I stopped subscribing to BoingBoing some time ago for a number of reasons but one cannot deny that Cory Doctorow’s fictional writing can make for excellent reading. His newest piece Scroogled published by RadarOnline.com is no different as it relates to what happens when the Google in possibly the not so distant future completes its slide to the basement of evil from its do no evil beginnings.

“Now you’re a person of interest, Greg. You’re Googlestalked. Now you live your life with someone constantly looking over your shoulder. You know the mission statement, right? ‘Organize the World’s Information.’ Everything. Give it five years, we’ll know how many turds were in the bowl before you flushed. Combine that with automated suspicion of anyone who matches a statistical picture of a bad guy and you’re—”

“Scroogled.”

“Totally.” She nodded

Some might want to deny that anything like what Cory writes in the story could ever happen. Other know all to well that even today we are walking the razor’s edge of reality to what is weaved in this supposed fiction story. The reality of the situation that it doesn’t take much to extrapolate things that are happening today to five or ten years down the road under the current political landscape in many countries that have been co-opted into the U.S. administration fight against terrorism.

From the story:

The interrogator in the secondary screening room was an older man, so skinny he looked like he’d been carved out of wood. His questions went a lot deeper than shrooms.

“Tell me about your hobbies. Are you into model rocketry?”

“What?”

“Model rocketry.”

“No,” Greg said, “No, I’m not.” He sensed where this was going.

The man made a note, did some clicking. “You see, I ask because I see a heavy spike in ads for rocketry supplies showing up alongside your search results and Google mail.”

Greg felt a spasm in his guts. “You’re looking at my searches and e-mail?” He hadn’t touched a keyboard in a month, but he knew what he put into that search bar was likely more revealing than what he told his shrink.

“Sir, calm down, please. No, I’m not looking at your searches,” the man said in a mocking whine. “That would be unconstitutional. We see only the ads that show up when you read your mail and do your searching. I have a brochure explaining it. I’ll give it to you when we’re through here.”

From reality as reported by the Montreal Mirror:

Andrew Feldmar, a B.C. psychotherapist, was prevented from crossing to the U.S. when a border guard Googled his name and hit upon an article he’d written that described an Aldous-Huxley-like experiment involving hallucinogens he took 40 years ago.

“It was humiliating,” says Feldmar, who has a clean criminal record. He says he has visited the U.S. hundreds of times, and two of his children live there. Last summer, he was stopped randomly at the border, and the madness began when an agent Googled his name. “He turned the monitor toward me and asked if I wrote that article,” he says. “I just wanted to get on my way, I told him I wrote it. He said I used an illegal substance and therefore I was an undesirable.” The guard took Feldmar’s fingerprints and sent him back from the border.

Just another case of life imitating art? .. Maybe - maybe - if it helps you sleep better at night. For those of us that don’t and who can see the trends as they converge the question remains - how long before we are all scroogled.

Listening to: Bjorn Lynne - Beneath Another Sky - Over Distant Shores [Ambient Mix]

[tags]Google, privacy, DHS, Cory Doctorow, RadarOnline, Montreal Mirror[/tags]

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