The Guyanese who tried it knew

The writer of this article are mistaken if they think Orwell was wrong in "1984" (I admit he was wrong about the date). He thinks that because capitalism won instead of communism (I deliberately used the word "capitalism" instead of "democracy", like the Americans tend to do, because they are being very naïve if they think it is democracy that beat communism) that means that Orwell was wrong. Clearly they have not been keeping up with the news. In the US the various policing bodies are just short of getting laws passed to allow them to wiretap anyone with absolute impunity. There are software now being tested (and used) which will identify faces out of a crowd. How long is it before they start using that to pick out people for things other than the most serious crimes. There is an article I read recently where one of the car rental companies used the built in GPS device in the car to track the speed that the customer was driving and then penalised him because he breached their guidelines. How long before the police start using it too? In Europe (and many parts of the US) virtually every public area in bigger cities is covered by cameras which track vehicular and pedestrian traffic. They are testing their own facial recognition systems. And all these things are happening slowly and insidiously. How long is it going to be before the security forces assume more control over these devices and "make the world a safer place" by arresting people for littering and minor mischief. Everyone seems to have forgotten that Hoover ran the FBI as his personal information collection and coercion agency for so many years. How long before another one like him comes along? It could happen, these things always tend to creep up on you when you are not looking. And it is so gradual that no one notices. I am so glad that none of that stuff will reach here (Guyana) for the foreseeable future. I am not one of those conspiracy buffs, but there will come a time in the US and other developed countries (Australia for example) when you can't do anything with out being seen. And we all know that everyone is a critic, so what happens when everyone can see you? And what happens when it the police doing the criticising? I can hear the response now, I shouldn't have to worry if I am not doing anything wrong. Well guess who defines what "wrong" is? The same people who think that everyone should be seen. http://www.technologyreview.com/articles/wo_muller 071202.asp