Illustration by Steve Devine from George Orwell’s “1984”
**Scroll to bottom of complete post for update**
Beginning in 2006 (just a week away) Britain has announced that the movement of every single vehicle in the entire country will be monitored, recorded and stored in a database.
As usual, they argue that this is a ‘crime detection, prevention’ measure, allowing them to track gangs and suspected terrorists. Well, okay then–in order to track them you need to know who it is you’re looking for supposedly including license plate numbers, so why not limit your surveillance to those cars? Why every single car in the entire country?
Because the intention, of course, is not to only ‘fight crime’ but to condition every citizen to accepting the government watching and recording their every movement. The moment this is accepted under any guise, then personal freedom is eradicated. And after insisting this is all about catching the Bad Guys, they admit it will also determine if your tags are up-to-date, your insurance status and other taxable requirements of drivers. In other words, they want to track everyone so they can tax you. Yes, the English will now be paying their government to spy on them–not just those with al-Qaida connections, not just those with criminal histories–every single individual citizen.
Britain is to become the first country in the world where the movements of all vehicles on the roads are recorded. A new national surveillance system will hold the records for at least two years.
Using a network of cameras that can automatically read every passing number plate, the plan is to build a huge database of vehicle movements so that the police and security services can analyse any journey a driver has made over several years…
The new national surveillance network for tracking car journeys, which has taken more than 25 years to develop, is only the beginning of plans to monitor the movements of all British citizens. The Home Office Scientific Development Branch in Hertfordshire is already working on ways of automatically recognising human faces by computer, which many people would see as truly introducing the prospect of Orwellian street surveillance, where our every move is recorded and stored by machines.
This is desperately troubling. The argument is made that in tests this massive intrusion allows the police to do their job better. That may in fact be true, but that’s not a good enough reason. When it comes to the war in Iraq, we have argued to the world that for too long we sacrificed justice for ‘stability.’ Indeed, dictatorships provide ‘stability,’ through intimidation, threat and murder. We do not promise perfection with democracy, it offers instead freedom with the Rule of Law to deal with the inevitable problems that arise with that freedom.
Here, English lawmakers are arguing that there will be more stability with the government monitoring the citizens’ every move. Yes, indeed, just as under Saddam Hussein there was “peace” but no justice.
And make no mistake–England, like most of the rest of Europe, is socialist or leftist. This kind pf program is the hallmark and inevitable result of leftist leadership that believes it is God and the citizen is a nuisance which must be protected from itself.
And if you think it can’t happen here, it already is. Oregon and California are considering taxing people by how many miles they drive. And for some reason they would need to use a GPS system to connect with your car to be able to do that. Nevermind the fact that where you go and when would also be recorded. Nah, nevermind that, or as Officer Barbrady would say, “Nevermind, nothing here folks, look away, go away…”
In the meantime, it might not be a bad idea to re-read your copy (or read for the first time!) George Orwell‘s classic anti-Stalinist warning about socialist and totalitarian societies in “1984.”
UPDATE:
Mighty Mouse posted this in comments, and it’s worthy of being in the main post:
For those who may have missed it: “a U.S. district court in New York ruled last week that law enforcement may now use your cellular network to track your movements without a court order.” (Via Wired, who got it from EFF.) Read more.
Now I’m going to need a big tinfoil hat for my car too.
Marcus Tullius Cicero~~ “Power and the law are not synonymous. In truth they are frequently in opposition and irreconcilable. There is God’s Law from which all equitable laws of man emerge and by which men must live if they are not to die in oppression, chaos, and despair. Divorced from God’s eternal and immutable Law, established before the founding of the suns, man’s power is evil no matter the noble words with which it is employed or the motives urged when enforcing it.”
Very Scary !!
Not to be splitting grammatical hairs again here, but you’re making the common mistake of equating British and English. Here it’s more than just a grammatical error, because the UK is currently run by Scots out of all proportion to their percentage of the country’s population. You might want to pay these folks a visit: http://www.thecep.org.uk
“…make no mistake–England, like most of the rest of Europe, is socialist or leftist.”
Then why did ENGLAND, as opposed to the UK as a whole, give the plurality of its votes to the Tories at the last election?
“Who is watchihg the watchers?”.
Sorry Tammy but a few disagreements:
It won’t be “spying” it will be “watching” but not secretly.
Yes they do “want to track everyone so they can tax you.” But they want to do that now and yesterday and 10 years ago, nothing new there.
