Nowhere to Go and Nowhere to Hide

The European Satellite Navigation System GALILEO will be the next generation GPS--Global Position System--and a separate tracking technology that will usher in total planetary surveillance. This program is a joint initiative of the European Commission and the European Space Agency (ESA). As stressed in the European Commission White Paper on European transport policy for 2010, the European Union needs an independent satellite navigation system. Galileo is Europe's contribution to a global navigation satellite infrastructure (GNSS).

GALILEO is based on a constellation of 30 satellites and ground stations providing information concerning the positioning of users in many sectors such as transport (vehicle location, route searching, speed control, guidance systems, etc.), social services (e.g. aid for the disabled or elderly), the justice system and customs services (location of suspects, border controls), public works (geographical information systems), search and rescue systems, or leisure (direction-finding at sea or in the mountains, etc.).

Two points are germane that illustrates the sophistication and integrated performance.

A public regulated service (PRS), encrypted and resistant to jamming and interference, reserved principally for the public authorities responsible for civil protection, national security and law enforcement, which demand a high level of continuity. It will enable secured applications to be developed in the European Union, and could prove in particular to be an important tool in improving the instruments used by the European Union to combat illegal exports and illegal immigration.

The technological potential will lead to a high degree of integration of these functions (standard "microchips" tailored to a specific function). GALILEO signals can also be combined with other GNSS system (Glonass, GPS) or non-GNSS systems (e.g. GSM and UMTS) to allow enhanced services for specific applications.

So why should citizens be alarmed when they enjoy the friendly navigation aids from their SUVs? The fact is most won't, and will go along with whatever develops. Not withstanding, looking at the broad implications requires a crash course in Molecular Nanotechnology. 'A researcher at Intel recently acknowledged that he saw no way to continue the expected progress in chip miniaturization without a major change in technology.' That dominant transformation is seen in Dr Ralph Merkle's assertion: Nanotechnology will allow engineers to build materials and machines molecule by molecule. "Nanomachines" will be invisible to the naked eye but many times more powerful than today's high tech components.

What purpose will this physics serve? Before the proponent of medical applications bring out their presentations for research funding, consider who are already aboard the "advancement." The U.S. Navy, through its Strategic Studies Group, and the Army at its Nanotechnology for the Soldier System Conference, have been tracking molecular nanotechnology work of relevance to military systems.

At this point it needs to be stipulated that technology has a life unto itself. It is futile to base a case for anxiety upon the ethics of the development. If it can be done, man will do it. The proper role for moral concerns lies in how those technologies will be used. When, not if, Nanomachines become embedded, what significance will be thrust upon society? The GALILEO system will integrate the Nano NeoChips into an organism for perfect tracking. Let's not fool ourselves--study the frightful record of public policy. Privacy is the ultimate casualty of a surrender to phantom terrorism. With each progression of technological capacity, the dignity of the individual is strip searched as an ordinary matter of course.

If scientists devoted a 'Nano' concern about who they actually work for and what their inventions are used to achieve, maybe some might choose another profession. But that is probably just wishful thinking . . . human nature survives every new version of progress to demonstrate that the best of intentions can and will be used for the most disastrous of results. Social policy is inevitably designed to serve those who seek to control others.

No wonder that the Europeans are not willing to roll over to the hyperpower of the U.S. empire. Admittedly, their own agenda does not differ in intent from that of the Beltway privacy thieves. So when they want their own independent satellite navigation system for tracking undesirables, own up to reality that there is no place left where your presence is not known. When did Western countries last control illegal immigration? Such a stated purpose is nothing more than code for supervising their own citizens. Galileo plugged into nanotechnology will produce an invisible wire that links to the restraint collar worn around your neck. Instead of looking to the heavens for inspiration and tracking stars, the spy in the sky is designed to monitor your every movement.

Surely, it doesn't have to be this way; but unfortunately governments always act alike. Even when they compete for supremacy, the only advancement is in the capabilities and scope for perfecting people control. Communication by satellite means integration into the matrix of global merging. Under the auspices of a carnivore aphid, a spider web entraps prey and sucks out all personal privacy. All the while, the average naive consumer considers this technology to be progress! When can a rational person place trust in his own government to respect the natural rights of their citizens?

Is this a global village or a universal gulag? The heresy of Galileo Garlilei will no more be tolerated from modern day dissenters, conflicting with the established order, than it was by Rome. Now we have a nanotechnology horizon that will be monitored by a GALILEO network. Under the puissance of the State, who really believes that privacy can survive?