Thursday, August 01, 2002
Strangers have the best candy and other urban nightmares
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The huge media interest in the attacks on children, such as the California murder of 5-year old Samantha Runyon and the disappearance of 14-year old Elizabeth Smart from her Salt Lake City home is not pure sensationalism on part of pop TV and newsprint purveyors. It reflects a deep-set public concern over the perils of everyday life and the fate of children of all ages, exposed to unknown dangers on the street as well as in the safety of a home. The public compassion is reflected by the hundreds and even thousands of volunteers who turn up to comb neighborhoods and woods, searching for the victims.
Little Samantha is a case of a stranger luring away a child with candy or perhaps a request for help in finding a lost puppy, an appeal that a good kiddie cannot resisit.. Intern Chandra Levy, who disappeared from her Washington D.C. home in April 2001, and whose dead body was found in a nearby park in May 2002, is typical of the youngsters who leave home after school to seek adventure in a fast moving world of powerful men and willing Monica Lewinskys. The Smart case and the 1996 murder of 6-year old JonBenet Ramsay in Boulder, CO, unresolved to date, open the eyes of the public to questioning the trustworthiness of wayward relatives and household helpers. This is an area in which the sensation-mongers truly thrive. When the same events are reported from poor homes or ghetto areas, such as the May 2 2002 disappearance of 7-year old Alexis Patterson in Milwaukee, on her way to school, the tabloids are less active, claiming that lost-on-the-way-to-school cases are more frequent. The FBI shows for 2001 a roster of 840,279 reported missing person cases, 85-90 percent of them affecting children, or some 2,000 a day. Most frequent are runaways, followed by those lost (75 percent are found in 24 hours). Next categories are those abducted by families, "throw-away" children (those told by their household not to come back), and, finally, non-family abductees (62 percent by strangers, 19 by kinfolk and 8 for ransom).
And then there is the cases of gay children. Matthew Sheppard, a 21 year old student at the University of Wyoming, was lured away from a bar by four racist and sexist contemporaries, to be beaten to death. While society did punish the culprits -two of them were convicted to double life sentences - the inherent exposure to external homophobic and well as in-group health perils haunts the days and nights of gay youngsters' parents.
Urban horrors caused by nightmarish events have created strong public reactions. The 1967 case of Kitty Genovese, a woman who cried for help on a residential street in Queens while being murdered, with 38 neighbors ignoring her screams, roused the national public conscience. The emergence of 911 numbers and neighborhood watching activities can be dated back to that event. The Son of Sam murders - psychopath David Berkowitz shot courting couples at night in 1976, after setting 1,488 fires - brought on laws that stop the perpetrators from profiting by selling their stories. Various forms of street crimes have prompted neighborhoods to band together and do "street watch," both in New York and elsewhere (in Florida I have seen "covered by neighborhood watch" signs posted on picturesque residential streets frequented by tourists). Some schools have parent patrols and "safe harbor" candy stores for children walking through shoddy neighborhoods.
Stalking and peeping-Tom activities still preoccupy us, real and imagined, as evidenced by the obsessive public interest in dysfunctional lives - think of the success of "The Osbournes" and other grunge reality and "talk" shows. Edward Hopper's haunting 1928-29 series of paintings, such as "Night Windows" and "Automat," are examples of the fascination. "Rear Window,"Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 movie, with Jimmy Stewart as a disabled photographer voyeur who discovers a murder while idly watching his neighbors with binoculars, did spark some fears and privacy concerns. Note that YS does does have a law that punishes voyeurs with 6 month sentences.
This is a long way to bring us to a look at the privacy aspects of the newly proposed US security laws. The Homeland legislation, dealing with the protection of Americans against terrorists, has caused substantial privacy concerns, particularly on the issue of TIPS, the Justice Department's Terrorism Information and Prevention System, which would prompt meter readers, delivery truck drivers, cable installers and mail deliverers to register as volunteers and report suspicious information about their fellow citizens, as cautiously described on The public concern prompted Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge to declare that "The last thing we want is Americans spying on Americans," and last week the House Homeland Security Committee, with Majoritiy Leader Dick Armey at its head, passed legislation to kill the operation. But Attorney General John Ashcroft still marches on, claiming that he is merely creating a clearing-house for the investigation of volunteer reports and promising not to create a data base that could be used for such purposes as prospective employers checking out applicants.
Being spied on by service people is a familiar danger for Europeans. The East German STASI had some 4 million reports, filed by concierges and colleagues. In the former USSR one had to watch out for "dvorniks," janitors in the employ of KGB. In Western Europe, France in particular, the old ladies serving as concierges were known to have police connections. European hotels for years had to report arrivals and departures to the authorities. Having to watch your step has been almost second nature to Europeans.
We too have some of the same, particularly since 9/11. Doormen and building superintendents do look for suspicious tenant doings. The Post Office has its own rules for reporting possible illegal activities. Various neighborhood watch groups are alert to possible terrorist threats.
But there is a basic difference between STASI and KGB employed janitors and their US counterparts. In the totalitarian Communist countries the reporting on neighbors was an obligatory function, with scheduled reports required. Skipped reports or persistent absence of negative findings put the reporter under suspicion. To avoid being suspected themselves, the spies had to reveal questionable activities, no matter how minimal, such as talking with strangers or foreigners. It was an atmosphere of fear. The proposed TIPS, no matter how repulsive to Americans, does not suggest obligatory spying. Even in the atmosphere of war against terror the US government has not attempted to descend to that level. This is still the home of the free as well as the brave (and the inventive, and the never-say-die.Think none-for-nine when things look bleak.)
