I Am Curious Yellow

Steve Stajich
Mirror contributing writer

   In the title sequence of TV’s “CSI,” the rock band the Who sing an edited refrain from one of their hits. The lyrics ask over and over “Who are you, who-who are you?” (It’s “Who” lyrics, not Rimbaud.) The words refer to the show’s weekly search for clues to the identity of crime victims who have usually been bizarrely mutilated beyond recognition by burns or insects or acid. Tough stuff, and yet it’s nowhere near as grotesque as “Are You Hot?”
   While the deployment of 21st century resources to identify a dead person can make for compelling television, doing the same thing in reference to, say, airline passengers can be disturbing. Or is it?
   Civil liberties groups are objecting (There’s an often heard “lyric”) to the government’s plan for a new system at airports that would check passenger background information and assign a threat level to every person who buys a ticket for a commercial flight. So long, friendly skies: “Who-who are you?”
   The collected data will be used to rate each passenger’s threat level with a color code system: green, yellow, and red. Let me be the first to recommend that they add a few colors at the front end. Blue: Crazy person who talks about Jesus the entire flight. Purple: Guy with a wet sneezy cold. Orange: Cell phone addict who begins each loudly spoken call with “Oh, nothing. What are you doing?”
   The system will look for clues by means of examining credit reports and bank activity. Oh, and names on government watch lists. But about those first two… There is already concern that the government will access the information and not reveal how long it will be kept.
   The rationale is that unusual money transactions can indicate possible terrorist activity. But, keeping in mind that the current so-called President was not elected by popular vote, are you willing to have your government know every dimension of your personal finances in trade for perceived increased security? Who gets the info later on? Verizon? AT&T? I mention them because their tenacious phone solicitors already appear knowledgeable on every aspect of my consumer life.
   One take on the proposed passenger checks might be “All hail, computers!” Now that computers are everywhere, there is momentum to utilize them in every scenario, whether results are certain or not. Last week, a consumer aviation advocate stated, “The whole track record of profiling is a very poor to mixed one.” He cited misleading profiles on such people as the Unabomber and the Washington-area snipers.
   But if you could know that the person sitting next to you on a plane was recently in receipt of $500,000 dollars from some nation we’ve identified that week as our enemy … wouldn’t you want to know?
   Maybe, if you were willing to live with everything that might follow. Because the distance from a color code for passengers to some even more Orwellian step like bar codes tattooed on the backs of our necks is not a jump. It’s not even a hop. Pre-9/11, would you have thought it palatable to have a security color code as an airline passenger? Would you be happy to get a note from your kid’s school announcing a similar system regarding each student’s propensity for violent behavior?
   But then, who would have thought ten years ago that in order to save twenty cents at the grocery store, you would freely offer up a bar coded key chain tag that tells the machines of commerce the exact contents of your home. Don’t think that night visit isn’t coming. “Mr. Stajich … we know you have cheap deodorant. Now open the door…”

This Week’s “Know Your News” Quiz

1) The INS has been absorbed into
   a) the Dept. of Homeland Security.
   b) the Worker Shakedown Unit.
   c) Nike.

2) A judge has extended Phil Spector’s
   a) definition of “reality.”
   b) bail time.
   c) budget for hair care.

3) Microsoft will provide the Chinese with
   a) the source code for Windows.
   b) copies of copies of video games.
   c) a program called “Yuan Printer.”

Answer Key

(a) Can I see some ID?
(b) Can I see the Ronettes?
(a) Can I dominate or what?!