Beware, the elf is watching

As I type, sitting at our dining room table, the elf watches.

He's perched in a potted plant. His blue eyes, unblinking. On his face, an amused, all-knowing expression. And that hat, pointing skyward. Probably a transmitter.

He, no doubt, knows that on Sunday I cracked wise about Trump on the Shelf, and the Republican presidential hopeful's affection for surveillance. I certainly didn't mean to imply that our Elf on the Shelf, known as Jingles around these parts, is part of some creepy surveillance culture licking away our liberty as if it's some sort of candy cane.

Perish the thought. I'll leave that to others.

Maybe you've seen social media references lately to an article published by the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives arguing that Elf on the Shelf teaches kids to accept outside surveillance and consider it normal. It actually was published a year ago, but it's popping up again as elves take to the shelves, monitor kiddies and make reports to Santa Claus, code named Big Gift.

'By inviting The Elf on the Shelf simultaneously into their play-world and real lives, children are taught to accept or even seek out external observation of their actions outside caregivers and familial structures,” wrote professor Laura Elizabeth Pinto of the University of Ontario Institute of Technology and Selena Nemorin, a fellow at Monash University in Australia. 'Broadly speaking, The Elf on the Shelf serves functions that are aligned to the official functions of the panopticon.”

The panopticon is an 18th- century prison design by philosopher Jeremy Bentham, with inmate cells surrounding a single central observation tower. Prisoners could be watched at any time, but they never knew exactly when. Panopticon became a metaphor for government surveillance, and now, apparently, elves. Also, it's fun to say.

As a kid, my family did not have a surveillance elf. We had what was known as a small town, which saw more than the finest panopticon. There was very little you could get away with that wouldn't be passed on to the proper authorities through a complex communications network, including phone calls, chats in the grocery store and beauty parlor intelligence briefings.

And yet, despite all that surveillance, and maybe because of it, I grew up to be a civil libertarian suspicious of any and all monitors, trackers and nannies. I'm concerned daily with what our fears might prompt us to do to our liberties.

I am not concerned about elves. And yeah, I'm looking at you, Jingles.

Also, my kids don't behave any better in front of that elf than they do at any other time of year. They're thumbing their Rudolph noses at the system. And yet, I bet Big Gift will come through again.

The good news for the elf is Hello Barbie now is taking all the heat.

She has a microphone that allows kids to ask her questions, with responses from a cloud-based Internet storage system. It's sort of like Siri, the iPhone voice that helps you find a Thai restaurant. But she also stores a bunch of information about a child's queries and preferences. Turns out, it's vulnerable to hacking.

Makes secret agent Red Felt over there seem tame. Wait, are you transmitting?

l Comments: (319) 398-8452; todd.dorman@thegazette.com