-Caveat Lector- Click Here: <A HREF="http://www.zolatimes.com/V3.45/mosaic_2000.html">Mosaic 2000: Weeding Out the Troublemakers, by …</A> ----- Jump to Forum Click Image to Jump to Next Article Go to Text Only Print Version Mosaic 2000: Weeding Out the Troublemakers by Don Lobo Tiggre The BATF (Burn All Toddlers First), the same loving experts on children who pumped lethal concentrations of a flammable, toxic nerve gas into a church full of kids, parents, and grandparents in order to 'save' them, has come up with a new way to help save America's children. Co-developed with Gavin de Becker Inc., a "safety and privacy" consulting firm based in Studio City, CA, the new weapon in the War on Violence is a computerized profiling tool called Mosaic-2000. Not surprisingly, the survey asks a lot of gun-related questions; everybody knows that all youngsters with access to guns are budding mass murderers, right? Even though this story has received some coverage in the New York Times, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, and the Drudge Report, that's been about it. Some libertarian commentators smell a big rat and are convinced that the story is being suppressed. "This isn't about youth gangs or known violent kids," posted one participant on an e-mail discussion list. "It's a scheme to detect the nonconformists and stigmatize them early on. This will lead to brainwashing, drugging, social ostracism (nobody will want to associate with a potential criminal), juvenile jail, adult jail." The War on Violence This may or may not be so, but it's hardly necessary for it to be true in order to justify concern among those who wish to check America's steadily accelerating slide toward totalitarianism. Let's also set aside, for the moment, the rather delicious Orwellian contradiction involved in the notion of a War on Violence (a systematized mass-scale application of violence to end violence?). The notion of identifying 'troubled' students with an 'elevated risk of violence' is just as scary. It may sound like a good idea, to some, at first blush, but Mosaic-2000 rates students from 1 to 10 on a series of behavioral questions. This is a substantial step back from looking at and responding to actual behaviors (e.g., beating other kids up, threatening the teacher, destroying property, etc.) and responding to them appropriately. By definition, this so-called focus on 'prevention' means that it's the larger group of kids who haven't done anything who will be screened. A lucky few will get picked for special treatment, due to their scientifically determined 'elevated risk of violence.' Hey, the survey uses computers, so it has to be scientific! How scientific is it? Well, the survey questions were crafted from 'case histories' by 200 'experts' in 'behavioral science', education, and law enforcement. Note that the survey doesn't pretend to incorporate statistically robust findings that have been found in sound study after sound study. It's based on case studies (discrete instances that are often unusual: that's why they're case studies) and 'experts'. Suddenly, outfits like the FBI (Federal Baby Incinerators), the same 'behavioral science' geniuses who pushed a man they knew to be an apocalyptic religious zealot into a violent confrontation and claimed to be surprised when people started dying, are experts qualified to help identify troubled youths and prevent violence. Let's also not forget that 'education experts' are the very people who have led the nation into an ever-deepening quagmire of sinking standards and poor results in public education. And 'behavioral science' is such a broad term, one wonders how many of the 'experts' in that area had any experience dealing with violent children, or even children at all. Gavin de Becker Vice President Bob Martin defends Mosaic-2000, saying that it doesn't profile students but "evaluates a system and the context it is occurring in." Yeah, right. So, when a kid gets red-flagged as potential trouble, will the system and the context will be sent to the counselor, too? And what will be done with these 'evaluations'? Law enforcement being what it is in America today, it is most likely the same thing that gets done with so-called drug trafficker profiles: harass enough people, innocent and guilty alike, to eventually catch a criminal and get brownie points for the agency responsible. Martin also says that other versions of Mosaic are already in use screening threats to Supreme Court justices, members of Congress, and federal judges and prosecutors. Somehow, this is not reassuring. Video Cameras in Restrooms Mosaic-2000 will be tested in 25 schools (mostly high schools) in California, Ohio, and Oregon, beginning this December. According to Matt Gaylor, a libertarian activist and news gatherer in central Ohio, Reynoldsburg High School, of Reynoldsburg, Ohio, is one of the schools testing the Mosaic-2000 "privacy outrage." He also reports that, "Reynoldsburg High School recently let the Reynoldsburg Police install a covert video camera in a boys' restroom in an attempt to catch a graffiti artist," and that, "Mosaic-2000 doesn't stop at guns, it asks students other questions such as their attitude on drug use to questions asking them to rat out their fellow classmates." It's almost enough to make one wonder if schools were chosen to test the program based on previous track records of disregarding the rights of students (and families). However and again, this need not be true in order to justify concern among those who care about freedom. Even assuming the best of possible intentions on the part of every single person involved, Mosaic-2000 is the kind of tool more suited to the "emotional engineers" of Aldous Huxley's Brave New World than the supposed defenders of "truth, justice, and the American way." As should always be done whenever people propose to improve society by means of some new scheme, intentions are irrelevant. One must ask: what are the results? The results of previous profiling projects have been false arrests, harassment of innocent people, civil rights violations on a massive scale, and corruption of law enforcement officials, among other unintended consequences. This is not just an accident caused by bad administration, but a necessary result of placing "catching law-breakers" above "protecting individual rights (the people)", which is what inevitably happens when any policy is implemented that subjects everyone to the same treatment. Violating everyone's rights because the few alleged criminals deserve it does nothing more than show that the nation-state truly does view all of its subjects as pawns, to be played as it pleases, regardless of whether or not they are 'criminals'. As for what the results of this particular program will be, we can be particularly suspicious because, aside from these matters of principle, it sounds like a glorified bit of junk science being peddled by the shameless in order to profit from the fear of the people and the avarice of the bureaucrats. However, even if Mosaic-2000 would leave be an honest and principled youth who had a merit badge in shooting and got in occasional fights defending little kids from bullies, and flag a polite youth who was a hairline under critical and about to go postal, it would still be a bad idea. It's still a one-size-fits-all approach that reduces all children to being suspect criminals in the making, and hence reduces us all to the same level. It is inherently unjust to treat an innocent person as though they were guilty, which is why the American "justice" system is supposed to be based upon solid principles of "due process," "rights of the accused," and "innocent until proven guilty." Mosaic-2000, designed and soon to be implemented by non-elected people who will not be held personally accountable for the results, violates all of these principles. The really sad part is that Mosaic-2000 is really rather mild compared to other tools of would-be rulers that have been, are, and will be imposed upon the American people. Those who slavishly place their own hands and feet in these new information-age manacles probably deserve what they're going to get, but those who don't consent should fight it. And they better do it quick, or the system will get better at weeding such trouble makers out. Statism that has developed a truly effective immune response to troublemakers and revolutionaries would be a terrible thing indeed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ For more information on Mosaic-2000, see: http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/10/biztech/articles/24violence.html http://www.post-gazette.com/regionstate/19991027profile2.asp http://www.gdbinc.com/mosaic2000.htm ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Don Lobo Tiggre is the author of Y2K: The Millennium Bug, a suspenseful thriller. Tiggre can be found at the Liberty Round Table. -30- from The Laissez Faire City Times, Vol 3, No 45, November 22, 1999 ----- Aloha, He'Ping, Om, Shalom, Salaam. Em Hotep, Peace Be, Omnia Bona Bonis, All My Relations. Adieu, Adios, Aloha. Amen. Roads End DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion and informational exchange list. Proselyzting propagandic screeds are not allowed. Substance—not soapboxing! 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