Do You Really Want to See Me Naked?

This morning I saw a news story about how our British cousins have made a camera that sees under clothing. So for all you women that never stopped padding your bra with toilet paper and all you guys that are still stuffing socks in your underwear, the gig is finally up.

Sure, the article says that the camera is only going to be used to determine whether someone has a gun, bomb or drugs on their person. But I say, yeah, right. Like we're stupid enough to believe that folks aren't going to be checking out our underwear or seeing what we look like naked.

I fully believe that if we're being told about the technology, it's probably already been secretly used on us for at least two or three years. People acted all shocked about the passing of the Patriot Act but I always thought the government did all of that surveillance anyway. I already figured phone conversations got listened to and bank records got monitored.

Do you remember the movie "Enemy of the State"? If not, it's a 1998 film starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman and it's all about surveillance. It basically predicted everything that would be included in the Patriot Act. I remember being especially weirded out by how the rogue National Security Agency agents track Smith's character via satellite. Next thing you know, we have the option to equip our cars with On-Star technology. Sure, we're told it'll rescue us in a crash, but do I really want someone to know where I'm driving at all times?

Yes, seeing that film was the first time I really thought about how God was no longer the only entity who could know what I was doing at any given time. Now we're all so monitored, we can even be tracked through our cell phones.

I certainly don't feel any safer with all this surveillance. After all, I've never heard about someone saying how they were 1) watching a robbery in progress from a live camera stuck on the side of a building in Downtown L.A. so they, 2) called the cops and 3) the cops showed up 30 seconds later and saved the victim.

In the amount of time someone watching a live camera feed spends on hold with 911, I might already be murdered, raped or robbed by a stick-up kid. All that'll be shown on the 11:00 news is a grainy picture of a suspect. I suppose that's better than nothing, but I'd already be a victim of a violent crime and, alas, my blogging days might forever be silenced. (Feel free to grab your tissues now.)

The fact remains that most cameras don't have someone viewing live footage. The manpower for something like that simply doesn't exist. So if a crime takes place, footage is pulled after the fact so a suspect can hopefully be identified.

Now I have to think about how some government employee is going to be viewing you and me with a camera that sees through our clothing. Can't you just imagine that employee snickering while tallying up a chart with the headings: boxers, briefs, thong, granny panties?

Just think what'll happen if these cameras get installed here in Hollywood. There'll be speculative reports in US Weekly and OK! about which other celebrities besides Britney Spears go out without their underwear.

Then someone from the National Security Agency will get drunk and leave their laptop in a bar. We'll find out that the laptop had thousands of hours of video footage stored on it. Before we know it some nefarious schemer will somehow acquire said footage and a website will pop up promising access to for a fee. How about $49.95 for access to a naked LL Cool J or Orlando Bloom?

If you're saying, "Girl, I wish I could but gas and milk is almost $4 a gallon!" Okay, how about $19.95 for nude access to D list celebrities that "star" on VH1 reality shows?

If that's still too steep of a price point, or you throw up a little in your mouth at the prospect of paying to see either Flavor Flav or Brett Michaels naked, the bargain section of the site will feature footage of everyday people. You and me in the buff for $9.99. And if you're truly broke, just think, there might even be a .99 cent section for images of those of us that aren't that attractive whether we're naked or covered with a gigantic parka.

Of course, the US government will try to shut the site down but it'll turn out that it's being run from some undetermined location in Eastern Europe. Just when the CIA manages to close in, the band of porn peddlers will pack up shop and high-tail it to Afghanistan to hide out in the mountains with someone else we can't find. Then the government will announce that even more surveillance is needed so we can catch the criminals who run websites showing us without our clothing.

After all the hubbub dies down and we're all trained to yawn at the prospect of that one stalkerish neighbor paying to see our naked picture online, a news story will be run on page 36 of the New York Times. It'll tell us about how Drunk Employee who lost the laptop in the first place has just been promoted to head of the Department of Homeland Security.

You think it can't happen? You think I'm crazy to come up with such a scenario? Well, then you must be one of the ones believing that the cameras will only be used to detect guns, drugs and bombs.

Good luck with that line of thinking.