The huge media interest in the attacks on children, such as the California murder of 5-year old Samantha Runyon and the disappearance of 14-year old Elizabeth Smart from her Salt Lake City home is not pure sensationalism on part of pop TV and newsprint purveyors. It reflects a deep-set public concern over the perils of everyday life and the fate of children of all ages, exposed to unknown dangers on the street as well as in the safety of a home. The public compassion is reflected by the hundreds and even thousands of volunteers who turn up to comb neighborhoods and woods, searching for the victims.
Little Samantha is a case of a stranger luring away a child with candy or perhaps a request for help in finding a lost puppy, an appeal that a good kiddie cannot resisit.. Intern Chandra Levy, who disappeared from her Washington D.C. home in April 2001, and whose dead body was found in a nearby park in May 2002, is typical of the youngsters who leave home after school to seek adventure in a fast moving world of powerful men and willing Monica Lewinskys. The Smart case and the 1996 murder of 6-year old JonBenet Ramsay in Boulder, CO, unresolved to date, open the eyes of the public to questioning the trustworthiness of wayward relatives and household helpers. This is an area in which the sensation-mongers truly thrive. When the same events are reported from poor homes or ghetto areas, such as the May 2 2002 disappearance of 7-year old Alexis Patterson in Milwaukee, on her way to school, the tabloids are less active, claiming that lost-on-the-way-to-school cases are more frequent. The FBI shows for 2001 a roster of 840,279 reported missing person cases, 85-90 percent of them affecting children, or some 2,000 a day. Most frequent are runaways, followed by those lost (75 percent are found in 24 hours). Next categories are those abducted by families, "throw-away" children (those told by their household not to come back), and, finally, non-family abductees (62 percent by strangers, 19 by kinfolk and 8 for ransom).
And then there is the cases of gay children. Matthew Sheppard, a 21 year old student at the University of Wyoming, was lured away from a bar by four racist and sexist contemporaries, to be beaten to death. While society did punish the culprits -two of them were convicted to double life sentences - the inherent exposure to external homophobic and well as in-group health perils haunts the days and nights of gay youngsters' parents.
Urban horrors caused by nightmarish events have created strong public reactions. The 1967 case of Kitty Genovese, a woman who cried for help on a residential street in Queens while being murdered, with 38 neighbors ignoring her screams, roused the national public conscience. The emergence of 911 numbers and neighborhood watching activities can be dated back to that event. The Son of Sam murders - psychopath David Berkowitz shot courting couples at night in 1976, after setting 1,488 fires - brought on laws that stop the perpetrators from profiting by selling their stories. Various forms of street crimes have prompted neighborhoods to band together and do "street watch," both in New York and elsewhere (in Florida I have seen "covered by neighborhood watch" signs posted on picturesque residential streets frequented by tourists). Some schools have parent patrols and "safe harbor" candy stores for children walking through shoddy neighborhoods.
Stalking and peeping-Tom activities still preoccupy us, real and imagined, as evidenced by the obsessive public interest in dysfunctional lives - think of the success of "The Osbournes" and other grunge reality and "talk" shows. Edward Hopper's haunting 1928-29 series of paintings, such as "Night Windows" and "Automat," are examples of the fascination. "Rear Window,"Alfred Hitchcock's 1954 movie, with Jimmy Stewart as a disabled photographer voyeur who discovers a murder while idly watching his neighbors with binoculars, did spark some fears and privacy concerns. Note that YS does does have a law that punishes voyeurs with 6 month sentences.
This is a long way to bring us to a look at the privacy aspects of the newly proposed US security laws. The Homeland legislation, dealing with the protection of Americans against terrorists, has caused substantial privacy concerns, particularly on the issue of TIPS, the Justice Department's Terrorism Information and Prevention System, which would prompt meter readers, delivery truck drivers, cable installers and mail deliverers to register as volunteers and report suspicious information about their fellow citizens, as cautiously described on The public concern prompted Homeland Secretary Tom Ridge to declare that "The last thing we want is Americans spying on Americans," and last week the House Homeland Security Committee, with Majoritiy Leader Dick Armey at its head, passed legislation to kill the operation. But Attorney General John Ashcroft still marches on, claiming that he is merely creating a clearing-house for the investigation of volunteer reports and promising not to create a data base that could be used for such purposes as prospective employers checking out applicants.
Being spied on by service people is a familiar danger for Europeans. The East German STASI had some 4 million reports, filed by concierges and colleagues. In the former USSR one had to watch out for "dvorniks," janitors in the employ of KGB. In Western Europe, France in particular, the old ladies serving as concierges were known to have police connections. European hotels for years had to report arrivals and departures to the authorities. Having to watch your step has been almost second nature to Europeans.
We too have some of the same, particularly since 9/11. Doormen and building superintendents do look for suspicious tenant doings. The Post Office has its own rules for reporting possible illegal activities. Various neighborhood watch groups are alert to possible terrorist threats.
But there is a basic difference between STASI and KGB employed janitors and their US counterparts. In the totalitarian Communist countries the reporting on neighbors was an obligatory function, with scheduled reports required. Skipped reports or persistent absence of negative findings put the reporter under suspicion. To avoid being suspected themselves, the spies had to reveal questionable activities, no matter how minimal, such as talking with strangers or foreigners. It was an atmosphere of fear. The proposed TIPS, no matter how repulsive to Americans, does not suggest obligatory spying. Even in the atmosphere of war against terror the US government has not attempted to descend to that level. This is still the home of the free as well as the brave (and the inventive, and the never-say-die.Think none-for-nine when things look bleak.)
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:03 PM 
