Hard Rain

reflexively
    forgone any such comforts in favor of the imperative of personal
    security. But I found my priorities were changing with age, and this,
    as much as anything else, was a clear sign that it was time for me to
    get out of the game.
    So sure, knowing me as he did, it wouldn't be too difficult for Tatsu
    to assume Osaka. But that wouldn't have been enough for him to
    pinpoint me the way he ultimately had.
    "Impressive," I told him. "But you haven't explained how you were then
    able to pick me up in a city of almost nine million."
    He raised his head slightly and looked at me directly. "Rain-san," he
    said, "I understand your desire to know. And I will tell you. But it
    is important that the information goes no further, or the
    crime-fighting effectiveness of the Metropolitan Police Force will be
    curtailed. Can I trust you with this information?"
    The question, and the revelations that might follow it, were intended
    to show that I could trust him, as well. "You know you can," I told
    him.
    He nodded. "Over the last decade or so, the major pre-fectural and
    ward governments have been independently installing security cameras in
    various public places, such as subway stations and major pedestrian
    thoroughfares. There is substantial evidence, much of it gathered from
    the experience of the United Kingdom, that such cameras deter crime."
    "I've seen the cameras."
    "You can see some of them. Not all. In any event, the cameras
    themselves are not really the issue. What is behind them is what
    matters. After the events of September eleventh in the United States,
    the Metropolitan Police Force undertook a major initiative to link up
    these informal networks of cameras with a central database that runs
    advanced facial recognition software. The software reads
    characteristics that are difficult or impossible to obscure the
    distance between the eyes, for example, or the precise angles of the
    triangle formed by the corners of the eyes and the center of the mouth.
    Now, when a camera gets a match for a photograph from the database, an
    alert is automatically sent to the appropriate authorities. What had
    been primarily a psychological deterrent is now a potent anticrime and
    investigative tool."
    I knew of the existence of the software Tatsu was describing, of
    course. It was being tested in certain airports and stadiums,
    particularly in the United States, as a way of spotting and preempting
    known terrorists. But from what I'd read, the early tests had been
    disappointing. Or perhaps that was just disinformation. In any event,
    I hadn't known Japan was so far ahead in deployment.
    "The cameras are tied to Juki Net?" I asked.
    "Possibly," he answered in his dry way.
    Juki Net, a vast data snooping and centralization program, went live in
    August 2002, perhaps inspired by the U.S. Defense Department's Total
    Information Awareness Initiative. Juki Net assigns every Japanese
    citizen an eleven-digit identification number, and links that number to
    the person's name, sex, address, and date of birth. The government
    maintains that no other information will be compiled. Few people
    believe that, and there have already been abuses.
    I considered. As Tatsu noted, if word got out, the efficacy of the
    camera network would be compromised. But there was more.
    "Weren't there protests about Juki Net's introduction?" I asked.
    He nodded. "Yes. As you may know, the government introduced Juki Net
    without passing an accompanying privacy bill. Attempts to do so
    belatedly have been less than convincing. In Suginami-ku there is a
    boycott. Nonresidents are now seeking to establish an address in that
    ward to escape the system's dominion."
    Now I understood why the government would take such care to maintain
    the secrecy of Juki Net's connection to the network of security
    cameras. After all, even if you know it's there, avoiding video
    surveillance is hell, so the danger of inadvertently tipping off
    criminals would be a marginal problem. The real issue, no doubt, was
    the government's fear of the protests that would surely result if the
    public were to learn that the announced scope of the system was really
    only the tip of the iceberg. If the security cameras were tied
    together with Juki Net, people would rightly think they had a serious
    Big Brother situation on their hands.
    "You can't blame people for not trusting the government on this," I
    said. "I read somewhere that, last spring, the defense ministry got
    caught creating a