Yesterday there was a report saying that the UK now ranks up there with China and Russia as being really really interested about what its citizens are up to, on the streets, on their phones, and on their PCs. Apparently, we are living in a 'surveillance society' where we can get photographed up to 300 times a day, and where our every movement and click and call is being monitored.
There was some guy, billed as a "Private Watchdog" (for which I guess we should read really paranoid bloke that no-one would employ) saying that he has warned two years ago that here in the UK we were "in danger of sleep-walking into a surveillance society". He was obviously quite proud of this sleep metaphor, because he tried to extend it to yesterday's report findings by saying we are now 'waking up' in this surveillance society. (It didn't really work second time around.) And someone else -actually it could have been him too [wow conspiracy theory] - was going on about the fact that the world should be ruled by people not machines designed to track our every movement.
Am I missing something here? Why the surprise? If you have the technology - which 'they' obviously do - the temptation to use it must be too strong for anyone to resist. ("Hey check out this camera. It can take a photo of a car number plate from space." "Oh, don't use that. It's probably an infringement of someone's civil liberties." "How about this one that sees through walls?" "No, that's illegal in Canada.") I am surprised that it is as few as 300 photos a day. And really surprised that anyone is so surprised that 'they' are watching us as closely as technology - and the 'war on terrorism' - can let them get away with.
Anyway, speaking of people who probably need to be watched closely, who is the maniac who thought honey badgers didn't exist? (See the comment to yesterday's post.) Why would I make up an animal? (And what is the thing about broccoli? Is it a sex thing? Please don't respond if it is.) Having been recently accused of being an unreliable animal witness, I am a bit touchy about me and animals. But please be assured, honey badgers exist. And they are really really mean. They castrate buffalos. There are reports they have done it to men too.
Right I'm off to be photographed a few hundred times. Have a good weekend.
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2 comments:
I agree there would seem to be a politico-technological inevitability to the continual refinement of surveillance techniques which at one distant end of the spectrum started, perhaps, with a monocle before moving thru' pince nez, magnifying glass, microscope, telescope etc. ( you can see where I'm going ) ending up with...Well, if you're a theist then it ends up with the God of your choice/culture, doesn't it? Which sort of begs the question: if I'm too scared to stick my tongue out at a cctv camera for fear of being visited by Plod how come paedo priests et al aren't too scared to do what paedo priests do (under God's ever watchful eye)? And whilst I don't doubt for a moment that my own chat with St Peter will be thoroughly awkward how precisely does a devout Catholic like T. Blair imagine Someone With A Very Long White Beard won't be jolly cross about the huge pile of civilian bodies building up in Iraq and Afghanistan?
(Does the above have a whiff of impending breakdown about it? It does, doesn't it?)
Brocolli is not an animal you vegefascist
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