Unit 3
Years ago in America, it was customary for families to leave their door unlocked, day and night. In this essay, Greene regrets（遗憾） that people can no longer trust each other and have to resort（求助） to elaborate（煞费苦心的）security systems to protect themselves and their possessions.
The land of the lock
Bob Greene
In the house where I grew up, it was our custom to leave the front door on the latch at night. I don’t know if that was a local term（当地风俗） or if it is universal（当下流行的）（我觉得这句应该翻译成：我不清楚这种做法是当地的风俗呢还是时下流行的）; “on the latch”meant the door was closed but not locked. None of us carried keys; the last one in for the evening would close up,(最后一个进来的关好门？我觉得这里的关还是指not locked) and that was it（it means “on the latch”）.
Those days are over. In rural areas(乡村) as well as in cities, doors do not stay unlocked, even for part of an evening.
Suburbs（城市的郊区） and country areas（乡村） are, in many ways, even more vulnerable（犯罪率更高） than well-patroled（巡查严密） urban streets（城市的街道）. Statistics（统计数据） show the crime rate rising more dramatically（明显） in those allegedly tranquil areas（所谓平静地区） than in cities. At any rate（无论如何）, the era（年代） of leaving the front door on the latch is over.
It has been replaced by dead-bolt locks（防盗门锁）, security chains（安全链）, electronic alarm systems and trip wires（可能是触发式钢丝什么的，触发本意是旅游嘛） hooked up to a police station or private guard firm. Many suburban families have sliding glass doors（玻璃滑门，silde是滑动的意思） on their patios（露台）, with steel bars elegantly（优雅的钢条）built in so no one can pry（撬开） the doors open.
It is not uncommon, in the most pleasant of homes, to see pasted on the windows small notices annoucing that the premises（房屋） are under surveillance（看守、监视） by this security force 有一定权威的安全机构）or that guard company.
The lock is the new sympol of America. Indeed（事实上）, a recent publicservice advertisement by a large insurance company featured（以什么为特色） not charts showing how much at risk we are, but a picture of a child’s bicycle with the nowususal padlock（挂锁） attached on it.
The ad pointed out that, yes, it is the insurance companies that pay for stolen goods, but who is going to pay for what the new atmosphere of distrust and fear is doing to our way of life? who is going to make the psychic payment（心灵的补偿） for the transformation（转变） of America from the land of the Free to the Land of Lock?
For that is what has happened（这就是现状）. We have become so used to defending ourselves against the new atmosphere of American life, so used to putting up barriers, that we have not had time to think about what it may mean.
For some reasons we are statisfied when we think that we are well protected; it does not occur to us to ask ourselves:why has this happened? Why we are having to barricade ourselves against our neighbors and fellow citizens, and when, exactly, did this start to take over(接管、主宰) our lives？
And it has taken over. If you work for a medium-to large-size company, chaces are that you don’t just wander in and out of work.(不能随便出入) You probaly carry some kind of access card, electronic or otherwise, that allows you in and out of your place of work. Maybe the security guard at the front desk knows your face and will wave you in most days（注意in应该怎么理解：应该理解放在前面，因为如果是放在后面的话，应该说wave to you）, but the fact remains that the business you work for feels threatened（威胁） enough to keep outside away via these “keys.”
It wasn’t always like this. Even a decade ago, most private business had a policy of free access. It simply didn’t occur to managers that the proper thing to do was to distrust people.
Look at the airports. Parents used to take care of children out to departure gates(告别门) to watch planes land and take off. That’s all gone. Airports are no longer a place of education and fun; they are the most sophisticated（最森严） of security sites（场所）.
With electronic X-ray equipment, we seem finally to have figured out a way to hold the terrorists, real and imagined, at bay（hold at bay 不让近身）; it was such a relief（宽心） to solve this problems that we did not think much about what such a state of affairs says about the quality of our lives. We now pass through these electronic friskers without so much as a sideways glance; the machines, and what they stand for, have won.
Our neighborhoods are bathed in high-intensity light; we do not want to afford ourselves even so much a luxury as a shadow.
Businessmen, in increasing numbers, are purchasing（买） new machines that hook up to the telephone and analyze a caller’s voice. The machines are supposed to tell the businessman, with a small margin of error（出错率很小）, whether his friend or client（客户） is telling lies.
All this is being done in the name of “security”;that is what we tell ourselves. We are fearful, and so we devise（想出） new ways to lock the fear out, and that, we decide, is what security means.
But no; with all this“security”, we are perhaps the most insecure nation in the history of civilized（文明的） man. What better word to describe the way in which we have been forced to live? What sadder reflection on all that we have become in this new and puzzling time?
We trust no one. Suburban housewives wear rape whistles on their station wagon key chains. We have become so smart about self-protection that, in the end, we have all outsmarted ourselves. We may have locked the evils（邪恶） out, but in so doing we have locked ourselves in.
That may be the legacy(遗产) we remember best when we look back on this age: in dealing with the unseen horrors among us, we became prisoners of ourselves. All of us prisoners , in this time of our troubles.