Big Brother Is Already Here

Big Brother Is Already Here

“Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of
power.” – Daniel Webster, United States Senator and Secretary of
State (1782-1817)

By End The Lie
September 30, 2012

I see a lot of articles about the massive growth of surveillance
and loss of privacy.

The authors of the articles often say they’re concerned that a
“big brother” society might be the result of it.

Might? You can absolutely count on it!

If you’re a betting person you can bet big and win big, if you
can find anyone gullible enough to take your bet, that is.

Technology gives authorities more power and I think we all
know authorities love power. That’s why they’re authorities.

People in positions of authority have more privileges and perks
than the rest of us.

From some Barney Fife-type right up to the president, people
who get power like it.

They want to keep it, and they want more of it. And that is
precisely what technology does.

Take the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) agents
for example.

One day they are unemployed, then they answer an ad on a
pizza box and almost overnight they have real authority, real
power, and they can instantly turn your life into a nightmare.

If one of those minimally trained rookies singles you out as
suspicious because of something they thought they felt when
they groped you, or a shadow they thought they saw in your
x-ray, the full weight of the legal system can come down on you
immediately – including handcuffs, strip searches, and detention.

So in essence, everyone in the chain of authority is your master,
no matter how low their official rank may be, because they can
cause armed police to appear and take you away.

People with very little training, no knowledge of the law, and no
actual police experience now have enormous power over all of us.

To make matters worse, the TSA is expanding its operations.

George Orwell, author of the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four, wasn't
clairvoyant, he was just wide awake.

He could see technology advancing, and being keenly aware of
human nature, he knew what was coming.

And it is.

Much of what was depicted in 1984, is already, or is rapidly
becoming, a fact.

Already the majority of citizens who are “plugged in,” that is
connected to the various electronic grids through cell phones,
computers, credit cards, etc., can be quickly traced – legally
or not – to their current location within a few paces by anyone
having some auspice of authority.

That in turn can be used to predict future movements and can
linked to databases housing the person’s entire life history, which
includes their friends and family.

Everything you’ve ever done, said, purchased, or showed the
slightest interest in is being recorded somewhere. Naturally
there are almost certainly going to be lots of mistakes in the
data.

Those of you who naively think they have “nothing to hide”
should remember this:

“Under any condition, anywhere, whatever you are doing,
there is some ordinance under which you can be booked.”
– Robert D Sprecht, Rand Corporation.

It’s the people who think they have nothing to hide that are
in for the biggest shock.

Everyone has something they want to keep private if they just
think about it. Everyone.

Privacy is all that stands between the average citizen and prison,
and that’s why technology’s threats to our privacy are so serious
and why we should all be a whole lot more than just concerned.

People can quote the Constitution as much as they want but
the snooping by government and private industry will still keep
growing.

It’s as certain as the perpetual wars for resources. There’s
just no way anyone is going to stop the surveillance trend.

The technology has arrived and the authorities have always
wanted to protect their status and corral the citizens.

What better way than to spy on everyone constantly – to run
us all through turnstiles of one kind or another, check our ID,
measure our stress, grope us and x-ray us, scan our retinas,
take our fingerprints, tag and stamp us all like cattle and
sheep.

“The NSS [National Security State] is an instrument of class
warfare, organized and designed to permit an elite, local
and multinational, to operate without any constraint from
democratic processes. This allows the bulk of the population
to be treated as a mere cost of production.” – Edward Herman,
economist and author of The Real Terror Network.

And that’s what it’s all about.

It has never been about security for the country, it’s about
security for those in charge, the rulers and authorities.

They like their privileges and their roles. They want to keep
them and they don’t want any pesky citizens challenging them.

Our “superiors” hate to be questioned or challenged. They
loathe it.

It forces them to either back down, and lose the respect of their
peers and maybe lose their jobs, or to punish you in some way.

Guess which course they will usually choose.

To authorities, rebellion is a much greater crime than simple law-
breaking. Challenging authority – insubordination – is one of the
worst crimes of all.

Any authority that doesn’t immediately put you in your place risks
losing his or her authority. “The function of any security checkpoint
is to show who’s boss.” – Richard Ben Cramer

Every day I read of more advancements in surveillance technology
and at the same time I read of more abuses by the police like
heavily armed SWAT teams sent to enforce minor violations and
ending up shooting people.

On top of that they often have the wrong address or they conduct
the raid on clearly false pretenses.

You see, power begets more power, and more power begets more
abuses of power. The two things are inseparable and create a kind
of feedback loop.

George Orwell merely saw the obvious.

The future of surveillance is very easy to predict because
human nature is so predictable.

Authorities like power and more surveillance means more
power for them.

More surveillance means more income for the companies
that build it.

More surveillance means more jobs for people who maintain
and enforce it – technicians and private police forces.

And because of the poor economy there’s a huge labor market
from which to choose workers and guards for our prisons.

Let’s not forget, prisons are now a source of cheap labor for
big industries as well.

So being concerned only over the growing surveillance and policing
is like being only concerned about the flames shooting from under
the dashboard of your car, or being only concerned about the
swarm of carpenter ants emerging from your kitchen cabinets.

You can absolutely count on surveillance growing and becoming
more intrusive, and you can count on big industries and government
being in charge and promoting it more and more.

And of course the people who control the surveillance technology
also control police forces.

The ultimate goal of cell phones, smart meters, biometrics,
GPS, the internet, etc. is to connect everyone to a common
electronic grid so that everything we do and everywhere we
go can be monitored if some authority somewhere chooses to
do so.

What appears to most people to be clever inventions and
conveniences are likely to be the instruments of our captivity.

The authorities, whether it is governments, corporations,
or a mixture of both, will have us all on a very short leash.

Who are the authorities? Who might be in control of all this
security?

Smart, dedicated professionals obsessed with fairness, accuracy,
and protecting civil liberties?

I think we already know the answer to that question.

I’ve been trying to be optimistic but the tide is increasingly
apparent; there is little the public can do to completely stop
the growth of the police state.

Do nothing, and it grows. Fight back, and that will be used
as an excuse to expand it as well.

We can only hope that there is sufficient independent spirit left
in people to quietly resist and undermine the apparatus enough
that it might fail because of maintenance costs, as some of the
red-light cameras have.

With virtually every article I’ve seen on this topic, there
has been people who have commented “privacy is dead,
get over it,” or words to that effect.

I’m not exactly sure what to do, but I am certain that denial,
complacency, and meek submission won’t help.

There’s an old proverb that says, “A fool and his money are
soon parted.”

Well the same goes for a fool and his freedom.

Privacy is part of freedom and when you lose one you’ve lost
the other.

Free people must resist the constant intrusion into our private
lives by faceless bureaucrats and corporate profiteers as much
as possible.

Without resistance nothing can possibly get better, only worse.

And there’s no bottom to worse.

http://endthelie.com/2012/09/28/big-brother-is-already here
/#axzz27zNt7PCY