In January, Vice President [Al] Gore had promised that the White House would work to ensure that the NII [National Information Infrastructure] would “help law enforcement agencies thwart criminals and terrorists who might use advanced telecommunications to commit crimes.” … His pledge went unnoticed by the mainstream press. Notwithstanding that it fell on reporters’ deaf ears, Gore dropped a bombshell. Forget Ross Perot’s NAFTA-inspired “giant sucking sound.” This was the dull “thump” of Law Enforcement running over the privacy rights of the American public on its way – at the on-ramp?? – to the information superhighway. The real crime is that the collision barely dented the damn fender.
Predictor: Meeks, Brock N.
Prediction, in context:In a 1994 article for Wired magazine, Brock Meeks, a reporter for Communications Daily, a Washington, D.C.-based trade publication, writes a reflection on his experience at a hearing held by the Clinton administration’s Information Infrastructure Task Force Working Group on Privacy in the first quarter of 1994. Meeks says: ”In January, Vice President [Al] Gore had promised that the White House would work to ensure that the NII [National Information Infrastructure] would ‘help law enforcement agencies thwart criminals and terrorists who might use advanced telecommunications to commit crimes.’ Panel members representing the Justice Department, FBI, and U.S. Attorney’s office said they had taken his promise as a tacit approval of their proposals to push for digital wiretap access and government-mandated encryption policies. Gore buried those remarks deep in a speech he made in Los Angeles in which he fleshed out how the administration planned to rewrite the rules for communications in a new, perhaps more enlightened age. His pledge went unnoticed by the mainstream press. Notwithstanding that it fell on reporters’ deaf ears, Gore dropped a bombshell. Forget Ross Perot’s NAFTA-inspired ‘giant sucking sound.’ This was the dull ‘thump’ of Law Enforcement running over the privacy rights of the American public on its way – at the on-ramp?? – to the information superhighway. The real crime is that the collision barely dented the damn fender.”
Biography:Brock Meeks was a former Washington, D.C., bureau chief for MSNBC. Previously, he had been Washington Bureau Chief for Wired/HotWired and INTER@CTIVE WEEK, and prior to that, he spent two years as associate editor for Communications Daily, a Washington, D.C.-based newsletter. He won awards from the Computer Press Association for his writing on various topics. (Author/Editor/Journalist.)
Date of prediction: January 1, 1994
Topic of prediction: Communication
Subtopic: Security/Encryption
Name of publication: Wired
Title, headline, chapter name: The End of Privacy: If Privacy Isn’t Already the First Roadkill Along the Information Superhighway, Then it’s About to Be
Quote Type: Direct quote
Page number or URL of document at time of study:
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/2.04/privacy.meeks_pr.html
This data was logged into the Elon/Pew Predictions Database by: Anderson, Janna Quitney