FABRIZI IN TOUGH SPOT ON TRUST ISSUE

Although it would appear to be a relatively simple thing, Bridgeport
Mayor John M. Fabrizi has been a bit slow to come up with a "clear
plan to regain public trust" that groups like the Council of Churches
of Greater Bridgeport demand.

When Jim Buchanan of WICC-AM asked Fabrizi how the plan was coming,
the mayor said he's working on it, and will make it public when it's
done. He made a point of saying that because he is a self-identified
drug and alcohol user, under city policy his name is on a list of
city employees who are subject to random drug and alcohol testing.

Every month, a computer picks a few names off the list and those
people are notified in the morning to report for testing that same
day. But computers can be hacked, so there's no guarantee there.
Fabrizi said he's already passed blood and Breathalyzer tests, but
the skeptics still raise doubting eyebrows. You have to sympathize
with the mayor. Short of having his nostrils sewn shut, no set of
trust-building steps, no matter how rigorous, is going to satisfy the
significant segment of understandably skeptical citizenry.

Questions will continue to arise about the reliability of the
testing. The skeptics will wonder what the mayor is doing when his
office door is closed and on weekends.

To placate the city's legion of doubters, the mayor will have to go
beyond mere promises.

He may have to be equipped with a black box.

Basically, black boxes -- and we are not talking about the airplane
kind here -- are recording devices that use tiny sensors to track a
vehicle's speed, location, seat-belt use and braking patterns. Forty
million of them have been built into cars and trucks in the last 10
years -- maybe even yours.

The idea is that when a car is in an accident the cops can download
the data from the black box, determine blame and make arrests. For
some reason, the devices are a source of concern to civil liberty
groups, privacy advocates, insurance Advertisementcompanies and
bodily injury lawyers.

Nine states have passed laws requiring automakers to reveal to buyers
if their vehicle is black-box equipped. Connecticut is not among them.

Fortunately for Bridgeport, there are not laws regulating human black
boxes. How hard can it be to adapt the vehicle model to human use? A
couple of tweaks of the sensors and the box will use global
positioning to track a person's every move. Vital signs are monitored
and sensors detect all banned substances.

Advanced models can be hooked directly into the nervous system to
report the subject mood. Should they become depressed, a dose of
tranquilizer is automatically administered.

Human black boxes are really just a step up technologically from the
electronic monitoring devices that paroled criminals like Martha
Stewart wear on their ankles. Since black boxes are only the size of
cigarette packs, one could easily be implanted under the mayor's skin
in a spot where it won't show.

The data from the mayor's black box would be uploaded to a satellite
and made available to any Bridgeport citizen 24 hours a day on at
www.allfabsallthetime.com and on cell phone screens. (Special
taxpayers-only sign-on codes keep nosy non-residents out.)

The merest whiff of a banned substance and a trained intervention
team is dispatched to the scene of the potential violation.

Like all new technology, there are a few problems to be worked out.
The 24/7 Internet surveillance can be overdone.

After all, even a mayor deserves some private moments.

Charles Walsh's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday.