British, U.S. spying draws us closer to Orwell's Big Brother

San Jose Mercury News ^ | Dec. 29, 2005 | T.J. Rodgers

[JTN]

My waking thought on Christmas Day was that George Orwell's vision of Big Brother was no longer a hypothetical possibility but an actual near-term threat. That realization was synthesized from two news events, one here and one in Britain.

In Britain, the government recently decided to deploy global positioning system (GPS) technology to track every vehicle in the U.K. every minute of the day. Just as GPS sensors are mandated for use in every cell phone in the near future in the United States (for our safety, of course), Britain will mandate the use of a GPS sensor in every car. ``Has Reginald White arrived at the grocery store yet?'' will become a question answerable by the security division of Britain's DMV.

The British government promises safeguards to prevent spying on ordinary citizens, but who will follow up on those promises?

In the United States, President Bush is acting under apparently self-granted powers to ``authorize'' the National Security Agency (NSA) to spy on Americans -- of course, only on Americans threatening terrorist acts.

[JTN]

Give me liberty or give me death.

[JTN]

Ping

[OldFriend]

You choose. Surveillance of our enemies or we're incinerated.

Beslan in our future?

Subway bombings?

Theater invasions?

[Russ]

Give me a break...

[REDWOOD99]

Took the words...

[aquila48]

OH NO!!! Now I won't be able to sleep at night.

What a yawn! I would be losing sleep if Bush was NOT doing this!

[GSlob]

I remember seeing IR proximity sensors on auto-flushing toilets labeled "Big Brother is watching YOU!!". But that was many a Christmas ago.

[JTN]

Surveillance of our enemies

Surveillance of us. Don't forget that part.

[airborne]

Like the President said: "If you're getting a phone call from an Al-Queda member, we want to know why."

[muawiyah]

It's actually pretty easy to monitor nearly every phone call in the world these days. You can pick up on certain key words, e.g. "kill, bomb, death" and so forth in any language, continue the recording of that call, and then, at leisure, return to evaluate the message that's been flagged by your computer system.

This makes it possible to identify the "terrorists" BEFORE even bothering to translate the call for evaluation.

[muawiyah]

Look, some of our enemies work at the New York Times and the Washington Post. Unfortunately Islamofascist sympathies have penetrated into certain levels of American society so it is necessary to remove their cloak of secrecy.

[TASMANIANRED]

You could get what you desire if the slime get their way.

Democrats require the innocent die so the malevolent can be protected.

[JTN]

It's actually pretty easy to monitor nearly every phone call in the world these days. You can pick up on certain key words, e.g. "kill, bomb, death" and so forth in any language, continue the recording of that call, and then, at leisure, return to evaluate the message that's been flagged by your computer system. This makes it possible to identify the "terrorists" BEFORE even bothering to translate the call for evaluation.

True, although almost all uses of those words are perfectly innocent and do not involve the planning of attacks, such as your use of them in your post and my use of them in this one.

[The Westerner]

Excellent article. We are walking down a razor thin line between totalitarian dictatorship and freedom. So far, none of our political leaders have come forward to defend civil rights philosophically like this man has done.

[Brilliant]

Yeah, right. Until they have TVs that watch you, we're no where near.

[wolfpat]

The main indication of the closeness of Orwell's Big Brother isn't the possibility of spying. It's the changing of meanings that the liberals have been forcing on us. The fact that such a term as "political correctness" exists should scare the daylights out of all of us. The changing of word meanings is right out of 1984. That's a bigger threat to our freedom than a little wartime wire tapping.

[OldFriend]

Do you have Al Qaeda connections?

[LiteKeeper]

Are these reporters just ignorant, or do they choose to ignore the truth (and the law)?

[digger48]

"kill, bomb, death"

a 13 yr old American kid writes any of these words on his notebook and see how many of HIS rights are violated in the days following.

[vrwc0915]

Big Brother rocks as long as is a R in power, Yeah Go RINOS GO! I hope you all enjoy hillary with the patriot act