Spied!
Spies are having a difficult time these days.
Those cloak-and-dagger days of yesteryear are gone, when one could produce a false passport, slap on a wig, wiggle a false mustache, and slip into a country with panache. No longer.
Said retired Army Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, ex-director of the Defense Intelligence Agency:
In the 21st century, you can’t do any of that because of biometrics.”
What with iris scans and facial recognition software, life is tough now for the old school of espionage. Once an iris scan is on record, it is virtually impossible (at least thus far) to evade detection. The eyes, you see, don’t lie!
Plus the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. You’re constantly being watched, recorded, archived.
All of this erosion of anonymity is pushing intelligence communities in different directions. CIA Director John Brennan declared:
Our ability to carry out our responsibilities for human intelligence and national security responsibilities has become more challenging.”
A new era has dawned—that of cyber espionage.
Brennan called on the CIA to “embrace and leverage the digital revolution,” as he announced an internal reorganization of the agency, including the establishment of a Directorate of Digital Innovation.
Congressman Adam Schiff (D-CA), the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee agreed with Brennan:
Technology at times is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, advances like those in the field of biometrics make our ability to identify and track bad and dangerous actors much better. On the other hand, these same technologies have the potential to help others track and identify us.”
Apparently even criminal and terrorist organizations are employing biometric systems to track friends and foes. You can’t hide.
Pretty much every nation is engaged in such data collections.
Terry Hartman, VP for Security at Unisys, noted:
Now routinely, all countries are collecting as a minimum facial images of people crossing the border. Many countries are collecting fingerprints as well. Some are collecting iris scans. Irises have gone from being a curiosity to being a mainstream biometric.”
And into this enterprise of biometrics, billions of dollars have been spent for R&D by the FBI, Department of Defense, and the Department of Homeland Security. It is “irresistible to security agencies,” said one strategist in the field.
And with computing power increasing, all of these complicated analyses take a fraction of a second. Nope, you can’t hide anymore.
Confessed Lt. Gen. Flynn:
There is no simple solution to this, so we’re going to have to be far more creative than, I think, what we’re looking at right now.”
And, as far as God is concerned, there will never be a solution—simple or complex—to the problem of hiding from his sight.
The eyes of the LORD are in every place, Watching the evil and the good.
Proverbs 15:3
And there is no creature hidden from His sight,
but all things are open and laid bare to the eyes of Him with whom we have to do.
Hebrews 4:13
Infinite knowledge. Unerring sight.
O LORD, You have searched me and known me.
You know when I sit down and when I rise up; You understand my thought from afar.
You scrutinize my path and my lying down, And are intimately acquainted with all my ways.
Psalm 139:1–3
For us, God’s children, this is good news. He sees. He knows. He cares.
“Can a woman forget her nursing child
And have no compassion on the son of her womb?
Even these may forget, but I will not forget you.
Behold, I have inscribed you on the palms of My hands.”
Isaiah 49:15
And he doesn’t forget!
Abe Kuruvilla is the Carl E. Bates Professor of Christian Preaching at The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary (Louisville, KY), and a dermatologist in private practice. His passion is to explore, explain, and exemplify preaching.