Fifteen years ago I took part in a tri-national conference where lecturers from the UK met up with some Canadian and American counterparts for a week’s ’staff development’. Of course, from this distance, I can remember very little of what I learned at the time, but two very powerful things remain with me.
The first was that the Brits were really impressed by the salaries and the conditions of service that the Canadian lecturers appeared to have. (We all left the conference determined to emigrate immediately to that northern expanse.) The second was that we were struck by the amount of time the Americans spent talking about security and the almost casual way they mentioned armed guards in their colleges. (It took me years to pluck up the courage to actually visit New York.) I often think about their concerns everytime the tragedy of a campus shooting hits the headlines.
It is against that background of violent crime that Montana State University is making the purchase of security enhanced mobile phones compulsory for all students. These phones have two key features: (1) an alarm that would sound at the campus police station and display the phone’s location together with a photo and the personal details of the owner; (2) a timer, which once set, will trigger the alarm if it is not turned off before the set time expires. The first feature would make incidents like the Virginia Tech shootings (where students were hiding behind desks while a gunman was in the room) less likely at Montana. The second is designed to help students who are concerned about returning to their rooms late at night. They just set the timer before leaving their destination and turn it off when they arrive at their campus residence.
In comparison with some UK tariffs, the compulsory security service seems moderately inexpensive. The 6000 students each pay $210 per semester (approximately £200 per annum), and in addition to getting the handset and the alarm features, they also have unlimited text messaging, the ability to read campus emails, free calls after 7.00 pm, free calls to other Sprint Network users, and 50 anytime any network minutes per month.
The university is adamant that it is not making any money out of the deal with the phone provider and that the student fees are just covering the costs of the system. It is also adamant that it could not use the GPS system to track particular students without first getting a subpoena. The system is about enhanced security rather than profit or policing.
So, why are some people objecting to it? I can only respond with the feelings I might have if attending that university.
First, it seems a great idea for anyone wanting to use it, but I suspect that the vast majority wouldn’t. It is good to encourage people to look after their own security, but it feels a bit heavy handed to try to make them do it and then to make them pay for it as well.
Secondly, as someone who would use far more than 50 anytime any network minutes a month, I would object to the monopoly held by the particular service provider. I would deeply resent the restriction of choice which may not be in my best financial interests.
Thirdly, I am incredibly picky about handsets. I could select a new car in a matter of seconds - Has it got an engine? Can I fit in it? Does it work? Ok, let’s get it! - but I will spend weeks agonizing over choosing a new handset. It has to have particular features to meet my particular needs. I don’t want a ‘bog standard’ one that would seriously impair the quality of my life! The thought of having a university select my choice of handset for at least three years (and possibly longer) is almost too unbearable to even contemplate.
It would be interesting to see if the Montana scheme survives. There have only been 12 alarms sounded in the past year, and all of those have been false ones. I suspect if most of the students ignore the service and resent paying for one that doesn’t meet their needs, growing protests will result in it being silently dropped. Of course, I may be wrong. It may save lives and spread to other campuses. And if it does, why stop there? Why doesn’t the government insist that everyone purchase a particular handset with these features so that we can all be compulsorily kept safe? Surely your life is worth as much as that of a Montana State University student.
There are two things that worry me. The first is the element of compulsion. I am surprised that they can impose a phone on students given the constitutional rights of Americans. Knowing students (having been one and taught some), they will soon find ways around this such as leaving the phone in someone else’s car, letting the battery run down, flushing it down the toilet, etc. But the principle remains and it’s a bad principle.
The second thing is the availability of tracking. My problem with this is that as soon as something is possible, its use becomes inevitable and then spreads, often in ways that are not compatible with our rights and freedoms. An example is cctv which is now so common here that anyone who lives in a city is more or less continually tracked.
The Montana project reminds me that there are firms in this country who can continually track the whereabouts of a mobile phone and report on it to the customer, the customer not necessarily being the owner or user of the mobile. The claim that this is done only with the mobile owner’s permission is so much flim-flam, of course, as it’s easy to sign up someone’s mobile if you can get hold of it for a few minutes. There must be many people who, without their knowledge, are being tracked by employers or jealous partners.
I agree, the level of compliance does seem strange. I suspect that many may buy the thing (because they have to when they sign up in the first semester) and then just leave it in the box or in the drawer. Perhaps the recent campus shootings have made it easier for the authorities to impose it. The cynical part of me started to wonder if it did at least mean that the university’s back was covered if it was ever criticised for not providing enough campus security.
I echo Silver Tiger’s concerns. The Bush administration, for the past seven years, has expanded executive branch powers by blatant fear-mongering. They believe that “increased security,” as they define it, is worth the costs they are imposing. The MSU scheme is probably well-intentioned, but it smells too much like other ideas that the Bushies have advocated and implemented. At this point, I am very leery of accepting any “security” proposals that may infringe on my freedom of choice and/or my privacy. I am not at all surprised that people are standing up and saying, “We’ve had enough of this!”