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Oct. 28, 2005
It was just some paperwork that needed to get from Salida to Denver. Not long ago, I'd have just put a stamp on it and dropped it in the mailbox, but now you have to present mail in person at the postal counter and put your thumb print on it.
No post office in America was built for that kind of counter volume, and though the new computer scanning and identification system works reasonably well, the lines often extend outdoors and down the block. It's like an airport, except there's enough room to stand inside when you're waiting to pass through security to board a plane.
When the weather's decent, mailing a letter can be rather pleasant -- you get to catch up on gossip with various friends and neighbors. But on a gloomy fall day when the wind is cold and hard, the 45-minute wait to mail a letter can seem like an eternity.
After these regulations were announced a couple of years
ago, millions of people switched to electronic transfers
with digital signature systems. Initially, this seemed
like a great solution, since Microsoft Windows XP, released
in late 2001, offered a one-stop verification
system.
Register once with this secure service, and then you could easily place orders and transfer funds on-line, without having to fill out new on-screen forms with every transaction.
Or so the promotional material read, and at first, it appeared to live up to the promises.
But then the system got hacked, and got hacked hard, to where nobody could be sure who was transferring what to whom. Microsoft was the target of billions of dollars in lawsuits charging that its lack of security made it a co-conspirator in the largest fraud in history, and contribute as it might to political campaigns, Congress stalled on passing a relief bill.
This came as something of a surprise, since Congress had in 2001 hastened to bail out the airline industry. But it shouldn't have been surprising -- not all representatives and senators use computers, but they all fly.
Congress did respond with the Electronic Security Act, which allowed the FBI to draw on the expertise and resources of the National Security Agency -- where computers are measured in acres and trillions of bits can be analyzed every second -- to place monitoring gear in every telephone switching station in America.
Thus the contents of every telephone call, fax or email were available for surveillance, in the hope of deterring future hacker or terrorist attacks on the electronic funds transfer system, and computer users were warned that while they were on line, their hard drives might be scanned.
For reasons that technicians tried to explain in normal English, this security oversight slowed electronic transfers and messages, and sometimes caused them to be improperly routed. Still, even if it was sometimes unreliable, it was about as good as anything else that was available.
But I'd been having some computer trouble, so this didn't look like a good way to get that paperwork to Denver. I had some other errands I could do there anyway, and some family I could visit. I decided to drive, which meant filling the gas tank.
Since terrorists had used gasoline to attack Vail in 1998, you now needed to present a magnetic-stripe Flammable Substances Card to buy gas.
Mine made the machine howl, rather than beep, and within moments, the clerk was following the instructions on her computer monitor.
Mr. Quillen, you'll need to answer a few questions,
based on information that has been collected about you
recently. Remember, you have a right to refuse to answer
them -- but we can't sell you gas if you don't
answer.
Go ahead and ask, I said. I hadn't done anything to upset the Homeland Security Administration.
It says here that you have been using Arabic
notations in some communications. Can you explain?
It's pretty hard to get much done unless you use Arabic numerals, I explained. Did they ever try performing long division with Roman numerals?
Acceptable. Now, can you explain why you're
harboring Afghans in your home?
What?
It was so indicated in a telephone conversation with
your daughter on 25 September.
Martha used to crochet a lot, I said, and this Afghan we'd been harboring was an old coverlet we'd found when cleaning a closet, and we wondered if she wanted it.
Acceptable, but since you triggered more than one
question, you will need to install a GPS monitor on your
vehicle before you can purchase gasoline.
On that note, I gave up and went home. The people in Denver could come and get those papers if they needed them. I turned on the TV. The President was telling us that we were turning the corner on the war on terrorism, and that he was proud of the way that we had continued to stand up to the threats by going on with our normal lives.
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