A 'real' scary story

By Jim Holt, The SCV Independent

This could be the scariest story you’ll hear this Halloween.

Ready to be frightened?

Webster’s dictionary defines haunting as: to pay frequent visits to; or to be continually present in. The Santa Clarita Valley Independent has found unseen forces that haunt – or are continually present in - our valley, watching our every move – from the minute we check our email in the morning, text a friend, call a relative, drive to work, walk to the store or simply buy a loaf of bread, to the time we go to bed.

How much of our life in Santa Clarita Valley is private and how much is public?

The answer lies in a story about buying a pumpkin and making a Jack-o-lantern.
VISIBLE ONLINE
At 6 a.m., I get up, go to the washroom, brush my teeth, go downstairs, put the coffee on – so far my life is private.

It becomes public in less than10 minutes, however, when I turn on my computer and check my email. Internet service providers have a log of all my emails. I don’t have to pay for email with Google’s Gmail, for example, but I pay for it with information about my private life, according to Nicole Ozer, Technology and Civil Liberties Policy Director for the American Civil Liberties Union.

“If you’re not paying with money, you’re paying with information,” she told The Independent.

Ozer runs a blog that addresses privacy issues posed by a burgeoning technology capable of monitoring our every move.

“There are a lot of companies that collect vast amounts of information,” she said. “Every time you make a purchase through Amazon dot com or even groceries, that information is collected.”

Today, however, I’m on a mission to buy a pumpkin and carve a Jack-o-lantern. So on my computer, coffee in hand, I search photo websites for Jack-o-lanterns.

“Flicker (Flickr.com) is free but just think of all the parts of your life that photos reveal,” Ozer points out. “The data gleaned from photos is huge.  They show where you went on vacation, when and where you were married.

“There are companies collecting vast amounts of data from photos alone,” says Ozer. “Federal privacy laws were written in 1986 – before the Internet, cell phones or Facebook. The government can engage in a virtual shopping spree.”

At 6:25 a.m. I select someone’s photo of a grinning Jack-o-lantern and download the image. Then I shower - a private experience I’m pretty sure.

At 7 a.m., I head out the door but before I do, I check my Facebook account. Private or public?

“Facebook responds to 10 to 20 law enforcement requests for information a day,” Ozer said, calling free interactive online services “a huge treasure trove for companies collecting those vast amounts of information.”

Before I leave the house I remember to TIVO this week’s episode of Survivor.

TV PROFILING
As a subscriber to AT&T’s U-verse TV package offering hundreds of shows, I know the company knows what I watch.

They tell me so, upfront in their privacy policy, that they collect information about my viewing habits every time I “interact” - as a resident of Santa Clarita - with them through their services and products.

DirecTV, the satellite dish service, also knows I watch Survivor and also knows I’m a Manchester United fan having created a billing record of my special orders, before I switched to AT&T.

DirecTV calls it "Personally Identifiable Viewing Information" in their privacy policy and it refers to information they collect about my personal viewing habits.

They do this with my express consent.

“Most people don’t read the privacy policy, they just sign these things,” Ozer said.  “They have no idea how much information is collected and they don’t understand the potential flow of that information.”

Ozer urges anyone spooked by this revelation to visit the website demandyourdotrights.com. I’ll read it later.  Right now, Halloween is fast approaching and I need a pumpkin. As I dash out the door, I stop and de-activate the ADT Security Services home alarm I set overnight. Is this private or do the ADT people know my every move?

“ADT does offer service to residential customer who want to know each time their system is activated and deactivated. The information is logged at our Customer Monitoring Centers and retrieved only by the customers when requested,” says Bob Tucker, director of public relations for ADT.

So, within an hour of waking up, unseen continually present forces – albeit technological ones – know my sleeping habits, who I talk to online, my favorite soccer team and that I like at least one reality TV show and now they know I have an interest in jack-o-lanterns.
I’m finally out the door. I get in my car and turn on the engine.  Private or is someone still watching?

EYES IN THE SKY
My car has two security systems that power up – LoJack and OnStar.

LoJack is a passive device that only starts monitoring my car’s movement when police activate it.

“No one’s tracking you 24-7,” Paul McMahon, vice-president of Communications for the LoJack Corporation assures me.  “It’s only tracking when your car is reported stolen.

“It’s a device that is always listening for the chance to be activated by police.”

OnStar is a global positioning satellite service that uses satellites to monitor where my car is in the world.

Does OnStar track every subscriber? Can it track me anytime, anywhere? Does it log my movements; say if I drive to Sacramento?

“The simple answer to all three of your questions is no,” said OnStar spokesman Cristi Vazquez.

“OnStar only obtains the location of a vehicle when a user initiates a request for service,” he said quoting the privacy policy. “If there is an air bag deployment, Automatic Crash Response is triggered, or when the owner reports the vehicle missing or stolen.”

OnStar can locate me and give me directions - but only if I ask.

Right now, I know my way to Ralphs, so I’m OK. But, it’s nice to know that they know I’m not alone – I guess.

SHOPPING HABITS LOGGED
At 7:15 a.m., I pull into the gas station.  American Express knows that I visit the same Mobil station every week, two security cameras fixed to the corner of the store show I am the one filling up my car.

