2009 Or 1984?
 

It seems to me that every week something else appears which takes away some more of our public freedom. Last week it was Face Identification in schools; a month before that it was announced there could be a change in the Law, so that if you bought a new mobile phone they would log your details in such a way that they could trace your every move. I have received loads of surveys from Local Govt, the NHS - you name it; they all want to know stuff that's none of their business anyway. Am I getting paranoid or do the new breed of Signs that are appearing at road junctions have cameras fitted? The words "Nanny State" conjure up something safe and comforting. I don't think so..

Um... no one I'm aware of ever uses the term "nanny state" in a positive way. But it's usually used to describe things like welfare, not things like video surveillance.

This bugs the **** out of me. Same with the idea that they can use your phone to hear everything you say at any time. The information age is scary, and will only get worse.

i don't get why people get so worked up about this.

does the fact that drugs are illegal stop people from using or abusing them? (simplest example)

it's not like the laws are hidden or modified to suit the situation. if you know that 'they' can listen to 'everything' you say on the phone then don't use the phone for what's common knowledge as being illegal. otherwise who cares? so there's a backup of you trying to pickup and getting shot down. so what?

you don't HAVE to adhere to the law, but being cognitive of what those laws are and how they're enforced makes it significantly simpler to circumvent them.

face recognition in schools. kind of out there, but how many corporations have biometric scanners to read fingerprints? mine isn't exactly the top of the tech pile but i scan my thumb at least 4 times a day.

basically it boils down to this - 'they' aren't after you unless you've got something significant to hide or are causing 'them' major distress.

also, don't fool yourself into believing you won't eventually grow old and become 'the man' too. you might not ever see yourself in that light but you can't force other people's perspectives.

It amazes me everyone is trying to draw the 1984 comparisons now. Welcome to the post-9/11 world; the government has been spying on you for years.

As technology increases it becomes more and more relevant.

As far as I can tell people have been making 1984 comparisons for the past 60 years, ever since the book was written.

I've just seen a recent influx in people making the comparisons on the news and the internet the past few months and I don't understand why.

Way to edit out the second sentence. I'll spell it out for everyone.

THE GOVERNMENT HAS BEEN LISTENING TO YOUR PHONE CALLS, READING YOUR INTERNET LOGS AND LETTERS, AND ARRESTING PEOPLE WITHOUT TRIAL ALL IN THE NAME OF THE WAR ON TERROR FOR YEARS NOW. THIS IS NOTHING NEW. PEOPLE NEED TO STOP MAKING STATEMENTS GOING "OMGS! DID YOU KNOW THEY CAN TRACK OUR CELLPHONES AND LISTEN TO OUR CALLS?" ITS NOT NEWS.

they should call it olds.

word

OK I should have used the term- the words "Nanny State" are supposed to conjure up something safe and comforting. As For the comparison with "1984" have you by any chance seen the film "Brazil"? I think that is relevant too. I know that this has been escalating for years, but what disturbs me is how much is being done by stealth. Chips in passports, photos taken every time you enter or exit a supermarket car park. I guess there's loads more only I haven't found out about them yet.

agreed.

HUURRRRR DUUURRRRR I edited it out for a reason. That was the part of your statement i wished to address :bonkhead: I understand that this isn't something new, at no point did I say anything about those things being new news. All I said was that it bugs the **** out of me, and has for quite a while. Now quit being an asshole and realize we're on the same damn side Ethan.

Sorry it just bugs me this thread was made like this is some revelation that will blow everyone's mind. Blair and Bush are both well out of office now and so is electrocuting prisoner's balls and spying on innocent civilians. 2009 is looking to be a government for the people (at least in America) as opposed to for the Cheney and Bush family.

It was more likely started because the UK goverment has announced that it's about to hugely increase the amount of CCTV coverage despite the UK having more CCTV cameras than any country in Europe. There is a reveiw of this going on in the house of lords on this subject as well as DNA databasing. Pick up any UK newspaper & this subject will be discussed in it.

I know this forum is American-centric but just because it isn't a problem in the US doesn't mean it's not worthy of a thread.

See if that had actually been introduced it would've been nice but drawing the 1984 comparison leads me (and everyone else) to think it has to do with the government actually invading your personal privacy and installing these cameras all over your house or something (which is what they did in 1984.) Instead she goes on about them tracking your cellphone (not exactly something new...) and supermarkets photographing it's customer (this has been a practice going on for god knows how long unless you're a shoplifter you really have nothing to worry about.) Face identification isn't exactly evil Big Brother is Watching you either and freaking out over chips in passports? They hold the same information as the passport itself; it's nothing sinister.

