Using Cell Phones To Save Lives

The concept that a phone is used as just a phone is long gone.  Instead of having to go out of your way to get a phone that can do more than just be a phone, you have to go out of your way to get a phone that is just a phone.  In other words, it is much easier to find a phone that can let you get to a jackpot casino login than it is to find a phone that will not allow you to get to a jackpot casino login.

How can phones be used to save lives?

Saving lives during a natural disaster

Over the last 8 years, there have been numerous natural disasters.  There have been earthquakes, hurricanes, tornadoes, etc.  In previous generations, search and rescue teams would try to find people.  But they had no idea how many people needed to be rescued, and they had no idea where to even begin looking.

Before a natural disaster, Facebook (and others) was used by people to communicate warnings, safety, and preparation information.

In 2014, Facebook released a new app that asks users is the proximity of a disaster if they’re safe and instantly notifies anxious loved ones of the user’s response.  The application is called “Safety Check”.

Safety Check was designed for the Japanese division of Facebook, who noticed a surge in communication across the social network after the 2011 Tsunami.  The new app streamlines that process by taking note of the user’s home city, and reaching out in the event of a natural disaster in the area with the text message “Are you okay?”.  A “Yes” answer would instantaneously communicated out to loved ones via their facebook news feeds.

It is a simple concept that has been used many times over the past 8 years.

What is Facebook doing to keep people safe during the current Afghanistan conflict?

Facebook has recently released several safety features to help protect users in Afghanistan.

Many Facebook users in Afghanistan fear that the Taliban is tracking opposition on Social Media.  Social media users and human rights groups have expressed fear that the Taliban could be tracking opponents' online histories and connections.

Facebook launched a new safety feature that secures Afghanistan users’ accounts while temporarily removing the ability to search and view “Friends” lists within the country.  It is a one click tool for people in Afghanistan to quickly lock down their account.  When their profile is locked, people who aren’t friends can’t download or share their profile photo or see posts on their timeline.

This ability to lock down your Facebook account has existed.  Facebook is just providing a simple one click step to do it, instead of requiring the user to find the appropriate settings, if they even knew that they existed.

Instagram is letting people in Afghanistan know through pop ups how to lock down their accounts.

Microsoft’s LinkedIn said that connections of users in Afghanistan have been temporarily hidden.

Twitter announced that it is accelerating direct requests to remove archived tweets in partnership with the Internet Archive.

The 2021 Version the Underground Railroad system

Everybody knows what the “Underground Railroad” system means.  It is not referring to your local subway system.  It is referring to a time in US History when Black escaped slaves were trying to reach the Northern States in search of Freedom.  Harriet Tubman made 13 trips on the Underground Railroad which resulted in ensuring the freedom of 70 ex-southern slaves.  People in the South of the United States, before the Civil War, so much wanted freedom that one man named Henry Brown even mailed himself to the North in search of Freedom -- and he succeeded.

The people trying to escape from Afghanistan are no different.  And the Afganistan version of the Underground Railroad system is in full swing, but with a lot more high tech.

Today military veterans, government operatives, and even religious leaders are all working together to try to help get people out of Afghanistan, Americans, people from allied countries, and Afghanistans who helped the Americans during their 20 year conflict with the Taliban.

They use a combination of cell phones, satellite cameras, and good old American presiverence.  Go.  Don’t go.  Wait. Run.  The end result is that a lot of people are being helped.  But it is not all of them, and it is still a hard and dangerous voyage.

Only a week ago, we were told that the number of people who were trapped in Afghanistan was around 80,000 people.  But when you add all of the people who just hate the Taliban, and are willing to risk their lives to get away from them, the number quickly shoots up to 200,000.

Even the Taliban are noticing that the people they are supposed to be ruling over hate their guts.  The educated people are leaving, and the Taliban do not want that.  On the one hand, they are now saying that they do not want all of their citizens to leave, especially the educated one, but on the other hand, going door to door, executing anybody that you think that will possibly rise up against you, does not create an environment that most people would choose to live in.

“Girls are free to go to college and get an education.  They just cannot leave their dorm room unless they are accompanied by a male member of their family.”  How many people do you know are going to accompany a person to their college classes when they themselves have no interest in those classes.  Or more likely, the schools will require double tuition -- one for the girl and one for the person accompanying them.  So essentially only the well to do, rich girls, will be allowed to get an education.  Middle class and poor Afghanistan girls will never be allowed to leave their home.

