The secret surveillance (слежка) of teenagers by parents is a sinister trend (зловещая тенденция)
What is striking (что поражает) about the moral panic over teenagers, social networking sites and the general perils (опасности) of life online is that British parents do not yet seem to have resorted to American solutions (пока, кажется, еще не прибегают к американским решениям).
Allow me to introduce you to a whole new world of specialised electronic surveillance of young people - teen tracking. Nothing illustrates it better than a device called the SnoopStick.
The SnoopStick looks like a memory stick (карта памяти). You plug it into (подключаете ее в) your teenager's computer when they are not around, and it installs (устанавливает) stealth software (тайную программу) on to the machine. Then you plug it into your own computer and can sit back at your leisure (на досуге) and observe (наблюдать), in real time (в условиях реального времени), exactly what your child is doing online - what websites they are visiting, the full conversations (разговоры) they are having on the instant messenger (IM) service (служба быстрого обмена сообщениями), and who they are sending emails to. It is as if you are sitting and invisibly (невидимо) spying over their shoulder (следите из-за плеча).
The child has no idea their computer is being monitored. And you, the parent, need not worry about missing any salacious (непристойные), incriminating (уличающие) detail, because the software records everything, so you can download and view what your child was doing earlier on. At any time you can call up a screen capture (обратиться к [функции] захвата изображения на мониторе) to see what they are looking at. Or - oh clever SnoopStick - the software will take screenshots (скриншоты/снимки с экрана) on its own (сама/самостоятельно) when the user lingers (задерживается) for five seconds or more on any web page.
And what a control trip this must be! It gives you the power (здесь: возможность) remotely (дистанционно) to cut off internet access, log off (отключать) all users, or shut down (прекращать работу) the computer. There's no revealing message (выявляющего [ваши действия] сообщения) when you do this - the teenager supposedly (предположительно) just thinks it's a network problem.
Significantly (что весьма существенно), the £37.50 device (устройство) comes with the warning (предупреждением) that, if you use it to monitor an employee's computer without notifying (не уведомив) them, you may well be in breach of employment laws (нарушить трудовое законодательство). But install it secretively (незаметно) on the computer of your teenager, who has absolutely no rights at all, and no one can touch (прикоснуться к) you.
SnoopStick is part of a positive stampede (здесь:ажиотажный спрос; обычно: стихийное массовое движение/бегство) of parental control products. There are sinister (вредные/зловещие) programmes such as Net Nanny, Safe Eyes and Sentry At Home, which all spy to different degrees (в разной степени). For those parents who cannot decipher (расшифровать) the abbreviations (сокращения) online, there is something called a Teen Chat Decoder (расшифровщик подростковой речи).
And surveillance of young people does not end there. Worried what your teenager is getting up to in a car? There are lots of creepy solutions (вызывающих отвращение мер). DriveCam, for instance, is an American system in which a small video recorder is mounted (устанавливается) behind the rearview mirror (зеркалом заднего вида) to capture sights and sounds (чтобы фиксировать сцены и звуки) inside and outside the vehicle (машины).
DriveCam, which is used as part of the Teen Safe Driver Program, is marketed in the manner of a horror film, bombarding parents with lots of paranoid-inducing (вызывающих паранойю) facts. Once (как только) a parent leaves the vehicle, it says, seat belt use (использование ремня безопасности) goes down to 40 per cent and the crash rate (уровень аварий) increases 700 per cent. In other words, spy or they die!
The driving data is centrally monitored and parents receive a weekly report card that compares (сравнивает) their teen's performance (показатели/результаты) with their peers (сверстники). In 2006, DriveCam made the top 500 fastest-growing (попала в список 500 наиболее быстро растущих), privately held (закрытых) companies in the US for the second consecutive year (второй год подряд). Tragic, isn't it, that the removal (устранение) of personal freedom should be so commercially successful?
Internet car-tracking devices marketed specifically for teens mean you can watch where your children drive, on real time on your computer. Given (здесь: если допустить), that is, you are a sad, mistrustful (недоверчивый/подозрительный) person without a life. A covert (тайное) GPS tracker (отслеживающее устройство) can store (хранить) 250 hours of travel; a covert in-car camera records what happens inside the vehicle.
For if you really want to catch them out doing something inappropriate (неприемлемое), then it is time (пора) to move on to a higher level of personal surveillance. The following devices, please note, are not just being marketed to private detectives to catch errant spouses («странствующие»/изменяющие супруги); they are being targeted at (нацелены на/предназначены для) parents of teenagers.
You can get clothes with tracking devices fitted into them. You can fit such devices covertly into mobile phones. For $149 you can purchase a mobile spy data extractor (устройство съема информации), which reads deleted (удаленные) text messages from a SIM card. For $79 you can buy a semen detection kit (набор для обнаружения спермы), to test your teenage daughter's clothing.
There are real warnings (предупреждения) for hand-wringing (ломающих от отчаяния руки) British parents here. Online teen tracking amounts to (приравнивается) a form of internet child abuse (жестокого обращения с ребенком) even more potent (сильному), I would suggest, than the kind which parents seek to prevent in the first place (чем то, которое родители пытаются прежде всего предотвратить). Once upon a time (когда-то давно) foolish mothers betrayed (предавали) their children's trust by reading their diaries (дневники); now, prurient (снедаемые любопытством) and paranoid parents can invade (вторгаться в) every aspect of their children's private lives.
How tragic it all is; and how deeply disturbing (тревожно) the apparent lack (очевидное отсутствие) of moral outcry (морального протеста).
The SnoopStick symbolises the modern obsession (одержимость) with control. The American psychologist Robert Epstein, who wrote the controversial (вызвавшую противоречивые мнения) book The Case Against Adolescence, estimates (здесь: полагает) that young Americans are now ten times more restricted (ограничены) than adults, and twice as restricted as convicted criminals (осужденные преступники). He says teenagers are deprived of human rights (у подростков отбирают права человека). As well as (здесь: помимо) the obvious legal bar (очевидное законодательное препятствие) to prevent them (которое не дает им) smoking, drinking, marrying, voting and gambling (играть в азартные игры), teenagers have no privacy rights (прав на неприкосновенность личной жизни), no property rights (имущественных прав), no right to sign contracts or make decisions regarding (касающихся) their own medical or psychiatric treatment (лечения).
It is a strong argument: that by increasing restrictions (ограничения) upon children, and denying them civil freedoms (отказывая им в гражданских свободах) and responsibilities (обязательствах), neurotic parents are in fact facilitating the very thing which they seek to prevent (способствуют тому, что они пытаются предотвратить) - they are driving («загоняют») their offspring (потомство) even deeper into the toxic world of online teenage culture.
Above all (прежде всего), teen tracking compounds (слежение за подростками объединяет в себе) what has gone wrong in the first place: the lack (недостаток) of time and communication (здесь: взаимодействия/общения) parents have given their children. And that is not just an American problem.
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