SDS • 16 06WMADIS0NCHICAS0ILL LET THE PEOPLE DECIDE JUNE 19. 1967 THE COMPUTERIZED CITY: Privacy Yields to Progress THE SYSTEMS EXPERTS opment Of knowledge which can be applied Judging by the New York Times report. STUDY NEW HAVEN, CONNECTICUT to control. New Haven officials view the newmethods As has been the case with a number of of gathering and displaying the measure• THE WAR New York Times Describes other newly developed American tech• ments of the city's social processes •First attempt to program an entire city* nologies, the first attempt to ^ly com• as an aid to doing their jobs better: puter guidance tothe mechanisms intended "The knowledge, for example, that a man GAME Peter Henig to control a human social process is to be was crippled could be stored away for found in Vietnam, In this case theproeess passible use by the Fire Department, a film by Peter Watkins Despite apprehension that has been control experts had to decide which of His application for welfare assistance ej^iressed about the development by the many possible measurements of Viet• could be automatically checked to see In the June issue of 'Movie Maker* Federal government of a computerized namese societywere significant indicators if he owned a car." (British amateur cine m^azine) editor data bank to store and make useable of Viet Cong (i.e., revolutionary) activity. The Mayor is quoted as saying: "We've Tcray Rose describes young (32) Peter information on the individual and collective The measurements (such as movements of got all this information scattered all over Watkins as fortunate in his many gifts: behavior of U, S, citizens, the nation's people and vehicles, level of food crops, the place now, so we can't use it. But "intelligence, charm, talent, good looks, information-handling industry is taking fluctuations in income per capita, compo• after it's all together we'll get at it and abounding energy*; but all of this steps to develop and refine its technicpes sition of a local population by age and sex) and make New Haven a national model." has apparently been sabotaged, for one for doing just that. are then fed into a mobile computing center The use and implications of computer• final gift would never bring him ease A story in the New York Times reveals which interprets the data for U. S, ized guidance for government agencies or contentment, " That last gift was that the city of New Haven, Connecticut officials who then order the measures were more explicitly spelled out with conscience," And so in the 10 years is cooperating with the Advanced Systems intended to achieve the 'apprc^riate* regard to police operations: since he bought his first 8mm movie camera, Peter Watkins has been engaged Development Division of IBM in a two-year counter-revolutionary results. The meas• With computers, the police chief in a constant battle with oppressive study that involves IBM's "first attempt ures that have been used range from could have instant access to all authority and public apathy. As one might to program an entire city*. IBM reportedly a new "civic action* program to the the information about a suspect expect, this combination of creative talent chose New Haven because "with 151,000 spraying of chemical 'defoliants on food ....An instant list, with pictures, and moral purpose has reaped for him people, it is a manageable size', and crops to the n^alm bombing of a village. of sexual deviates who could have a shower of flowers and bricks. Nearly because "it's well run'. U. S. government sponsored statistical been in the area where a crime every one of his amateur productions and sociological studies to determine was committed could be made The problems faced by the IBM systems was acclaimed by most film critics and which of the many possible measures available to the police by data experts are directly analogous to the ones denounced by offended establishment are s ignifleant for controlling human equipment. that have to be tackled the first time Faces" (on the Hungarian Revolution; social processes are now under way Moreover...since all the city a complex industrial process is subjected no controversy for the British there), in a number of Latin American countries. agencies would pool their infor• to automated control. was universally acclaimed and cited by In the first stage of the IBM attempt mation, the computer system Any process control cperates on the one critic (Tony Rose) as erne of the basis of significant data on what is to "program" an American city, a sta• could also determine if a fire two or three greatest amateur productions lu^pening in the process to be controlled. tistical analysis of how New Haven broke out near a convicted arson• of all time. In the case of the petrochemical industry, operates was conducted. "The next phase, ist's home, or if hubcaps were where long years of experience with determining what information should be reported missing on an afternoon His talents being so undeniable, the stphisticated instrumentation and record• filed (in computer storage)...will take that a known juvenile delinquent BBC awarded him $28,000 to produce a ing apparatus provided process control 18 months*, according to the Times story. had been truant from school. TV documentary. His product was "The experts with fairly precise knowledge In the meantime, IBM and city govern• The Times dispatch.byWiUiamBorders, War Game", on the effects of a nuclear of exactly what kind of data should be ment "are planning to put the city's files gave no indication that the issues which war. One look and the BBC promptly considered significant inputs for the auto• on computers to obtain a statistical profile have stirred concern about Fedfcrally banned it from TV, cinemas, or even matic controls, the introduction of elec• of everyone in town.' operated social data systems—namely, film groups. A storm of protest from tronic computers to keep track of and "Information ranging from dog licenses invasion of individual privacy and central• Watkins' amateur colleagues forced the act upon the data was a relatively simple and divorce decrees to police reports and ization in the hands of the few of know• BBC to screen it for a "select* group affair. tax statements would all be electronically ledge that is significant for the effective (not one film critic included), and the verdict was the same. Further, a personal Not so in the case a[ steel manufacture. cross-indexed." This "coordination of data wielding of power—had been the subject smear campaign was begun against When the first attempts were made to about individual citizens* would involve • of controversy in New Haven. apply automated process control in this •everything from a library card to a industry it was quickly discovered that welfare application*. continued on page 3 not nearly enough was known about what happens in steel-making to decide which measurements of the process should be fed into the control computers. Efficient instrumentation could not be set up. LYN D ON draft resistance Computers could not be prc^rly pro• grammed to operate the control mecha• Staughton Lynd to the draft have circulated perhaps as Johnscm Administration's "real power to nisms in order to produce the desired many as half a dozen statements of pursue the Vietnamese war or any other results in the finished product. Last summer, when the "Fort Hood support. One, initiated by Paul Goodman, policy would be crippled if not destroyed. Before automated control systems could Three* declared that they would refuse ejqilicitly invites men over 35 to "join It would then be faced not with dissent become operational in steel, systems to go to Vietnam, Stokely Carmichael the conspiracy*. Another, initiated by but with civil dis<^edience on a scale analysts had to conduct exhaustive studies urged them to go to Harlem and tell Noam Chomsky, is modeled on the state• amounting to revolt.* (New York Times, to find out which temperature readings, their story there. This summer, the ment made by 121 French intellectuals May 2, 1967) which precise measurements, which con• organizatitm of opposition to the war in support erf draft resistance to the war A succeeding column by James Reston tent analyses—and at precisely which in the ghetto (white and blacfO is the in Algeria. made clear howtheAdministrationplarmed moments in time — are important for frontier of peace activi*J » Equally significant for the develc^iing to deal with this imminent threat to its controlling the results. Only after this Anti-war ao*""^ among young people draft resistance movement off the campus war. Draft deferments for college under• type of knowledge had been developed has *' undertaken in two kinds of were Martin Luther King's advocacy of graduates will be continued, Restcm de• to a minimum level was it possible for community; the campus and the ghetto. a "boycott* of the war by young men of clared, because Administration officials computerized control systems to becoiP<J The month of Aoril 1967 represented draft age, and Muhammad Ali's personal estimate that one out of every four male operational. Steel industry managefnent a turning-point in bou. ..^^^^ ^^^^ refusal to be inducted. undergraduates might simply refuse to go. was willing to make the immense divest• Crucial for the campus anti-Wa. , The potential impactofMuhammadAli's (New York Times, May 5, 1967) ment in studying its own techical pro• ment was the fact that the We Won't Go ;r'*^ion was suggested in a column by A little arithmetic makes clear the group at the University of Cornell, having cesses because the knowledge of which "•-i'er.