Ancient TV Prophecies

In what may end up being the first of a series of ancient tv prophecies, I submit for your interest, a two-part episode of The Rockford Files circa 1978. (Go to Netflix if you wanna stream it).  "The House on Willis Avenue" concerns the establishment of a private computer network in Los Angeles, controlled by one corporate bigwig, in conjunction with two European counterparts.   Long in the security business, including actions like debugging of politicians' offices,  Jackie Cooper's character uses his hi-tech machinery, digs up some dirt on a local pol and blackmails him into helping set up the network.  Along the way, an old PI mentor of Rockford's has to be rubbed out, and eventually Rockford brings down the plans. 

But one interesting conversation between Cooper and the Europeans is worth a short thought. Both men question all the attention Cooper is bringing: the environmentalists --including one who had hired Rockford's friend -- are making lots of noise and trouble for the local pol in Cooper's pocket, but Cooper insists that the ruckus is part of the smokescreen.  The Europeans tell him they'd prefer things to be quiet, because they want to establish themselves and use their databases as part of the next generation of security.   They believe that once they've been in business for a few years, the public won't object so much to a privatized form of data access. 

The episode ends with a title card that tells us that millions of names are on private databases and we don't have access to see if we are in them, and that at the present time (1978), none of what "real" versions of these corporate types is illegal.  (The murder of a PI is fiction; the blackmail of a politician probably true.)  

35 years later, our names are stored everywhere, and not simply for sale by security firms, but by bookstores and search engines.  We willingly give up our privacy so that we can instantly stream videos of our favorite seventies shows.   

Interestingly, this morning I read the obituary of Allen Westin, who wrote the book on how most experts assess privacy laws in the age of computers.  He sought a middle ground to balance the rights of privacy of consumers with the access to their information by government and by private corporations.   The central control should be with the individual, he wrote, but of course let's face it: if you're connected to the internet you don't have much control.  Instagram wants to sell your pictures.  Facebook keeps changing its policies every seven months.   Men like the ones played by Jackie Cooper have succeeded.