Having thought a little more about yesterday’s unpleasant
experience at Marks and Spencer I realize I had been monitored on CCTV. This
intrusive snooping on people is increasing. The excuse for it is the prevention
and detection of crime. Yesterday I had not committed a crime, nor was I
planning one, and yet I feel sure my innocent activity had been captured on
CCTV. As the security guard and his companion made their presence felt, we were
directly below a CCTV camera, no doubt recording every action. I am not
paranoid, but I wonder if our conversation was also being recorded. It is not
difficult to conceal a microphone on ones person.
More and more I am aware that UK citizens can be tracked
wherever they go. They carry mobile phones that can be located by
cross-referenced signals and phone conversations can be recorded. You cannot
drive into a TESCO car park without your car’s number being scanned and
recorded. A sojourn of more than 3 hours results in a fine. When you purchase
anything, every detail is stored at TESCO’S data base. Drivers are photographed
when entering Stansted Airport’s new pickup/putdown area and their vehicle’s
number is indexed with their photo. Car number plate recognition cameras are
strategically placed on major roads. London’s Congestion Zone requires your
details.
George Orwell’s ‘1984’ could become a reality. In the USA, the
design and production of prying and spying gizmos is a major industry. Even emails
are saved on databases. Internet’s ‘Cloud’ stores what we have on our computers
and mobile phones. Do we want to go along this route? It seems to me we are in
freefall towards the US decline.
Here, in our politically correct State, we have to watch
what we say. We cannot freely call a person a ‘pleb’ for fear of the
consequences. People are said to be discriminatory when they don’t subscribe to
same sex marriages or female bishops. Where is freedom of thought? Even that is
under threat. What has happened at Hyde Park Corner (Speakers’ Corner) where
one could call a spade a spade? Are speakers really free to say what they think
without being monitored?
I was ‘born free’. I once lived in a land that fought for
freedom, but sadly that precious jewel, so much prized, is being crushed. In my
own village where I have lived 40 years there are numerous CCTV cameras.
Residents’ movements are scanned daily. There’s one nifty little camera that
records images of pedestrians who cross the road in the centre of the village.
Several cameras are trained on a roundabout and neighbouring footpaths. At an
industrial estate there’s a tall tower with 6 CCTV cameras and floodlights. One
of our public houses has several cameras sited in the car park. I counted 3
houses with their own CCTV cameras. The bank had one overlooking the cash
machine.
Where will this end? Will our children be ‘chipped’ at birth? Will
they be electronically tagged, just as some offenders are when on probation?
Will they have freedom to roam where they wish? Shall we only buy goods if we have been
chipped? That could be our future!
Revelation 13:16-18 ‘He
causes all, both small and great, rich and poor, free and slave, to receive a
mark on their right hand or on their foreheads, and that no one may buy or sell
except one who has the mark or the name of the beast, or the number of his
name.
Here is wisdom. Let
him who has understanding calculate the number of the beast, for it is the
number of man: His number is 666.’
Links
Orwell's
Total Surveillance State is almost here
1984 Is Here:
Big Brother in the Electronic Age
Is the
U.S. Government Really A Spy Machine?
Pleb row probed by 30 police
Speakers’ Corner
Congestion Charging
I can certainly empathize with Winston Smith; despite him being fictional. It's the new age. The speed at which 'technology' is moving forward; I shudder when I try to imagine where it will stop.
ReplyDeleteI chuckled to myself when I read 1984; making comparisons from the different departments; and how they correlate with governments that we have.
The more I have digested it, it's not really funny. Not funny at all.
I wasn't made for these times.