We recently had a Referendum in the Manchester area concerning The Manchester Congestion Charge; a Pay As You Drive scheme. One of the options included fitting a black box into every car and tracking it's progress by satellite.
Incidentally,the No Vote was unanimous across all 10 councils with 80% voting against the prposals.

I don't worry about surveillance. So what if I'm filmed 10 times when I walk down the street? I'm not a criminal. It's not important for me that it remains a secret that I went out for a walk. If they wanna have more surveillance to protect people like me, then I don't immediately see why that should make me paranoid.

In Norway, we don't seem to have the same mistrust as you guys overseas do against your government. Here, in a sense, we are the government. We are the people. You guys always say "them". It makes it sound like everyone's on their own over there and the government is the big, bad ****er out to screw you all. Is it really that bad?

Our gov't is run by lobbyists and people with god knows what agendas. I personally feel that we need major reform in Washington.

I agree with you. There has been a suggestion that absent parents who don't pay monies through the Child Support Agency towards the upkeep of their children should have their Passports confiscated, although this is technically illegal.

I'm not sure what that has to do with the aforementioned stuff but it sounds like a bad idea lol. Anyways, most of my issues lye in the whole Party-Politics System we have right now. It's all black and white with these people, and the world is NOT black and white.

Exactly. As urban has stated we have more CCTV than anywhere else in Europe yet it hasn't made a lot of difference. i live 10 minutes away from GCHQ which is the central communication centre for the whole of Britain and it's well known what they get up to.

If any keywords are mentioned in phone calls or texts, then they are immediatedly logged but otherwise your calls are not actually listened in on.

You went from saying the problem with Washington was lobbyists to this...two entirely different issues. Washington isn't nearly as polarized as people seem to think it is. This is just something created by the media and guys like Rush Limbaugh to divide the country and distract them from the actual issue which IS corporate stranglehold on Washington. Politicians don't see the world as black and white they see it as green minus a select few; guys like Obama, Paul, Edwards, Kucinich, Gravel, etc who take firm positions on these sort of things.

I feel the two issues are very intertwined personally. To say that we aren't divided is just ridiculous. We are in what is essentially a two party system. Your either Republican or Democrat or your vote is worthless. These two parties rarely agree on anything, and half of the things they do stand for are only stood for because they have larger agendas encompassing them. Political moderates such as myself are the ones that suffer. How the hell am I supposed to support stem cell research AND a strong foreign policy?

This is why we vote for people and not policies. There has to be a certain reconciliation of the policies that you don't believe in as strongly as others, and sometimes it sucks but you have to resign to the fact that there's probably not a politician that you agree with completely (unless you ran for office yourself... and even then your job is to represent the people of your city/district/etc. rather than your own agendas so there would have to be reconciliation there anyway). For instance, I'm pro-life, but I realized in the process of the presidential campaign that there are more pressing issues and that I can't vote for a candidate based on one policy.
There's obviously division in our two-party system but because we have people representing us (i mean of course there are politicians that are complete puppets of their parties i.e. sarah palin imo) there are politicians who stray from their party lines on certain issues, so there are politicians that are both pro-stem cell research and have strong foreign policy (don't ask me their names).
The hard part is cutting through the political party bull**** that people like rush dish out that makes it seem like this policy or that policy is the most important thing in the world and if you don't agree you're a communist; and finding what policies are important to you.

The nation is divided by Democrats and Republicans; not Washington. The political parties are like an old married couple, they're used to dealing with each other constantly. The giant corporations don't care how you feel about abortion unless they're making money off an abortion clinic in which case, conservative or liberal, if they need your vote they'll get it from you. The parties might be polarized on some domestic issues but they're issues that are largely outside of corporate interests. Sure you get moments of "ideological unity" but it's just for show. Most of the politicians in Washington only care about maintaining power; which means listening to the people giving you campaign donations and being an alternative choice to the opposition party. I'm not saying party politics isn't a problem there; it is but it's minimal and the larger issue here is the fact our country is run mostly by greedy, stupid pigs who care about their cozy jobs and status in life as opposed to serving the people.

I can dig that. :beer: