UK: George Orwell Was Right: Spy Cameras See Britons' Every Move

[Ohio Rifleman]

Has anyone here read 1984? I just did, and that sounds disturbingly like the telescreens everywhere that speak, like some voice of God type of thing. Scary stuff.

 

[Zedicus]

Yep, read the Book, and Watched the Movie (book is better)

If you ask me the UK at present must be using 1984 as a guide, and it wont be to long until they are distinguishable from that book only in the level of utilized technology, heck they may even get worse than the book.

And us here in the US appear to be heading toward a bizarre mix of "Atlas Shrugged" and "Unintended Consequences" (2 other great books I recommend)

Intresting times indeed...

 

[benEzra]

Suddenly, a disembodied voice booms out from above: "You in the black jacket! Yes, you! Put it back!'' The confused student obeys as his friends look bewildered.
...
The city has placed speakers in its cameras, allowing operators to chastise miscreants who drop coffee cups, ride bicycles too fast or fight outside bars.
...
Almost 70 years after George Orwell created the all-seeing dictator Big Brother in the novel ``1984,'' Britons are being watched as never before. About 4.2 million spy cameras film each citizen 300 times a day, and police have built the world's largest DNA database.
...
At a single road junction in the London borough of Hammersmith, there are 29 cameras run by police, government, private companies and transport agencies. Police officers are even trying out video cameras mounted on their heads.

Scary how the reality in the UK is emulating fiction. And not just 1984...

For those of us outside the UK, the experience of doing something that offends the State (like failing to pick up an empty can) and then hearing a voice telling us what to do, is familiar only from playing Half Life 2. Geez, I never expected a civilized country (one allegedly NOT run by space aliens) to try this crap...

The Overwatch liked their cameras, too, didn't they?

"Welcome to City 17. It's safer here."

In the bowels of New Scotland Yard, the headquarters of the London police force, a windowless room contains a giant bank of TV screens where the city is monitored around the clock. At the touch of a button, officers can focus on any neighborhood and zoom in on people's faces.

By 2016, there will be cameras using facial recognition technology embedded in lampposts, according to the Surveillance Studies report. Unmanned spy planes will monitor the movements of citizens, while criminals and the elderly will be implanted with microchips to track their movements, the report says.

Blair said citizens have to sacrifice some freedoms to fight terrorism, illegal immigration and identity fraud.

``We have a modern world that we are living in, with new and different types of crime,'' Blair said Nov. 6 at a press conference in London. ``If we don't use technology in order to combat it, then we won't be fighting crime effectively.''

"Citizens have to sacrifice some freedoms to fight terrorism, illegal immigration, and fraud."

 

[jeepmor]

Europeans don't mind their rights trampled on. Over half the people here in America, sadly, would support the same thing....for the children.

jeepmor