Book Review: The Rise of the Computer State

Rise of the Computer State: The Threat to Our Freedoms, Our Ethics and Our Democratic Process by David Burnham, Vantage Books

Several years ago on 60 Minutes, a segment was presented where all of the checks that one person had written in his lifetime were examined, and then a fairly accurate portrait of the person's life was painted by the discrete bits of information.  Information like this is called transactional information and we leave huge amounts of it behind as we live our lives, whether in tons of paper or megabytes of data.

In The Rise of the Computer State, David Burnham says that an event as demonstrated by the 60 Minutes team could happen and many similar ones do occur.  He surveys many of the ways that computers and technology can be used to intrude upon our privacy; the governmental mandates for such intrusion; and how, in general, computer abuses have affected history.

Burnham begins with a review of computer history and the importance of computers on our lives.  While always implying a global connection, he concentrates upon the United States where "industries engaged in the processing of information... now generate about half the GNP."  Later Burnham brings up legal points which are supported by examples.  He also discusses legislative battles and presidential directives both for and against the public good.  Overall, The Rise of the Computer State reveals in technical and ethical terms how close we are to Orwell's technocracy.

Christopher Evans, a psychologist and computer scientist said that if during the 30 years from 1945 to 1975, the automobile had developed as fast as the computer, the Rolls Royce would cost $2.75, would have enough power to push the Q.E. II across the Atlantic, and would get 3 million miles to the gallon.

The computer has that amazing ability to quickly and efficiently move and sort through vast amounts of information, and this is why they are being used in all aspects of society including the FBI, police, banks, phone companies, and credit companies.  They are used by most businesses for payroll, personnel, inventory, accounting.  They are used by most government agencies including the IRS, FBI, CIA, SSA, NSA, HEW, FRB, and a large number of others.  In fact, he devotes an entire interesting chapter on the National Security Agency (NSA) which was obviously written before The Puzzle Palace, a rather thorough examination of the NSA, was published.  (A future issue of 2600 will look at the NSA.)

Computers are used to compile lists, store data, pay employees, transfer funds, make airplane reservations or phone calls, communicate, write letters, address envelopes, detect incoming ICBMs, price goods at supermarkets and department stores, tell time, and keep track of America's airplanes and trains to prevent them from crashing.  There are literally millions of things computers can do to benefit humankind.

But the most amazing of these computers are controlled by big government or a few corporations.  Transactional information about our lives is often bought and sold and traded without our permission.  In bank computers lie copies of the checks we wrote.  In our hospital computers are our medical records.  In many states, computer files are kept on all prescriptive medicine.  In many law enforcement computers lie arrest and conviction records, often incomplete or inaccurate as Burnham points out.

• Our movements can be kept track of by looking at our phone charges, airline, bus, train, and car rental records, or our gas receipts.


• In Pittsfield, Mass., people's buying habits are computerized and compared to the special dose of commercials that are sent to only their television sets.  If we get supermarket credit cards, then every item, all of our individual buying habits, can be examined.


• Information from the 1940 census was used to round up Japanese into concentration camps.  If another thoughtless government wanted to do something again, it won't be hard.


• In Los Angeles there is a registry of "undesirable" tenants that can be accessed for a fee.  The information is often just hearsay or the opinion of a past landlord.  If the information is negative, the potential tenant is turned down.


• The FBI possesses the fingerprints of 66 million people in its criminal or civil identification files.

Burnham brings up the topic of criminal records a lot - about how past arrests and convictions can follow a person, even if a case is dismissed.  This information is available to law enforcement agencies, government personnel departments, and private companies.  These databases of criminal records, which only one out of every five states have ever checked for accuracy, were created in order to apprehend criminals.  But if these records are used to keep suspected criminals or ex-cons out of governmental and private jobs and thus keep them unemployed, these people are practically forced to return to crime.

By cross matching files, politicians can locate key groups to appeal to in order to make decisions or win elections.  By cross matching files, likely suspected communists can be systematically tortured, or customers for a new store can get junk mail designed just for them.

In the can-anything-be-done chapter, we are left to hope that some laws or presidential orders are created to stop cross matching of information between government agencies.There are examples where things are done (and undone again) in an effort to preserve privacy, but as we see much information about us is public.  Until recently, the Selective Service was aware of who got free ice cream from Farrell's (2600, p. 1-45).  It won't be long until all of the Flintstones vitamin peddlers will be buying up the list of the Cabbage Patch parents from Coleco.  Companies are always buying information about us to gain an economic advantage.  Business controls money and hence information.  This information gives them direct power and often a marketable item.  TRW and other lesser known credit companies sell information to other businesses for about a buck a report, but to check your own record in order to see if the report is accurate costs $12.  Mailing lists pass hands like stocks on Wall Street.

But are we threatened now?  When it comes to criminal records; IRS, and credit stuff the info is being used widely.  The federal government is tightening up on documents it makes public.  But often Mr. Burnham is telling us what is possible which is not far from the actual.  He doesn't stress the importance that the Freedom of Information Act had which is being gutted by the Reagan Administration.

What Mr. Burnham could have done to make his case even more effective is to include actual examples of the vast personal data and create a small autobiography based on his own credit history, bank records, FBI files, criminal records, motor vehicle records, college records, and other similar sources.  He could have gotten some experts to examine all of his transactional information and then compare it to himself.  But it's all right for Burnham not to do this, because he suggests to us that such a thing can be done.

Burnham goes on and on citing legal abuses, privacy intrusions, and political and economic manipulation.  The book reads like those old TRW ads: "Imagine a day when..." and it ends the same way: "... That day is today.  Write to us - we'll tell you all about it."  Burnham tells us almost all about "it" too.  He does not mention the danger to a computer state where a disgruntled employee or little kiddie at a terminal can crash a huge system permanently, or a clever sadist can create a viral program that can spread throughout a database and wipe out file after file!  Burnham does not mention the technological pioneers who hack and explore and understand the world that is approaching and encroaching and who warn others of the danger.  Mr. Burnham would appreciate the work of some of the people like that, just as we can appreciate the warnings in his book about the power of the technological elite.

The Rise of the Computer State represents one of the many books that should be read to prepare for the future as well as the present.  Mr. Burnham has managed to condense an immense amount of information on the power and threat of computers and data collecting agencies.  His book is well researched, but he needs that extra something to retain the sympathy of those who have "nothing to hide" and the interest of those who cannot relate to terms like "dehumanization"and "values."  The Rise of the Computer State startles one with a slap of hidden reality, and this is what we need now.