Are We Playing God?

Robin Williams stars in a movie titled, “Final Cut”. In this movie, people have the option to implement a memory chip in their brains that records every moment of their life. When they die, a person called a “cutter” uploads the chip to his computer and arranges the individual’s memories to represent that individual’s life. This “final cut” of the individual’s memories of his life is then played at his funeral. In the movie, there was a political group against this technology. This political group argued it is solely the place of God to know all of the details about an individual’s life. Thus, “cutters” like Robin Williams are playing the role of God as they watch hours and hours of film of an individual’s life from the individual’s memory chip.

I bring up this movie not because I believe memory chips will soon be implemented in our society, but rather to ask if the government will soon play God in the sense that cutters in “Final Cut” play God? Will the government eventually be able to see everything that occurs in our lives? I believe the full body scan is a step too far for the government.

Currently, we’re given the option of participating in the full body scan, but I argue that it will eventually become mandatory. An individual’s body is only for that individual to see and whomever he chooses to allow to see that individual’s body. Personally, I would feel quite uncomfortable having a complete stranger see me naked. True, the image is digital; nonetheless, the process is quite dehumanizing. I argue that a full body scan like the one presented in the YouTube video and the readings is not even necessary. Can’t a pat down suffice? Or, can the government wait to implement this technology until a generic image of the body is shown instead of the individual’s actual body? It cannot be that difficult to create a generic visual for the body, can it? Or, if we continue to use the body scan, could there be a computer program that searches the image rather than an individual? If the computer finds an unidentified object, then a pat down search by security would proceed. I believe either of these options would allow for improved security, while still maintaining one’s privacy.


Continuing with the theme of playing God, I would argue that searching a personal computer at random without reason could give security too much insight to another person’s life. People are continuing to intertwine their lives with technology. Family photos, past purchases, IM conversations, journals, and all sorts of documents are saved on any given person’s computer. When computers are searched, all sorts of embarrassing facts about that person (that are not even relevant to criminal activity) may be revealed to security. Security has no business knowing that much about another individual without reason to search them.

On another note, while I agree with Reese that government should be allowed to detain people for a long period of time at border check points, I also want to argue that the conditions for “reasonable suspicion” must be refined. To simply state that each search depends on an individual circumstance is not enough. This leaves an opportunity for ethnic and racial discrimination to take place at checkpoints. I think this is extremely plausible when evaluating the facts of the Mantoya de Hernandez case. I was shocked by the stark differences in which the majority reported the facts of the case when compared to how Rehnquist (the dissent opinion) presented the case. The majority opinion reported the facts in an apathetic tone and played down the embarrassing events Montoya de Hernandez had to face. The obvious differences in the rhetoric the majority opinion and Rhenquist used to describe Mantoya de Hernandez’s experience in detainment is representative of the great subjectivity used in judging what is a reasonable search and what is not. In this instance, luckily security was not wrong about their assumption that Mantoya de Hernandez’s status as a “balloon swallower”. However, what if they were wrong? That is always a possibility. Moreover, I can’t help but question how many American citizens the border-patrol stops to check for illegal drug ownership. Being that the illegal drug world is so expansive, there have to be Americans smuggling drugs as well. However, I have never heard of Americans being suspected for smuggling drugs and suffering through a situation similar to Montoya de Hernandez’s. This “reasonable suspicion” rule is not efficient at all. It’s completely subjective.