1984, 18 years later

[Gonzo]

So Orwell might have had the exact date wrong, but the ideology is still there. Look up at the traffic lights in your town. Sometimes even the lampposts have them. The ATM sure does.Even Wal-Mart is in on it. Video is a good thing isn't it? Even when *ominous music* they're watching you. I first noticed it about 15 years ago, at the corner of Washington & LaCienega in Los Angeles. All four corners had them. Just nosey little eyes in the sky, looking for (or so said the CA DOT) traffic tie-ups. "They are not & will not be used to aid the CHP, LAPD, FBI, etc". Then why are they everywhere now? Even the Capital isn't safe:

The National Park Service will begin round-the-clock video surveillance at all major monuments on the Mall by October, moving aggressively in the wake of last year's terrorist attacks to tighten security around national symbols visited by millions of tourists each year.

FBI head to peons:"Check the tapes from the Lincoln Memorial"
Peons #27:"what are we looking for"
FBI head:"See what Bob Smith was eating & if he" *ominous music* "littered"
Peon #9:"isn't that an invasion of Privacy?"
FBI head:"Guards, escort this soon-to-be- criminal into interrogation for questioning authority, oh, and, get the tapes"

Images of Life in 1984

- Pictures and posters on every corner, reminding citizens of Oceania that Big Brother is always watching them. (p4)
- A cold, dark world. I.e.) "Down in the street little eddies of wind were whirling dust and torn paper into spirals, and though the sun was shining and the sun a harsh blue, there seemed to be no colour in anything, except the posters that were plastered everywhere." (p4)
- Helicopters skimming down between the roofs, a sign of the police patrol, snooping into people's windows. (p4)
- Rocket bombs exploding in London with dull, reverberating roars. (p28)
- Horrible living conditions. I.e.) "Never quite enough to eat, one never had socks or underclothes that were not full of holes, furniture had always been bad and rickety, rooms underheated, tube trains crowded, houses falling to pieces, bread dark-coloured nothing cheap and plentiful." (p63)
- "Decaying, dingy cities where underfed people shuffled to and fro in leaky shoes, in patched-up nineteenth-century houses that smelt always of cabbage and bad lavatories." (p77)
- Most people lived in slums.
- Bombs dropped on playgrounds with "several dozen children blown to pieces." (p156)
- Amid the decaying buildings in London, during Hate Week, there is singing, banners, dancing, speeches, drums, trumpets, marching, posters, and films.
- "The world today is a bare, hungry, dilapidated place" (p196)

 

[Shadowfax]

Creepy Gonz, creepy....

But you notice it everywhere: there is 100% video surveillance within my school, surveillance in the metro, in the train....it just sucks. I'm being filmed from home to school, on school and on the way back

 

[unclehobart]

Great. So we will get the destruction and defacing on film. Its not as if the cameras will stop the criminal activity in and of itself.

 

[br0ck]

[devil advicate]

What's the big friggin' deal about being video taped? If you guys value your privacy so much, then why are you even on the internet? Personally, I don't give a rats ass if you video tape me. I'm not very good looking, so there's no point in taking interest in that realm. Second, if you are doing what's right then you don't have to worry about it. People make to big of a deal over this issue. They feel their privacy is being compromised. How? You're in public, who gave you the monopoly on what happens in public?

[/devil advicate]

 

[Gonzo]

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Amendment IV
The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.

 

[unclehobart]

When you are outside and off of your property, and assuming they keep their hands out of your pockets, it doesn't violate the 4th.

 

[greenfreak]

Not only do they have the cameras on selected stoplights in NYC, they take pictures of you and your car to mail you a ticket if you run a red light. It doesn't bother me much if it's for a good reason. To deter shoplifting, to see what traffic is doing, etc.

 

[br0ck]

Gonzo, you're reaching pretty deep in the bag to stand on that ground.

 

[Gonzo]

When you are outside and off of your property, and assuming they keep their hands out of your pockets, it doesn't violate the 4th.

Oh, but it does. However, having the conservative justices who prefer law & order over civil rights don't agree.

you're reaching pretty deep in the bag to stand on that ground.

Nah, just defending the Constitution & it's original intentions

 

[br0ck]

Oh Gonzo, we all know you don't want Big Brother seeing you with all those lot lizards while your in for the night at truck stops.

 

[BigDadday]

I don't know about him being that upset as I know I don't like it either and am warry when I see them alth I hopefully have nothing to worry about. The speeding tickets are another thing tho! BD

 

[Gonzo]

I know I have nothing to worry about. The idea that our government is spying on its citizens & nobody cares is what worries me. Part of my frustration is that nobody cared, they even believed it was a good idea for people in "safety sensitive" jobs to take urine drug tests. Then it was the high school athletes. Now they are testing the chess club. And nobody gives a shit. We fly our flag high & announce to the world that we're free, when NO WE ARE NOT!!! Our rights have been chipped away, a little at a time until we look just like the Soviet bloc countries of 1948. But, since it's in the name of safety, it's okay. Drug tests, waitiing periods for weapons, cameras on the street corner, BATF burning down houses & wearing black stocking masks when they raid homes, strip searches at the airport-the list goes on.

They must be told that the ultimate authority, wherever the derivative may be found, resides in the people alone, and that it will not depend merely on the comparative ambition or address of the different governments, whether either, or which of them, will be able to enlarge its sphere of jurisdiction at the expense of the other

This was written at a time that the founders of our country were trying to decide the seperation of federal & state government. They knew then that government was dangerous. They wrote several hundred pages of reasoning & ideological transcripts that envelope the founding of our country. It, simply, was to have a limited federal gov't & let the states & more importantly people control their destinies. That has gone by the wayside.


damn I'm long winded sometimes