big brother | David M Masters

In my line of work, I find myself working with a lot of professionals from various categories of business. I am currently working with a Private Forensic Investigator on a project of vast importance. In my associations and in support of his project, I am learning the differences between a Private Investigator, and one who integrates the forensic sciences. For his protection, I will refer to the Private Forensic Investigator, simply as My PI, from here on out.

My PI has worked as a forensic investigator at the university level before he decided to change direction. As a Private Forensic Investigator, he enjoys the freedom of being self-employed which gives him the freedom and ability to schedule his own hours (for the most part) giving him more quality time to spend with his wife and kids.

Unlike a normal private investigator, My PI goes the extra mile. He collects so much more data and applies the scientific methods to reach verifiable conclusions and accurate hypotheses that you would not have access to in any other way unless you were maybe a covert operation organized and funded by the government.

My PI has access to data collection devices, methods, and formulas that are clearly illegal within the bounds of the United States of America, but he outsources this work to individuals, companies, and organizations that are not in the United States, and therefore, he does not suffer exposure from using what would otherwise be considered illegal surveillance in America.

He doesn’t even have access to some of the material collected by these highly advanced (possibly questionable) methods. My PI just lets his client know that the material is available and may be obtained through his off-shore third-party providers. The client may decide to purchase the collected data and may offer the information to My PI following review by the client. In this manner, My PI is able to protect himself while offering such a high level of service to his clientele.

Once he has collected all the data, he can write a very concise report on the individual in question, as well as document any nefarious shenanigans which may have been conducted by this person.

Documentation may include time, place (can be as accurate as to size and placement of the bed in a hotel room, and how many people were active at that time and place), the body temperature, respiratory rate, and convulsions experienced by the person being investigated. Satellite imagery, heat signatures, automobile makes, models, and license plates of those individuals that may be involved (such as you might expect in surveillance of a drug deal, let’s say).

Normal things that you might expect, like video surveillance, GPS tracking travel time and stops, recorded phone calls, augmented with higher-level surveillance results including the likes of video messaging, pictures, and videos with full audio (either one or both sides of the conversations),

Note that the level of specificity is also represented in the price of My PI’s service, due to the third-party integration.

If your report needs are general, you would pay far less than you might for a full-fledged thoroughly accurate report.

Personally, I am not the kind of person who would be attracted to this kind of profession, as I value a person’s right to privacy, and would even support their right to free speech, even if that means supporting one’s right to lie, and to allow each individual to determine their own perceptions at any given time, but I can also understand and see the value in My Pi’s services.

It is interesting to me how much information is obtainable by anyone with the resources and the budget to access a great deal of information about anything you might have said and done in the past or in real-time. If not in real-time, in shockingly very close to real-time, live.

I guess I still feel a little big-brotherish about it all.

Can you believe that people are still paranoid about privacy?

Granted, I know some people are invisible. They have successfully dropped out of the system and cannot be found. They have no legal name, address, phone number… You will never be able to find them via Google search, Facebook or any other social media. Criminal records have no search results. It is likely that even Homeland Security doesn’t even know they exist.

These folks are of the persuasion that Big Brother is alive and well and wants to track every move you make.

And you know what? They’re absolutely right. … And it’s not only Big Brother; it’s the government, accumulators and purveyors of data, social agencies, businesses, advertisers, some authorized others more stealth, even criminal. It goes on and on, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

They know who you call on the phone and what words you prefer to use, on the phone and off. They know what routes you routinely travel and your preferred mode of transportation. They know what times you’re likely to be online, and what you’re most likely to look for with a certain sense of predictability. They know what you’re likely to buy at the store… and to some degree, they know what items will distract you from your predetermined shopping intentions. They know what foods you buy, how you store and prepare them; when you eat at a restaurant, which restaurant you’re likely to visit, what you are most likely to order and how much of a tip you will leave your server.

They know where your eyes are likely to navigate to as you go about living your everyday life. They know where you work, how effective you are at work, what location in the building you occupy, when you take your breaks and what you do while you’re on break. They know what you watch on TV, what you listen to on the radio or even in the privacy of your own home.

They know your political views, religious preferences, what makes you laugh, cry and what gets you angry or defensive.

They know your friends, relatives, acquaintances… and, yes, even when you are most likely to make a trip to the bathroom; and why.

You say, “Oh, Masters, you must have lost your mind; you’re just paranoid.”

Actually, nothing could be less true. Either fortunately – or unfortunately – I have worked with people who have engaged in the collection of this data, from military surveillance to law enforcement and mostly business-related entities who track everything.

For the sake of protecting confidentiality – and to prevent causing alarm or paranoia – I would not go into the specific detailing of all of the tactics I have witnessed first-hand in the collection and management of all the aforementioned data. Suffice it to say, it is both compelling and overwhelming to say the least.

All of that to ask myself (as you are probably asking yourself, right now),

“How do I feel about my lack of privacy?”

I mean, I could let the angst consume me, attempt to unplug from life as we know it and go underground; but that kind of quality of life does not interest me. So, I just realize that

It is what it is

There really is nothing I can do about it, except to accept the izness of it all.

No, it doesn’t sound much like the “freedom” that I thought we were honored with as citizens of the Unites States of America.

The best I can do, is to stay on-track; not let the knowledge of the lack of privacy consume me or derail me from my life’s mission and allow others – whose mission it is to ferret out the details and present other options, or not – to take on this topic and support them in their efforts.

Let this not be a distraction to you in your mission to live a better life, do your best, or make the world a better place.

This is only a clear indication that the world needs you as a force of all that is good – now more than ever – to help preserve a sense of balance and not to stop our evolution.