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Before you buy that fancy new laser printer, consider whether or not you want every page that you print to be traceable back to its origin.  Such is the case with many laser printers, copiers and other office machines now made by Xerox, Canon, Brother, Dell, Epson, Hewlett Packard and almost every other major manufacturer.

However, this news didn’t come from some wacko conspiracy-theory journal.  No less than the U.S. Secret Service was recently compelled to reveal that it made an backroom deal with printer manufacturers to have hidden tracking information embedded in every page that comes out of modern laser printers.  Ostensibly employed as an anticounterfieting measure, tiny yellow dots invisible to the naked eye containing date, time and serial number information are now secretly placed on the documents of unsuspecting consumers.

It turns out that the United States is not the only country with a government seeking to track the printed documents of its citizens.  Other governments are either studying or actively using the technology, with the ability to go beyond mere counterfieting prevention all too easily available.  “Underground democracy movements that produce political or religious pamphlets and flyers, like the Russian samizdat of the 1980s, will always need the anonymity of simple paper documents, but this technology makes it easier for governments to find dissenters,” said Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) Attorney Lee Tien.

Government and industry spokesmen have thus far cavalierly brushed aside such “unfounded” concerns.  Xerox issued a statement justifying their tracking technology, stating that it wasn’t as bad as computer spyware or viruses, and then made a strange comparison with French wine.  “Many products- cars, food, medicines, computers, toys and many more, have such features (tracking technology) for the protection of customers. French wines put this proudly on their label.”  A Xerox spokesman also said the technology was like having a license plate for your car, only, this time it’s for your printer.

Fortunately, printers in the United States are not yet required to be licensed.

Those who object to such government/industry spying are running out of options when it comes to laser printers.  Consumers may wish to consult the list that EFF (www.eff.org) has posted showing printers that have been given the green light for privacy.  Okidata and Samsung appear to be the only two manufacturers that do not make tracking-capable laser printers.  The last option is to buy inkjet printers instead, as they are not capable of reproducing the microscopic detail required by the yellow-dot tracking technology.

Finally, write to your representatives in Washington D.C., and insist that manufacturers be required to inform consumers about their printers’ true capabilities.  As the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals stated in a 1999 case, “Whether we are surveilled by our government, by criminals, or by our neighbors, it is fair to say that never has our ability to shield our affairs from prying eyes been at such a low ebb.”