Techno Wizard<\/a>\u201d \u2014 a character whose quirky fashion and personality serve as TV shorthand for her apparent ability to hack into any computer database quickly and without leaving any trace.<\/p>\nLet me say that I enjoy Criminal Minds<\/em> and that I like<\/em> Penelope Garcia. Kirsten Vangsness and the writers make it almost impossible not<\/em> to like Penelope Garcia. She\u2019s kind and loyal and emotionally vulnerable and unfailingly well-intentioned. But it\u2019s exactly this \u2014 Garcia\u2019s kindness and benevolence \u2014 that makes her routine disregard for civil liberties all the more pernicious. Because Penelope Garcia is the personification of the NSA\u2019s PRISM program.<\/p>\nWhat happens on the show is that the BAU team is tracking a serial killer or a predatory sexual sadist \u2014 there\u2019s a new one every week, suggesting that the world is filled<\/em> with such dangerous people. And at some point in most episodes, the team asks or hints that Garcia should work her hacking magic \u2014 there\u2019s no time for warrants or other legal measures \u2014 to help them locate the killer. She hacks into the databases of credit-card companies, cell-phone providers, ISPs, ATM networks, tax records, medical records, sealed court proceedings \u2014 you name it.<\/p>\nNote that Garcia does not, herself, create<\/em> any of these files or databases. She\u2019s not Big Brother, recording or compiling data by snooping on private citizens. She simply helps herself to all the data compiled by the perfectly legal snooping that has long been practiced by a variety of private, corporate entities. She\u2019s not tapping anyone\u2019s phone, but merely tapping into the records of the phone company. She\u2019s not creating<\/em> a surveillance state in which every individuals\u2019 every movement and transaction is being tracked and recorded. The cell-phone companies and credit-\/debit-card companies set all of that up on their own. She\u2019s just borrowing their data and putting it to some other use.<\/p>\nA benevolent<\/em> use, of course, because Garcia is good and kind and honest and she would only ever use her otherwise-unaccountable and unchecked power to protect the innocent and to punish the guilty.<\/p>\nThat is essentially the same argument being offered to defend the otherwise-unaccountable and unchecked power of the NSA. And it\u2019s a lousy argument. A presumption of benevolence is never a sufficient check on power.<\/p>\n
Penelope Garcia is fictional, and in fiction we can agree to play along with the impossible notion of an unfailingly benevolent person. But we know real people are not like that. And real institutions<\/em> are nothing at all like that.<\/p>\nThe danger Criminal Minds<\/em> portrays is not fictional. The monster-of-the-week format of a procedural series may serve to exaggerate the prevalence of lurid serial killers, but such dangerous people really do exist in the real world, where real FBI agents and real law enforcement agencies really do perform a heroic service in protecting public safety. But we quite sensibly do not cede law enforcement agencies unlimited and unchecked power to fulfill their necessary role, because power can always be abused and unchecked power is a license for unchecked abuse.<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Penelope Garcia is good and kind and honest and she would only ever use her otherwise-unaccountable and unchecked power to protect the innocent and to punish the guilty. That is essentially the same argument being offered to defend the otherwise-unaccountable and unchecked power of the NSA. And it’s a lousy argument. A presumption of benevolence is never a sufficient check on power.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":141,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15747","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n
Don't worry, Penelope Garcia is a Good Guy<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Penelope Garcia is good and kind and honest and she would only ever use her otherwise-unaccountable and unchecked power to protect the innocent and to punish the guilty. That is essentially the same argument being offered to defend the otherwise-unaccountable and unchecked power of the NSA. And it's a lousy argument. 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