This comes under my heading of “Society meet Technology.” It deserves, nay requires, serious debate but it shouldn’t be the Ludites against the Orwellians.
Ask yourself this question: Have we been passing laws, not only knowing they can’t be enforced more than a small percentage of the time, but BECAUSE they can only be rarely enforced?
Brings up thoughts of “It’s OK to do it as long as you don’t get caught.” Does freedom mean we are free to break the law most of the time? Are we, as a society, entering a time when we will pay attention to what laws are passed? We are leaving the times when we could think, “I don’t care what laws are created because they can’t enforce them.” I think so. And that’s a good thing Martha.
I am torn on this issue. Part of me really thinks that this could be used to quickly pursue criminals and terrorists. However, the other part of me knows how the world really works. I know this would not be a solution to a problem. It would be more of a progression of how things will be. At first people would be irate, then they would get on with their lazy, mash potato eating lives, most would close the eyes to it or just forget about it. The next step won’t seem so bad compared to this one. Soon they will be sticking GPS devices in our bodies and putting surveillance equipment in our homes to make sure we are properly obeying the law. I will not give up my freedom for sanctuary.
**Now I’m going to need a big tinfoil hat for my car too.**
That is great!!!
God forbid they should do some profiling to find out, say, who exactly might be involved in crime and/or –important word– terrorism. Cause we don’t want to offend the famously touchy Muslim sensibilities. This is part of the suicide of the West. In order to avoid offending your enemy, you erase yourself so he can take your place. How can this UK be the same country that stood up to the Blitz?
No one is entitled to privacy when using public roads.
If any British subject can look out their window and see you driving along, there is no reason why the British government should not be able to look out their window and see you driving along.
The State as Traffic Cop, or as WIRED MAGAZINE put it, “The law of traffic dynamics here is that every action has a government-controlled reaction.”
Think about that for a minute. “Every action has a government-controlled reaction.” Tangetial to that conceptual plane is “Every belief, every thought has a government-controlled reaction.” [WIRED was talking about Singapore, which has one of the most high-tech approaches to tracking (read controlling) traffic.] Ultimately, every human movement, of body, thought or intent, will have a “government-controlled reaction” IMO, but it’s too detailed to get into here. This is the natural outcome of Modern Man as Manipulator.
UK has discussed putting GPS devices on every car, in order to cut down on congestion. And yes, Tammy is right, this will lead using GPS to track citizens to issue traffic tickets, to stop you from being able to get on the toll road because you didn’t pay your library fine, or to prevent you from entering your workplace because of your political or religious activities. (Not to mention how a Hitler would use such tech) It will lead to a suffocating Orwellian life, and there’s no exit sign. Why do I say that?
First, let’s get it straight that there wouldn’t be all these congestion problems if government servants (yeah, right)used the sky-high stacks of taxpayer money properly and efficiently in city planning and road planning.
Secondly, they have also failed to use citizen money properly when it comes to crime-fighting.
Thirdly, in the US we will see increasing city and regional governments going bankrupt.
Fourthly, wherever financial crises/and or crime starts to peak again or is uncontrollable, politicians (the self-priviledged and self-protective class) come under fire.
Fifthly, US politicians especially like the E-Z fix that technology seems to afford. They will lunge after GPS because it will make in their minds, crime-fighting much easier, quicker, and CHEAPER. Plus they get to play ‘Miracle-Maker.’ (If everyone’s car or person is tracked, you can instantly tell who was and wasn’t at a crime scene. Think of how expensive it is to track kidnap victims. Or those who have disappeared?)
But first it will be marketed as something else, and gradually the consumer will be offered benefits for the voluntary use of such technology, and then it will quietly, and without a cry, become mandatory. (Pattern: read about Malaysia’s MyKad national ID card.)
We’ll be cooked like the proverbial frog in the pot of boiling water. (Oh, and I’m not a Luddite by the way. Just a good extrapolator.)
🙂
For those who may have missed it: “a U.S. district court in New York ruled last week that law enforcement may now use your cellular network to track your movements without a court order.” (Via Wired, who got it from EFF.) Read
more.
“Tangetial to that conceptual plane “
Wow, I almost had to open my dictionary for that one!!
PJ: well, now I see I shoulda spell-checked that. (tangeNtial) 🙂
Mighty Mouse,
I wondered about that, but I won’t scoff. My posts are so full of typos. peeple propably theenk I am sum kined of redneck.