Bennett L. Rouse

SPP brings new technology into play

It was over three and a half years ago when President George W. Bush signed the Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America (SPP). Public communication concerning the pact remains relatively low, but the majority of the informed are skeptical of a greater North American Union (NAU). Though there is no mention of a NAU in the SPP, whitehouse.gov provides an excellent database for information concerning the SPP and its updates. The general purpose of this document is to unite the three North American nations Canada, Mexico and The United States and collaborate on certain strategies to ensure the success of these nations. The SPP essentially calls for a union similar to the European Union. Although over the years, mentions of a united currency (Amero) and free-flow across the borders have been hushed, the SPP is undergoing progress. The earlier innovation could boost America out of its emerging recession and the latter is already being implemented.

The New York Times reported last week about a new "enhanced drivers license." The new license is not limited to driving information but non-driving equivalence as well, permitting land and sea crossings to Mexico, Canada and the Carribean islands. Radio Frequency Identification (RFI) chips are installed on the licenses that broadcast biographic and biometric data for border patrol officers.

Such technology will remind many of 1984. Privacy will be sacrificed for identification and security in the minds of the public. In the future, a struggle will emerge between whether the rights of the people should be upheld or whether the emergence of technology will dictate these rights.

I've been keeping up with the SPP for a little under a year now. Its is difficult to decipher whether this change is a good or bad thing, but I was definitely in awe when I unveiled this bit of information. It is easy to deny the SPP exists when the only proof available is documents. When there is little to no media airtime, it makes it hard for the public to acknowledge that such a thing even exists.

However, what cannot be deceived is the fact that technology will make this event tangible. People will deny the SPP exists as long as society's technology remains stagnant. Even with holograms depicting a map of North America being implemented on the back of North Carolina driving licenses, some people still need more proof. This proof will come as the RFI chips come into play. People will start to ponder what these new innovations are, and questions will be answered on the 5 o'clock news. Until then, we must wait until the engineers behind the movement can bring new technology into play that makes this pact visible and tangible to the life of a typical American.

I have two newspaper articles that I wrote and co-wrote, so if you are interested in any informal or opinionated articles concerning the SPP or NAU speculation, feel free to contact me at blrouse@ncsu.edu.

http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/a-new-license-for-more-than-just-driving/?hp

Posted at 10:45AM Sep 24, 2008 by Bennett L. Rouse in General  |  Comments[0]

On a lighter note

I spent the majority of last week recovering from a fever that had been bogging me down since the first day of school. There was little that could make me smile under the surplus of make-up work that had conglomerated over the span of a week. However, surprisingly enough, I found a little bit of humor in something as stoic as my Physics textbook. The text is not even remotely humorous at first glance, but upon further investigation, it?s freaking hilarious (just bear with the "theme" of the text, don't even bother to worry about the concepts at hand):

"The meter is the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second... The second is the duration of 9,192,631,770 periods of the radiation corresponding to the transition between the two hyperfine levels of the ground state of the cesium-133 atom... The standard of mass is now the least satisfactory. Unlike the operational definitions of length and time, which are based on procedures that can be repeated by scientists anywhere, the unit of mass is defined in terms of a particular object... The prototype kilogram is made of a special platinum-iridium alloy that is very hard, not subject to corrosion and very dense. Nevertheless, it could conceivably change, and in any event comparison with such a standard is less convenient than an operational definition that can be checked in a laboratory. So scientists are working on techniques based on counting the number of silicon atoms in a given volume, to scale up from the mass of a single atom to a new definition of the kilogram."-Essential University Physics, Richard Wolfson

There are a plethora of items that scientists measure every day, especially using the kilogram unit. However, if we have gone this far in time without scientifically proving that the kilogram does indeed weigh a kilogram, I think we'll live. In fact, I think we were set once we discovered that "the meter is the length of the path traveled by light in vacuum during a time interval of 1/299,792,458 of a second." I am not an expert by any means concerning this research, but I am pretty sure that this number has quite enough digits to pass around for consumers to ensure that their meter sticks are indeed a meter long.

On a lighter note, couldn't this same type of technology be used to figure out how to project food into the mouths of starving children in third world countries around the globe from across the ocean? That's just a suggestion, but it's probably nowhere near as important as symbolizing the equivalent of the kilogram (which we defined a solid three centuries ago) in the laboratory to show off just how savvy technology is today.

Posted at 03:34PM Sep 03, 2008 by Bennett L. Rouse in General  |  Comments[2]