Today was my first visit to a new dentist. The calendar said 2012, but it sure felt like 1984.
As soon as I arrived, I was asked for my insurance card and my driver’s license, so they had proof positive I was who I said I was.
Next, I had to answer all those medical history questions you usually 
get on a clipboard. But at this office, I was directed to a computer, positioned by the door where anyone walking by could see me and my answers. I put “unknown” for marital status because really, as long as I’m paying the bill, who cares? I moved to the next page. “I’m not entering my driver’s license,” I said to the woman at the front desk. “You don’t need it.” She smiled. “I’ll enter it. I made a copy when you gave it to me earlier.” Then she asked me to step forward so they could take my picture for their files. And I did all this, with barely a complaint.
As I waited my turn to see the dentist, I read a magazine article about how cell phone tracking has reduced the average time before someone wanted for a crime is arrested from twentysomething days to two.
Then I thought about my life, lived pretty openly. Yet there are calls I don’t make and e-mails I don’t send because I figure someone beyond the recipient would see them eventually. I thought about the speed cameras in the D.C. area and how people I know (I don’t drive enough to worry about this) change their routes because of the cameras.
Then I wondered what my father, who fought in World War II and had his own issues with paranoia would think about all this, let alone my more than two dozen ancestors who fought in the American Revolution so that we could have freedom, including the freedom to be left alone. We’ve turned that freedom over to governments and to the people whose products and services we buy for the sake of convenience, all without a shot being fired.
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Couldn’t agree more, and ensuring they get payment isn’t a justifiable excuse. Back when everyone wrote checks, I’d give the grocery store my number, scribble it right on the check, right up until the day when I forgot one of my bags and left it in the store with an expensive roast inside. They had my number but didn’t call to say “Come get that $25 rib roast you paid for, Valued Customer.” So forever more, I wrote *A* phone number on the check, but not mine. Same for the Social Security number they often demand.
I agree! It is scary how much info is collected through Facebook and how many places want your social security number. I’m sorry, but the dentist doesn’t need that, nor your drivers license number.
I know, Beth… and scary how used to giving it up we are as well.
Great idea, Stella! I’m gonna switch some digits going forward.
“all without a shot being fired” — One day somewhere back in the 1970s my mother, dad, older brother and I were sitting around talking about the wars that weren’t wars, and the general state of the world. We chatted about WWII in which my dad fought and Vietnam, in which I lost several friends. But my mother had the last word (as always), “After your grandfather fought in WWI, he came home and said, ‘If we ever lose this country, it will come from within, without a shot fired.'”
Great food for thought, LinDee.