Freedom TM

Sergeant.”
    Sebeck narrowed his eyes. “These numbers are appearing in D-Space. This must be the darknet.”
    Price was already shaking his head. “I get the
data
from commercial networks, and I project it onto D-Space. Ask yourself, how can I know their bank balances unless I know who these people are? Remember: none of them are Daemon operatives.”
    Sebeck thought for a moment. He moved to a balcony railing and scanned the hundreds of numbers moving through the mall.
    “Their data follows them as they walk.”
    “Yeah. How about that?”
    “How are you doing this, Price? Cut the bullshit. You’re fakingthis, or are you trying to convince me that someone implanted tracking chips in everyone?”
    “Nobody implanted anything. These people pay for their own tracking devices.” Price pointed to a nearby cell phone kiosk slathered with graphic images of beautiful people chatting on hand-sets. “A cell phone’s location is constantly tracked and stored in a database. Don’t have a cell phone? Bluetooth devices have a unique identifier, too. Phone headsets, PDAs, music players. Just about any wireless toy you might own. And now there are radio-frequency-identity tags in driver’s licenses, passports, and in credit cards. They respond to radio energy by emitting a unique identifier, which can be linked to a person’s identity. Privately owned sensors at public choke points are harvesting this data throughout the world. It doesn’t have anything to do with the Daemon.”
    Price turned to the mall again and drew circles on his layer of D-Space—highlighting sensors bolted to the walls at intersections in the mall’s traffic flow. “Storing data is so cheap it’s essentially free, so data brokers record everything in the hopes that it will have value to someone. The data is aggregated by third parties, linked to individual identities, and sold like any other consumer data. It’s not a conspiracy. It’s an economy, but an economy these people know nothing about. They’re tagged like sheep and have about as much say in the matter as sheep.”
    Sebeck gazed at the data whirling around him.
    “What do we look like to a computer alogrithm, Sergeant? Because it will be computer algorithms that make life-changing decisions about these people based on this data. How about credit worthiness—as decided by some arbitrary algorithm no one has a right to question?”
    Suddenly credit scores appeared above everyone’s heads, color-coded from green to red for severity.
    “What about medical records?”
    Lists of drug prescriptions and preexisting conditions appeared above people’s heads.
    “Or how about something really powerful: human relationships. Let’s use phone records to compile the social network of these folks—to identify the people who matter most to them.…”
    Suddenly everyone’s names appeared over their heads, along with a hyperlinked diagram of their most frequent contacts—along with names and phone numbers.
    “What about purchasing habits …?”
    Lists of recent credit card purchases blinked into existence below people’s names.
    “This data never goes away, Sergeant.
Ever
. And it might be sold years down the road to god knows who—or what.”
    Price leaned close. “Imagine how easily you could change the course of someone’s life by changing this data? But that’s control, isn’t it? In fact, you don’t even need to be human to exert power over these people. That’s why the Daemon spread so fast.”
    Sebeck clutched the balcony railing in silence, watching the march of data. The public walked on, shopping and talking, completely oblivious to the cloud of personal information they gave off. That governed their lives.
    Price followed Sebeck’s gaze. “So you stand there and tell me that the Daemon is invasive and unprecedented. That it’s a threat to human freedom. And I tell you that Americans are fucking ignorant about their freedom. They’re about as free as the Chinese. Except the Chinese don’t lie to themselves.”
    Sebeck said nothing for several moments. Then he slowly turned back to Price. “Laney, how is the Daemon any better?” He pointed up at his own call-out, hovering above him in D-Space. “We wear information over our heads, too.”
    “Yes, but we can
see
ours, and we know instantly whenever anyone touches our data—and who touched it. That’s the best one can hope for in a technologically advanced society. Plus, we canreadily spot nonhumans on the