| If millions of customers were robbed at gunpoint every time they entered a particular store, people would stay away. Even if a place got a reputation as a hangout for pickpockets, it wouldn’t last long. But today we have the equivalent of a situation in which thieves secretly gain the ability to steal from customers who enter a business, then decide much later which ones will become victims. Somehow, the economy keeps moving, but it’s getting scary out there. |
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 Last year it was Target and Neiman Marcus. Today’s it’s eBay. The giant retail and auction site has announced that a database of its customers’ personal information was hacked.
So much for the idea that online merchants are becoming safer than old-fashioned brick-and-mortar stores. Apparently, they’re all dangerous. And so much for any sense of the security as we enter the brave new world of commerce. As someone I know wondered out loud the other day, “Does anyone really believe it won’t be possible some day to hack a smart car and force people to drive off a cliff?” In spite of the James Bond quality to such an idea, the answer is no. Few people discount that possibility. We are, as a nation, well aware of the risks technology holds — risks that could threaten commerce, employment and the  This is the week we begin to learn whether Utah drivers are smart enough to claim they were merely looking at their phone’s GPS app when an officer pulls them over on suspicion of texting while driving.
That would get them off, but I’m guessing most people who such things are too, well, distracted to pay attention to the news. Before this week, all a driver had to do was deny texting. “Officer, I was merely changing my Facebook status,” was good enough.  Benedicto Kondowe, a soft-spoken education expert from Malawi, met with me a few weeks ago to explain what it’s like to get schools up and running in his home country.
Each class has about 200 or more students per teacher, he said. Rather than meet in some traditional school building, they assemble under a large tree somewhere to temper the heat and the rain. And yet, despite conditions we would consider intolerable, he was passionate about the value of this effort. For the past six years, Kondowe has led 81 civil society organizations in his country in a joint effort to secure the right to a quality education for all his nation’s children. I thought about Kondowe as I read about schoolgirls being kidnapped in Nigeria by a group whose name, Boko Haram,  “Amy,” whose real name remains hidden in court documents, described what it’s like to be an unwitting victim of child pornography because of her uncle:
“Every day of my life I live in constant fear that someone will see my pictures and recognize me and that I will be humiliated all over again. It hurts me to know someone is looking at them — at me — when I was just a little girl being abused for the camera. I did not choose to be there, but now I am  As hotels go, jails make for lousy accommodations. The food isn’t that great and the atmosphere is a bit too captivating. And the worst part is, even if you can’t pay the tab, no one is going to evict you.
All kidding aside, that last sentence has been elevated to some degree of importance in recent days because of a ruling by 2nd District Judge Michael Allphin. He ordered an end to Davis County’s practice of charging inmates $10 for every day they stay  The clinical term is neonaticide.
Beyond that antiseptic-sounding name, however, there is little to grant any comfort; little to explain; little to provide a clue as to how it could have been prevented. For many along the Wasatch Front this week, questions have been swirling like the wind, and answers have been just as difficult to pin down. How could someone neighbors describe as a great person, someone they let babysit their kids and who made cookies for them, be a monster who killed six of her newborn babies, which she reportedly carried in secrecy, and disposed of their bodies, along with a seventh allegedly stillborn, in boxes she kept in the garage? This is just one of the questions surrounding the case of  You knew it was just a matter of time.
Earlier this month in Australia, a runner in a triathlon was hit in the head by drone that fell from the sky. What’s worse, according to Cnet.com, is that the drone’s operator, who was trying to film the event, claims someone nearby hijacked the thing, possibly with a cell phone. And there, in a nutshell, is the embodiment of the procedural, ethical and technological challenges facing the new world of flying things. Utah has taken the first step toward bringing order to the brewing chaos in the skies. Gov. Gary Herbert signed a law last week that keeps police from using any “unmanned aerial vehicle” without a warrant. It also regulates the type of data a police department can collect and store from such vehicles and for how long. It’s a good move, especially as police departments nationwide become more militant, but, as usual, the political process lags a bit behind what’s really going on out there.  So now Ed Snowden says the National Security Agency can record absolutely every phone call made in a foreign country and play them back as needed.
Snowden, it seems, is full of endless tidbits about how the United States gathers information. But his periodic revelations are growing tiresome for a reason that ought to be obvious. He lives in exile in Russia, a nation whose leader makes no secret of controlling how the media reports things, who forces |
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The author
Jay Evensen is the Senior Editorial Columnist of the Deseret News. He has nearly 40 years experience as a reporter, editor and editorial writer in Oklahoma, New York City, Las Vegas and Salt Lake City. He also has been an adjunct journalism professor at Brigham Young and Weber State universities. Archives
June 2021
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