Pubdate: Fri, 07 Jul 2006 Source: Connecticut Post (Bridgeport, CT) Copyright: 2006sMediaNews Group, Inc Contact: http://www.connpost.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/574 Author: Charles Walsh Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/John+Fabrizi (John M. Fabrizi) FABRIZI IN TOUGH SPOT ON TRUST ISSUE Although it would appear to be a relatively simple thing, Bridgeport Mayor John M. Fabrizi has been a bit slow to come up with a "clear plan to regain public trust" that groups like the Council of Churches of Greater Bridgeport demand. When Jim Buchanan of WICC-AM asked Fabrizi how the plan was coming, the mayor said he's working on it, and will make it public when it's done. He made a point of saying that because he is a self-identified drug and alcohol user, under city policy his name is on a list of city employees who are subject to random drug and alcohol testing. Every month, a computer picks a few names off the list and those people are notified in the morning to report for testing that same day. But computers can be hacked, so there's no guarantee there. Fabrizi said he's already passed blood and Breathalyzer tests, but the skeptics still raise doubting eyebrows. You have to sympathize with the mayor. Short of having his nostrils sewn shut, no set of trust-building steps, no matter how rigorous, is going to satisfy the significant segment of understandably skeptical citizenry. Questions will continue to arise about the reliability of the testing. The skeptics will wonder what the mayor is doing when his office door is closed and on weekends. To placate the city's legion of doubters, the mayor will have to go beyond mere promises. He may have to be equipped with a black box. Basically, black boxes -- and we are not talking about the airplane kind here -- are recording devices that use tiny sensors to track a vehicle's speed, location, seat-belt use and braking patterns. Forty million of them have been built into cars and trucks in the last 10 years -- maybe even yours. The idea is that when a car is in an accident the cops can download the data from the black box, determine blame and make arrests. For some reason, the devices are a source of concern to civil liberty groups, privacy advocates, insurance Advertisementcompanies and bodily injury lawyers. Nine states have passed laws requiring automakers to reveal to buyers if their vehicle is black-box equipped. Connecticut is not among them. Fortunately for Bridgeport, there are not laws regulating human black boxes. How hard can it be to adapt the vehicle model to human use? A couple of tweaks of the sensors and the box will use global positioning to track a person's every move. Vital signs are monitored and sensors detect all banned substances. Advanced models can be hooked directly into the nervous system to report the subject mood. Should they become depressed, a dose of tranquilizer is automatically administered. Human black boxes are really just a step up technologically from the electronic monitoring devices that paroled criminals like Martha Stewart wear on their ankles. Since black boxes are only the size of cigarette packs, one could easily be implanted under the mayor's skin in a spot where it won't show. The data from the mayor's black box would be uploaded to a satellite and made available to any Bridgeport citizen 24 hours a day on at www.allfabsallthetime.com and on cell phone screens. (Special taxpayers-only sign-on codes keep nosy non-residents out.) The merest whiff of a banned substance and a trained intervention team is dispatched to the scene of the potential violation. Like all new technology, there are a few problems to be worked out. The 24/7 Internet surveillance can be overdone. After all, even a mayor deserves some private moments. Charles Walsh's column appears Monday, Wednesday and Friday. - --- MAP posted-by: Beth Wehrman