Afghanistan’s Taliban have biometric data on everybody who helped the Americans

In addition to the fields of attack helicopters that the United States turned over to the Taliban when Joe Biden precipitously ordered American troops out, there are medical supplies, weapons, piles of ammunition, and vehicles.

And biometric data and readers, with which those terrorists likely now can identify many of those individuals who worked with an international coalition of forces over the last 20 years in its effort to rid the nation of terror.

A report by Christine Douglass-Williams on the Jihadwatch blog got directly to the point: "Not only does the Taliban have lists of the names and phone numbers of every Afghan who worked for U.S. in the past two decades, but the Taliban is also in possession of sophisticated biometric data machines (Handheld Interagency Identity Detection Equipment-HIIDE).

"The implications are disastrous."

These biometric devices store fingerprints, iris scans, and biographical data.  This includes information about relatives and acquaintances.  In other words, information the US armed forces needed to give these people security clearance.

Now all of this information is in the hands of the Taliban in the form of simple hand held devices no bigger than your phone.  In fact, there probably are versions of this technology that can run on standard phones.  And what are the Taliban using this data for?  They are going door to door to hunt down and kill these people.

What does this hold for the future?

The honest answer is that I do not know.

Technology is technology.  It cannot be good, and it cannot be evil.  It is just technology.

People using high tech technology, like satellite imaging to help Aghanistans who are fleeing for their lives to get around Taliban checkpoints is a good thing.  But drug cartel coyotes using this same technology to do drug smuggling, or human smuggling across the southern US border (chosen or not chosen), is a bad thing.

Twitter erasing archives when the person’s life is in danger is a good thing.  Using those same techniques to erase a person’s whole history of posts against their free will, when they have not done anything wrong -- just Twitter does not like what they are saying, is a bad thing.

Remember the saying, “For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction”?  That is what is going on.

Advances in technology are made.  It is not the technology itself that is good or evil.  It is how people use (and in some cases, abuse) that technology that makes things good or evil.  It is like a gun.  Using a gun to defend and protect your family is a good thing.  Using that same gun to threaten somebody and even to hurt or kill somebody is a bad thing.  It is not the gun itself that is good or bad.  It is how somebody choses to use that gun that is good or bad.

Cell phones, social media, search engines, are the same thing.  On one level, they make our lives easier.  You have a question in your mind.  20 years ago, to get the answer, you would have had to go to the local library and take the time to do some research.  Now, with a click of a few buttons, you get the answer.

In the beginning, Google, Facebook, Twitter, did not really restrict those answers.  Now, they do.  So although you type a few keystrokes, you can get an answer. How do you know if that answer is truly the correct answer or it is just the answer that Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. want you to see on that particular day at that particular time?

And what if you just used a different service?  Well … some of them are just a repackaging of the Google search results, so it is still the same search results, just wrapped up with a different bow.

Summary

“We are living in interesting times.”

Cell phones are great, and I doubt you can find a single person who will honestly say that they believe that the world would be a better place if cell phones were not invented.

“But with great power comes great responsibility.”

Freedom is not easy.  Yes, we have freedom of speech.  Yes, there are things that people write and say that you wish would not be written or said.  But where do you draw the line on what should be allowed to be said and what should not be allowed to be said?  Or, more specifically, what should be allowed to be read and listened to, and what should be allowed to be read and listened to?

And who gets to decide what should be allowed to be read and heard and who gets to decide what should not be allowed to be read or heard?  I am reading the book “Cartoon History of the United States” with my 3rd grader.  A group of people risked their lives to escape England to get out of the grip of the Church of England -- they were puritans.  So what do they do when they get to America and form their own colony?  They discriminate against anybody who is not a Puritan.  Colony after colony after colony, it is the same story, a group of people are trying to escape religious persecution, so they come to America to form a colony, and what do they … they discriminate against people who are not of their religion.  Only Rhode Island was formed from the beginning with the concept of “Freedom of Religion”.

Unfortunately, 400 years later, this basic human nature has not changed.  I was discriminated against, so my solution is … I am going to discriminate against somebody else.

“Those that do not know the past are condemned to repeat it”.  400 years later, and American history is repeating itself, and all of the modern technology, cell phones and all, does not seem to change that.