Do you believe you are free?
Do you go to work thinking,
'no-one's reporting on me?'
Well, see that eye, unblinking
overhead? Don't make a fuss
but your heart should be sinking:
Big Brother is watching us.
MP 8624
(After China, the UK is the most surveilled country in the world, with the largest number of CCTV cameras in the western hemisphere.)
This situation is the price we pay for pursuing the progress of science. The same sort of technology employed in streets is
used to track threats from beyond our borders and from those
presented by weather. Personally, I have no particular concern
about being "watched" in public places, as part of the wider
scenario that presents itself from day to day beyond the
confines of our homes. Of course, the real problem is when
we are bugged within our homes as part of life. That is the
way in tyrannies and marks the line that separates one type of
society from another. But then again I suppose that our use of personal computers offers undisclosed methods and opportunities for much the same sort of thing these days!
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Martin Peacock
Sat 8th Jun 2024 18:49
I wish i shared your lack of concern, MC, but i find it all too Orwellian. We believe ours is a free society but, indoors and out we're being tracked, noted, recognised, guided, nudged, watched. Always watched. And quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Who watches the watchers? What powers have they already arrogated to themselves? No, i find it more than a little creepy, more than a little scary. Where does it end? With, as Orwell so succinctly wrote, "a jackboot forever stamping on a human face."