Is Anyone Listening?

This past August, the telephone rang at a Dillons grocery store in Hutchinson, Kansas. A store employee answered the phone and listened as a voice warned that bombs had been placed throughout the store and that unless everyone - customers and employees alike - did exactly what the caller instructed, those bombs would be detonated and the store would be leveled instantly.

At that point, nothing that had transpired was unique. Bomb scares have been around at least as long as telephones. They have become common enough that many large retailers have procedures in place for employees to follow in the event of such a call. You notify the police, evacuate the store, and then you wait outside until the cops say it's safe to return. All-in-all, telephoned bomb threats have come to be more of an annoyance than a fearful experience. They have become like false fire alarms in schools. Years ago, when alarms were new to schools, the idea that somebody would pull an alarm as a practical joke or to defer some pop quiz was beyond comprehension. When it first happened, it actually made the newspapers. Today, the only way you would find out about such an incident is if you overhear your kid mentioning it to a pal on the other end of his or her cell phone.

But there was something different about the threat being made on that particular August day in that particular Dillons supermarket; and that difference would result in ensnaring more than 100 people within a web of fear for over an hour and a half.

During this particular call, the caller made it unmistakably clear that he could see the person he was talking to on that phone. In fact, the caller made it clear that he could see all the customers and employees throughout the entire store!

So you can pretty much imagine what was going on in the mind of the store employee who answered the call. Either this guy on the phone had accomplices throughout the store or some sort of elaborate camera surveillance system had been installed within the store. In either case, this was a frightening situation. If this person calling could install cameras throughout the store without anyone detecting him or the cameras he installed, then he sure as hell could have planted bombs within the store as well. And, if this caller had the money, time and resources available to install cameras, then this guy on the phone was no punk. On the other hand, if the guy had accomplices inside the store and they were all in communication with one another, then this was not simply some junkie looking to shake down a fix. This was an organized band of terrorists.

As much as we try to forget, it is always there in the back of our minds. The two towers falling down; the thousands still inside; the savagery, the horror, the fanaticism - it's always there and will always be there - just like it was this day, in the mind of that Dillon's employee and all the other employees and customers who would soon learn what was happening to them.

It was terrifying.

And so, when the caller demanded that all employees and customers be herded towards the front of the store, all the employees and customers complied. And when the caller demanded that all the women strip themselves of their clothing, some of the women complied.

The women standing there, trying to cover themselves with their hands and arms were humiliated and shamed. The men standing there were also humiliated and shamed by their own helplessness. The store manager pleaded again and again to the caller to not hurt anyone. Everyone was, above all else, petrified with fear. Held hostage to the whim of this sadistic voice on the phone.

The caller demanded that the store wire money to him and gave a bank account number. Then he demanded that all the men strip themselves of their clothes as well.

And then, it was over. It was the demand for money that ended it. That demand fit a pattern. Over the past few months, banks and other retail stores in Phoenix, Detroit, Salt Lake City and Philadelphia had received similar calls and similar demands for money. In Newport, Rhode Island, a Wal-Mart store received a call and employees wired $10,000 to the caller. Although this was the first time a caller demanded that victims disrobe, the demand for money fit the pattern of these other calls. Police and the FBI recognized this pattern and so it was over. Except for the fear and trauma that is still there and probably won't go away for a long, long time.

To their credit, Dillons management rushed crisis counselors to the scene to assist victims. For most, it will take time to heal. For some, they might never heal.

It was a vicious crime.

The fear of the unthinkable that has been made real by 9/11 is not the only link between that horrific act and these new acts of terrorism being experienced in banks and stores throughout the country. The destruction of the World Trade Center and these ongoing acts share one other commonality - they were and are brought about through the use of our own technology - turned again us.

The Dillons store, the banks, and the other stores that have been victimized all use internal surveillance cameras. Those cameras use the Internet to transmit video to off-site surveillance personnel or for off-site recording. In the same way as Voice Over Internet Protocol (VoIP) has become popular for commercial and residential telephone service, it is the preferred and inexpensive way to transmit video. And because it is on the Internet, it can be hacked.

It is very likely that the calls being made are coming from some guy sitting in front of a computer in Bulgaria or Nigeria or Chicago for that matter. And it is more than likely that this sort of thing will increase as word spreads through the hacker community of the riches to be gained. In the same way that Nigerian emails appear in your email in-box every day, we may see bomb threats and extortion attempts become commonplace in our banks, stores, churches, schools - everywhere.

Technology has brought many wonderful things into our world. But, as with all new advances, there are those who will exploit technology for evil purposes. And this is a very serious threat.

The fabric of perceived protection holds all societies together. It isn't enough that someone says this society or that society is safe. What is important is that people personally feel safe. When people lose their feeling of personal safety, the fabric tears and the society becomes frayed. It begins to decay. Order falters, institutions become suspect, chaos reigns.

Today, couples have Internet cameras installed in their own homes so that they can monitor their babysitters and children while they are at work. Those cameras are on the Internet and therefore strangers have the ability to also monitor their babysitters and children. If you have such cameras, they are perhaps inside your home right now - lurking as you read these words. Homes will be robbed; children kidnapped and worse will happen because people did not know that someone hacked into their video cameras and found out all about them. They did not know how incredibly easy it is. They did not know how common it has become.

City after city is installing cameras at intersections and in public areas. All such cameras use the Internet or an Intranet. All of them can be hacked and will be hacked. You will probably read in the not too distant future how professional thieves hacked into one of these systems to monitor police activity while they pull off some major crime.

Police and government officials will tell you these systems are safe - but that is a lie. Because it has not been done yet doesn't make them safe.

All around us, business and government rush to implement the latest technology. Beguiled by the alchemy of 1's and 0's, they assure us of the benefits to ourselves while asking us to place our thumbprint on the reader or carry a microchip within our flesh. None speak of the danger. None consider the potential consequences such technology can bring from within the hands of evil.

So here we are once more. Our own technology turned against us. And as a result, we are again stirred from complacency upon finding technology that promised to make our lives easier, instead has made us less safe and less free.

Thus, suspicion grows in the heartland and the threads within the fabric give way. And above the din of cellular phones, iPods, and countless other wonders here, or soon to be here, no one can hear. No one is listening.

humorous and always politically incorrect, journalist and author John Fanning tackles commentary on subjects that affect every American but never seem to get the media attention they deserve. America's Street Guide column bellows from the heartland and into the beltways of America with insightful and informative commentary that every American should read. To access past columns by this author go to: http://www.chiefengineer.org/content/archive_list.cfm/datakey/25.htm