BIG BROTHER'S EYE IN THE SKY

We're not sure what upsets us the most: that the county is embracing a new
technology that will let officials more closely monitor every resident's
home, or the fact that the county Board of Supervisors approved the deal
without wrestling with the serious privacy concerns that such an untried
system raises. A front-page Register article on Friday reported that "The
county government will soon have at its disposal a digital database
containing three-dimensional images of every square foot of Orange County…"

The board OK'd a $184,000 contract with a New York-based firm that will
provide aerial-mapping photographs of every property. We're talking about
high-resolution, 3-D, exterior photos of your house, business or apartment
building - front, side and back - that will be available to government
officials and the public. It's no wonder that, as the Register reported,
it's a "prospect that delights law enforcement, planning and public-works
officials and alarms a privacy watchdog."

The district attorney, the chairman of the board of supervisors, the
sheriff's department and local code enforcers are understandably thrilled
with the new gizmo. From the comfort of their offices, officials can zero
in on your backyard to make sure that you haven't added an illegal
addition, or see whether your property meets current codes, or determine
whether you're growing hemp alongside the cherry tomatoes.

Cops can track criminal activity better, of course. Firefighters battling a
big fire could survey the property in a database to help them plan their
attack. Cities can upgrade their zoning plans with greater ease, and tax
assessors could limit their field trips. But these advantages hardly seem
worth the negatives. There are two big problems. First, the system will be
abused by criminals and salespeople.

As a privacy advocate told the Register, the technology would aid burglars
and stalkers seeking entry into your home. It would also aid marketers, who
could quickly learn what products your property might need. Second, the
system will make it easier for the government to monitor and abuse the
citizenry.

Sure, it will make it easier for, say, code enforcers to do their job. But
does a free society really want to make it so easy for them to assess and
fine us?

"It's George Orwell epitomized," Gil Geis told us; he is professor emeritus
of criminology at the University of California, Irvine. "It's 1984. It's
just taken a little longer."

Mr. Geis says that "it's not an issue of legality, but of morality." Sure,
the county has a right to create this intrusive database of every county
property. Just as police agencies appear to have the right to install
cameras at stop lights, or devices in cars that enable police to stop them
with the point of a laser gun.

The question is whether we want to create this sort of society, in which -
in the name of fighting crime, drugs, terrorism or whatnot - the
authorities are empowered to use every conceivable technology to monitor
individuals, law abiding or otherwise.

The board of supervisors needs to put a hold on its deal, and hold hearings
on the privacy issues at stake in creating a database that can so easily be
abused. Shame on them for not having already done so.