Dear __________, and others at the Office of the Director, Water, Waste and Environment,
Thank you for your detailed response to the concern I expressed about the threat to privacy that the newly implemented water meter system represents.
I do understand that the city applies the same privacy protection standards that have been in operation for many years. But I also understand that Canadian governments have, in very recent memory, overridden privacy provisions established by institutions in this country, have seized private information, and have used that information against their citizens. The most blatant example of this was the freezing of bank accounts of loyal Canadians whose only crime was supporting a protest against the trampling of charter rights by our federal government.
The rights and freedoms we have so long taken for granted here in Canada are actually an anomaly in the world in which we live, and, for that matter, in world history. The tendency of those who hold power to become increasingly authoritarian and to extend their reach further and further into the details of the lives over whom they have influence is not an isolated problem that exists “away over there”, whether “away over there” means North Korea, Afghanistan, Eritrea, Russia in various eras, or Germany of the 1930s and 1940s. This tendency toward overreach is a perennial human weakness. It is endemic in every age.
The freedoms that we have enjoyed, and those that we still enjoy, have not simply come forth spontaneously. They have been brought into being and maintained with great effort. They have been defended at great cost—the cost of many lives*. And they have provided an environment that is uniquely conducive to human flourishing. The benefits have not only been for the well-off. They have reached around the world, touching lives at every socioeconomic level.
Vigilance is needed if the rights and freedoms that have come to us at such great cost are going to be protected, maintained and passed on to those yet to come. And vigilance seems to be in awfully short supply right now.
The benefits of the electronic age are many, but they have come at great cost. Checks and balances that are so necessary to hold back the tendency of those in power to overreach have been greatly eroded. The idea of people willingly carrying about on their persons a device with a camera, a microphone and a location indicator, all of which are continuously connected to an information management system that collects and stores data that can be instantly accessed by those with the power and will to do so would have been regarded as utter lunacy by many in the last century who saw the abuses and the dreadful human toll that resulted from unchecked power, and the unnerving reality, in a number of societies, of virtually everyone being a spy on everyone else.
Many incremental boundaries have been crossed. But the City of Regina is crossing another significant one. Until now, I have been in a position to turn off, if I choose to do so, the devices that can be used to peer into my life. I can unplug my landline phone. I can turn off my mobile phone. I can unplug the internet box in my basement.
But the City of Regina is mandating the installation and continuous operation of a residential occupancy recorder, logger and transmitter. Nothing so reliably indicates the fact that a home is occupied than water use. I have every reason to believe that if I interfere with the operation of this occupancy logger, I will be deprived of a fundamental necessity of life. If I want to be free of this invasion of my privacy, it seems my only option will be to cease to own and occupy a private home in this city.
I do not know whether the readiness of the city of Regina to compel homeowners to acquiesce to this measure represents naivete on the part of those involved in the decision making process, or a careless contempt for the necessary vigilance upon which our continued freedom depends. Maybe there is an explanation that is more charitable.
Convenience, of course, is a good thing. Systems that in the long run save money are, of course, good things. But the benefits must be weighed against the liabilities that accompany them. It is evident to me that we live in an age of creeping totalitarianism. There are parts of the world in which it is full-blown. But even in our own country and province, the will to overreach in those who hold power must be acknowledged and taken very seriously. It has always been, and it is not going away any time soon.
Respectfully submitted,
Floyd Gadd
102 Upland Drive
*My awareness of this has been heightened by virtue of the fact that my father was a veteran of World War 2, and by my having been a trumpet player in past years who played “The Last Post” and “Reveille” at many Remembrance Day services and veterans’ funerals