Today's blog title is courtesy of Winston Smith, a citizen of Oceania. I thought of Winston while reading a NY Times article this morning about the new surveillance system that the city of Chicago has installed:
"The surveillance network will embrace cameras placed not only by the police department, but also by a variety of city agencies including the transit, housing and aviation authorities. Private companies that maintain their own surveillance of areas around their buildings will also be able to send their video feeds to the central control room that is being built at a fortified city building.
The 250 new cameras, along with the new system dispatchers will use to monitor them, are to be in place by the spring of 2006. A $5.1 million federal grant will be used to pay for the cameras, and the city will add $3.5 million to pay for the computer network that will connect them.
This project is a central part of Chicago's response to the threat of terrorism, as well as an effort to reduce the city's crime rate. It also subjects people here to extraordinary levels of surveillance. Anyone walking in public is liable to be almost constantly watched."
$8.6 million dollars of taxpayer money for an Orwellian nightmare come true. A scary quote from Mayor Daly, ""We're not inside your home or your business. "The city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets and we own the alleys." And just who the hell are "WE"? Could it be the fine citizens who pay Mayor Daley's salary?You can read the full article here.
I, like everyone else in America, want to not worry about dirty bombs, suicide bombers, snipers, or poisonous mail. Do I want this security at the extreme expense of personal freedoms? I guess I might allow a small trade-off, but how do you stop the train once it has left the station? (An old, used-up metaphor, but still very valid.) Sadly, I think I heard the conductor blow that whistle on September 11, 2001.
George Orwell offered up this sliver of hope:
"But the proles, if only they could somehow become conscious of their own strength, would have no need to conspire. They needed only to rise up and shake themselves like a horse shaking off flies. If they chose they could blow the Party to pieces tomorrow morning. Surely sooner or later it must occur to them to do it? And yet -----!"
Can America rise up this election year? I doubt it. Besides, even I can't decide whether to vote for Tweedledee or Tweedledum. It may be the 21st century, but it feels more and more like 1984.
Who Is Cowtown Pattie?
- Cowtown Pattie
- I was Lillie Langtry in another life, and might have a crush on Calamity Jane.
2 comments:
Texas T-bone here ...
It's obvious we already have Newspeak, too, with spin docs retelling false truths on TV and in the newspapers (not my newspaper, of course!).
Technology surpassed common sense years ago. The Internet is a good/bad result of the power of information, and the problem with having too much of it. The bad thing about cameras everywhere is that they'd still have to be reviewed by a person. That makes for a dull job and reduces the value of the overall videotape.
You beat me to it! I was gonna blog about Orwell today, and how chillingly right he was (if off by a few years) in his imagination of the future. It is astonishing how far people will go in the name of fear.
~nina
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