Journal: About technology in our life

IS THE USE OF NEW TECHNOLOGY IN OUR SOCIETY A GOOD THING ?

I heard a radio show about the increasing use of technology in our every day life. Some people were concerned that children used extensively now instant messaging and SMS to communicate with friends and not face to face discussions anymore, or that it became more and more difficult to find ways to do things with government administrations or banks that did not involve an Internet connection or a plastic card. Some other were confident that the new generation would show and has already demonstrated that one can adapt to these new technologies and maintain a good or even gain a better way of life than the previous one.

I would like to add my grain of salt and say that I have concerns in the protection our laws provide for us in the matter of new technologies. I agree that new form of communications and pervasive use of computer records in commerce, health care, civil administration, etc. have enormous advantage. But as we have seen in recent news it is easy for these records to 'get lost' or simply to be stolen.

From up till now, our societies' justice system provided for the victims of thieves, of harrasment, etc. and punished the perpetrators. Now with an internet connection always up on everybody's computer, spams and viruses hurls themselves on a providential firewall like mongols on the Great Wall. What could be done to protect Mr. A, citizen of Aland, of computer attacks from Mr. B, citizen of Bland, or company C, based in Cland ?

In fact international laws do exist: they ensure that countries doing commerce with each other do not go nasty to each other, and that companies exporting or importing follow rules for taxes, consumer and patents protection, national security, etc. There are even moral rules that apply to international relationships: rules of assistance for ships in difficulty in high sea, Geneva convention to woundeds on a battlefield, etc.

But theses laws are seldom enforced, for who can prevent Russia from cutting off gas supply to Ukraine, Lybia to use judicial courts to extort money, China to veto UN decisions regarding the Darfour massacres ? What can be done to make the world a better place for everybody ? What organization could make the risk sufficiently high for felons of the new global village ?

I would welcome a global sheriff of new technologies, if one could provide oversight on its power. Our societies organized themselves around power, with one person holding the totality of it on one end, to the whole population delegating to elected bodies ('a government of the people by the people'). When the power of an elected body becomes too great, it is cut in pieces with clear jurisdictions for each one.

So I would put forward an international organization which would enforce some basic justice on a global scale without consideration to borders or nationality. This organization would be divided in separate entities which would have complete authority on their particular field for exemple inter-state commerce, antitrust or criminal justice. The division of these entities would be done in such a way that they would have oversight and control on each other, for exemple the commerce entity would be controlled by the antitrust entity to ensure that companies exchange would not result in a dominant position of one or a group of one over others.

The name of that organization would be: U.N.C.L.E.