them.
Just how far have we come? Invasions of our privacy have been going on openly and covertly for years. Data banks are cropping up all over. They are being fed information gathered by known, accepted methods as well as by unacceptable methods. We all expect to be asked for certain personal information when applying for a driver's license or for a charge account at Bloomie's. No problem. What is asked of us in these instances is reasonable enough. But what is not asked of us is the problem. How many of us realize that for every reasonable solicitation there are dozens of systems collecting information about us, systems about which we know nothing.
- Did you know that every hospital in the state is required by law to report to Albany details of every treatment of every in-patient regardless of whether the medical service given was open-heart surgery or the removal of an in-grown toenail? Did you know, in giving this information, the hospitals are required to identify the patient and the doctor, to record the diagnosis and to give the cost of the treatment? Although the data are coded, and safeguards have been established with a view to insure confidentiality, the information, nevertheless, is available to to someone.
- Did you know that many of the 38 public libraries in the county have been approached by Government agents seeking access to card files? Had a single one of these attempts been successful, our reading record could have been computerized for strange eyes to see. We could have been labeled as being what we read.
- Did you know that your local druggist is required by law to give to state authorities details of every sale of certain narcotics and barbiturates? And, in so doing, he must provide the name of the customer and the name of the doctor who wrote the prescription?
- Did you know that every employer in the state is required by law to report the wages of every person in his employ to a data bank established for the New York State Department of Labor and Social Services? This reporting is in addition to the reporting employers must make to the United States Treasury Department by the W-2 form. Given the political realities, it is conceivable that a commissioner of either Labor or Social Services might, at some point, be tempted to illegally trade this information for information a sister agency might have on us.
- Did you know that banks are required by law to make a photocopy of both sides of checks you write, be they made payable to your padre, your bookie or to your favorite butcher? And that your same ''friendly'' banker is obliged to keep for five years a record of all transactions made in your account? Why? For whose benefit? The originals are returned to you.
- Did you know that since abortion was legalized, the name of every woman having a legal abortion in New York is sent to Albany to be added to ''Big Brother's'' list of women who have had legal abortions?
- Did you know that, to obtain personal information on you and on me, the State of New York uses more than 2,000 different data accumulating systems?
When data banks were first established, the information collected was stored in one place. This is no longer the case. There are now many data banks established by dozens of agencies and organizations. Data that isn't stored in one data bank may well be stored in another. Taken by itself, the memory of any one data bank need not necessarily be a worry to anyone. Taken together, the composite could be damningly dangerous to many.
That persons would have unauthorized access to raw data is a valid concern. To think that it is impossible for someone to gain unauthorized access to data banks and withdraw information surreptitiously is to think incorrectly. It has been done - easily - even by schoolboys in a New York prep school.
The main key to extracting related information from different data banks is a person's Social Security number. Would you believe it? This innocuous designation, this innocent-looking number, assigned to us almost at birth to protect our old-age benefits until death, is now a threat to our privacy. The fact cannot be denied. Our Social Security number is now The Universal Identifier.
''Big Brother'' has everyone's Social Security number. He has, also, the number of every data bank - in Albany - in Washington and in Little Rock, Ark. ''Big Brother'' could plug into the system and ask data banks the country over for whatever information they may have on, say, Jonathan Livingston Seagull having the Social Security number of, say, 234-56-7890. That is all he would have to do. The dumb computers would respond immediately without thinking.
However, maybe we need not be concerned about who knows what about us. When campaigning, Ronald Reagan vowed that if elected, he would do something about this business of needlessly accumulating data about an individual. Dozens of times throughout the campaign, Mr. Reagan said, ''I want to get the government off your backs and out of your private lives.'' A Presidential aide said last week that Vice President Bush had been assigned the task of reducing unnecessary government regulations affecting American life. It sounds good, if you can believe it.
I'll believe it when the Internal Revenue stops asking me the names of the customers taken on expense account lunches and what subjects we discussed.
