June 8th 1999 was the 50th anniversary of the publication of
George Orwell's book "1984"
BIG BROTHER IS WATCHING YOU
"The telescreen received and transmitted simultaneously.
Any sound that Winston made, above the level of a very
low whisper, would be picked up by it; moreover, so
long as he remained within the field of vision which
the metal plaque commanded, he could be seen as well
as heard. There was of course no way of knowing
whether you were being watched at any given moment.
How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged
in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even
conceivable that they watched everybody all the time.
But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever
they wanted to. You had to live - did live, from habit
that became instinct - in the assumption that every
sound you made was overheard, and except in darkness,
every movement scrutinised."
N.B. Todays CCTV cameras use infrared technology and can see in the dark and can zoom in beyond
normal human visual range, and no longer need a wired infrastructure, but can work over mobile phone networks.
The video and audio signals can be processed electronically to automatically attempt to pick out your face from a database of suspects.
There is even research ongoing into classifying "suspicious" behaviour
automatically from video images. Such CCTV systems have already been linked to automatically fire
military weapons systems.
This imperfect technology, fraught with
false positive matches, is being rapidly deployed in the civilian world, without any enforcable,
consistent rules or means of appeal to correct the inevitable
persecution of the innocent.
Can we trust future politicians not to abuse such mass surveillance infrastructures to crush us
under a repressive dictatorship ?
Please make sure that any mass surveillance infrastructures which you intend to construct, or allow to be
set up on your behalf, have adequate consultation with the public in general (not just "stakeholder" quangos) and that there are
technical and legal safeguards, with criminal penalties for those who use these systems to abuse our fundamental human right of privacy.
On September 20th 2004, the DVD of the classic film version of "1984" starring Richard Burton and John Hurt is due to be released in the UK. We hope to be able to review this DVD here,
probably in the Spy Blog section.