I drive across the parking lot to Ralphs. You can’t have a Jack-0-lantern without a pumpkin.

At 7:25 a.m., the cashier scans my basketball-sized pumpkin.

Do I have a Ralph’s Club Card? Yes.

Do I save money with it? You bet.

Does Ralphs get anything from my club card? You bet.

“We use that information to help us understand the buying habits of our customers,” said Kendra Doyel, Group vice-president of Public Relations for Ralphs.

“We know, for instance, that you buy that type of bread and that helps us in marketing,” she said. “Rather than sending you coupons for banana chips we could send you coupons for that bread.”

Who else knows about my eating and drinking habits at Ralphs?

“We would never share that information with a third party,” Doyel said. “This information is one of the most protected pieces of property at Ralphs.”

Arms wrapped tightly around my pumpkin – (Ralphs, and only Ralphs, I’m, told, knows that I bought a bigger pumpkin last year but bought a smaller one the year prior and that 2004 was the only year I failed to purchase one at all) – I walk back to the car under the watchful eye of ceiling-mounted video surveillance cameras.

Back on the road, I pull up to the intersection at McBean Parkway and Newhall Ranch Road.

Does the video camera fixed atop the traffic lights see me, or see the driver next to me picking his nose or the driver on my other side kissing someone who I assume is his wife?

And, if so, does it log all that information on a computer?

The SCV Independent paid a visit to the traffic signal control headquarters at City Hall where 50 of the city’s 176 intersections equipped with traffic lights are monitored on a panoramic assortment of big screen monitors.

The short answer is no.  They cannot see into cars and cannot read license plates.

“The resolution of our cameras is 350 by 240 so once you start expanding that image, you’re not going to see anything,” says Cesar Romo, the city’s Signal Operations Supervisor.

Traffic light video surveillance is set up to ensure traffic moves efficiently throughout the city, he says.

The technology allows the city to record video information as to what happens at any intersection but this is done only when a traffic-related problem is reported such as a complaint about a light stuck on red. So if I have a traffic accident – in my rush to make a Jack-o-lantern – and I know the city’s video cameras watched it happen, I can’t go to them with a request for evidence to support my court case.

But, the city, with its cameras silently watching about a third of all lighted intersections, isn’t the only agency watching. Cameras made by Redflex Traffic Systems, Inc, are also affixed atop traffic lights, snapping photos of motorists running red lights. They’re mounted to 10 of Santa Clarita’s busiest intersections.

Electronic photos snapped by Redflex catching motorists breaking the law generate money for the city in fines but most of that money goes to pay for the technology itself, city spokesperson Gail Ortiz says.

Fewer people have been killed at intersections equipped with the cameras, she added.

Inside the control center, watching unsuspecting motorists come and go, I realize the city has been able to watch me drive from the bottom of my street, through three monitored intersections along McBean Parkway to Valencia Towne Center where I know they have a store that sells pumpkin-carving tools.

YOU NEVER WALK ALONE
A quick stop at the bank is obviously well monitored.

Local branches of both Wells Fargo and Bank of America let me know I am being watched. A video camera is pointed over every teller’s shoulder and a TV monitor (which apparently adds 10 pounds) is positioned for waiting customers to see.

The bank’s ATMs outside are fixed with cameras.  I know this because police almost daily, in TV news reports, ask us to identify some shadowy figure captured at an ATM.

Cash in hand I walk from the Wells Fargo at Magic Mountain Parkway to the mall.

Every step of my walk is monitored by cameras fixed to rooftops, hanging over the edge like gargoyles with one big bulging eye.

Inside the parking garage and in the shrub-lined alley by the fountain, the glassy blue bulbous orbs are there monitoring all the mall’s intersections such as the one fixed to the Brookstone store.

Inside the mall, the same orbs are placed at the top of the escalator, by the restrooms and about every 50 feet. As well, each store in the mall, of course, has its own video surveillance.

Suddenly, I’m aware that I’ve been checking out all the mall’s video cameras. Who’s watching me looking? I’m spooked by all this, so I return to my car – no pumpkin-carving tools.

I return home shaken. But, the scariest part of my story awaits me at home.

The spookiest unseen continually present force presented itself 3,000 miles away, on the street where my parents live in Canada.
I’m haunted by an image I feel compelled to ask my mother about: Is Tom back at home, gardening? My mother’s answer is yes.

Why is this so scary?

Because, on my computer, using Google Maps, I see Tom in his front yard on his hands on knees.

From Google’s overhead satellite view of my parents’ neighborhood in Ottawa, I drag the wee icon of a stick man standing atop the Google map direction arrows, over to my parents’ street.

Suddenly, the camera angle changes.

I see my mother’s car parked in the driveway – not an aerial view, but a view from the street, as if I was standing at the end of their driveway.

I know the image is recent because my mom’s garden gnome was stolen in the summer and I don’t see it.

I drag the icon down the street and see every house, 3,000 miles away. That’s where I find Tom on his hands and knees gardening.
Who took the photo? The video? Does Tom know?

My hands are shaking as I copy the Jack-0-lantern image I lifted from the Internet and as I draw the disparaging face on my pumpkin.

Punch in your own address.

But be warned.  You may be frightened when you see what the spirits out there see.

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