Talking about why he specifically chose not to include it in his collection, Maps in a Mirror, Card said something about how it was so embarrassingly bad that he was deliberately suppressing it and hoped that it would never again see the light of day.

In the future most people have cybernetic implants that give them perfect recall, enhanced mathmatical and reasoning abilities, and so forth. These implants also have external hookups so that individuals can "download" information into the implanted computer, and even "upload" information from their cybernetic memory to an external device.

One use of the "upload" feature is for people to give testamony in legal cases. Unfortunately (for criminals, at any rate), it isn't possible to give false testimony in this way, nor is it possible for a criminal to "hide" any memories of commiting the crime. So, in order to protect the rights of the guilty (rather than the accused, as we shall see later), if an investigator takes the testimony of a person that turns out to be guilty, this is regarded as "involuntary self-incrimination" and the criminal thus caught is cleared of all charges.

So the court appointed investigator, in order to avoid this, has to figure out who is the guilty party by the testimony of those that are not under suspicion. The only advantage is that he can rely on the other witnesses to be telling the truth (or uploading it, at any rate). Enter our hero, who is just such a court appointed investigator.

He is called to the offices of a firm called "Happy Head Inc." to investigate the murder, in his office, of the CEO. Happy Head is so named because they are a leading innovator in the field of improving the functions of cybernetic implants, and one of their most recent developments is a system that is capable of indexing memory information by emotional association (I think that it is also the first system that can actually store the emotional content of a memory as well).

The case seems simple, but baffling. The CEO and one of the lead engineers had an argument, at which another scientist was present. The engineer left angrily, while the scientist stayed behind for a time. Some time after he left, the secretary entered the room and found the CEO brutally murdered.

The engineer claims that the CEO was still alive when he left. The scientist claims the same thing, but also claims that he doesn't really believe that the CEO is dead. Interesting revelations follow, as the investigator confirms enough to become confident that he can take the engineer's testimony...but at the last moment, he has a critical insight into the relationship of the new emotionally indexed memory and solves the case.

And there is an interesting postlude, as well.

It runs along the lines of a story I saw on CNN the other day involving the rape of a female trainee at some military installation in Georgia (I think it was Georgia, anyway). The woman was raped, and they knew that it was a closed base at the time, so the rapist had to be someone on site. Further, the military keeps DNA samples of all their personnel on file, so to find the rapist it would be a simple matter of testing material produced by the rape kit and comparing it with the DNA records. The victim tried to subpoena these DNA records but she was turned down because other than the rapist being a serviceman there was no other supporting evidence that would give them enough probable cause to search those very private files. If the parallel isn't clear, and I didn't make it very (sorry ), here's a breakdown.

Extracting data via the Happy Head method is analogous to taking a DNA sample or obtaining a wire tap. An invasion of the private human body or home by the government, something we're mighty sensitive about over here.

This in mind (excepting extreme circumstances, and the new no-more-privacy laws enacted in the spirit of Patriotism by G.W. Bush), policing bodies need to show a significant amount of detective work has gone into determining that there is enough probable cause linking a suspect to a crime that would necessitate a temporary suspension of 4th amendment rights (and in the case of Happy Head, it would be a suspension of 5th Amendment self-incrimination rights as well. Not to mention completely voiding the 6th...)

quote:

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If you know that the criminal is guilty, know with absolute surety, why is he/she walking free?

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Actually, this does have a parallel even today. Not exact, but close enough:

Haynes v. U.S. in 1968 held that criminals cannot be required to register their guns or be charged with possessing unregistered firearms.

According to the ruling, a "proper claim of the constitutional privilege against self-incrimination provides a full defense to prosecutions either for failure to register a firearm...or for possession of an unregistered firearm...."

I think just the resemblance between parts of this story and parts of Minority Report would be reason enough for it to be suppressed (i.e. the obfuscation of one's "infallible" recollection of a crime.)

It may have ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to do with the ideas in the story. The actual plot itself (which sounds somewhat intriguing, actually) may be great, but if you write it badly (and after Boot Camp, I've found it's easy to do) it can destroy the whole thing.

It may have nothing to do with the story, but rather, how it's told.

I like a lot of his opinions (y'all should read the War Watch column) but some just baffle the hell out of me. For example, I was stunned when I read a lot of his movie reviews, the most memorable one being American Beauty. Personally, I thought it was an amazing movie, but his attitude seemed to be that it was a waste of film. (IIRC . . . it's been a while since I read it.)

Then again maybe reading it would help me understand.

Now I'm curious. EVIL SURVIVOR!