Civil Liberties
Discussion
Okay, so people are worried about the environment. Fair enough; but having seen a few technological developments and such aimed at making life easier in the last few years we're closer than ever to an Orwellian situation. Heres a list:
1. Mobile Phones - Traceable, trackable, recorded, calls intercepted.
2. Home Phones - calls able to be intercepted or bugged if the government considers you a threat under 2001 Anti Terrorism legislation
3. E-mail - a common test a while back was sending two emails from one account to another; the one with 'bomb' or 'assassination' often came a little late.
4. Employee Tagging - recent news items revealed 10,000 Uk workers are tagged with electronic equipment enabling their employers to keep tracks of their whereabouts and activities throughout the day.
5. Storecards - Cards such as Nectar record for 'marketing' [remember the Bill Hicks gag, anyone] purposes our every purchase. They know where you shop, what you eat, wear, drink and smell like. Your allergies, addictions, etc.
6. Credit Cards - Read as above, although this time they know utterly everything, tracking is unavoidable unless you are willing to carry cash.
7. Car insurance - Norwich Union recently launched their new satnav tracking package for young drivers. So the technology and the inclination exists for people to know where you are 24/7, your travel habits, and your most common destinations.
8. Health - New plans to centralise UK health records to simplify treatment involve someone being in control of every bit of information regarding your body.
Now i'm sure ive left stuff out here. But i'm convinced that the vast majority of the population has no idea to which the state has the potential to control us. I'm not quite yet cynical enough to suggest they may have the desire as well, but the issue is, is that if they did have that wish, all the technological measures to do so are in place. And i'm fucking worried. Your thoughts?
1. Mobile Phones - Traceable, trackable, recorded, calls intercepted.
2. Home Phones - calls able to be intercepted or bugged if the government considers you a threat under 2001 Anti Terrorism legislation
3. E-mail - a common test a while back was sending two emails from one account to another; the one with 'bomb' or 'assassination' often came a little late.
4. Employee Tagging - recent news items revealed 10,000 Uk workers are tagged with electronic equipment enabling their employers to keep tracks of their whereabouts and activities throughout the day.
5. Storecards - Cards such as Nectar record for 'marketing' [remember the Bill Hicks gag, anyone] purposes our every purchase. They know where you shop, what you eat, wear, drink and smell like. Your allergies, addictions, etc.
6. Credit Cards - Read as above, although this time they know utterly everything, tracking is unavoidable unless you are willing to carry cash.
7. Car insurance - Norwich Union recently launched their new satnav tracking package for young drivers. So the technology and the inclination exists for people to know where you are 24/7, your travel habits, and your most common destinations.
8. Health - New plans to centralise UK health records to simplify treatment involve someone being in control of every bit of information regarding your body.
Now i'm sure ive left stuff out here. But i'm convinced that the vast majority of the population has no idea to which the state has the potential to control us. I'm not quite yet cynical enough to suggest they may have the desire as well, but the issue is, is that if they did have that wish, all the technological measures to do so are in place. And i'm fucking worried. Your thoughts?
2 Smokin Barrels said:
Usual stuff I s'pose. If you've nowt to hide, no probs.
If it's a by-product of all the other advantages of technical advances, no probs.
If it helps cut crime, no probs.
Yes but they keep redefining crime don't they. My mother has six points on her licence because roads she's driven on safely at 40 mph for fifty years have suddenly become unsafe at 31mph. As of today you risk a stretch if you tell a Jewish joke, or, God-forbid, a muslim joke (though there don't seem to be many of those for some reason anyway).
If, as seems likely, white heterosexual men are outlawed, where you going to hide?
tin foil hat anyone??
seriously though, when you look back at that list, it gets a bit worrying. but because it is for antiterror/environmental/legal/whatever purposes, most people will just shrug and say "well i'll be all right"
also the fact it didn't happen all at once, but with pauses between them means that the critical mass of people angry enough to do something will never be reached.
reminds me of the frog in a pot analogy.
seriously though, when you look back at that list, it gets a bit worrying. but because it is for antiterror/environmental/legal/whatever purposes, most people will just shrug and say "well i'll be all right"
also the fact it didn't happen all at once, but with pauses between them means that the critical mass of people angry enough to do something will never be reached.
reminds me of the frog in a pot analogy.
rooster said:
yertis said:
If, as seems likely, white heterosexual men are outlawed, where you going to hide?
The girls' changing rooms
at least its the pink room and not the stink room.
Roosty, I'm shocked. Have you been watching a certain, ahem, film "Out of the Pink & into the Stink"?
edited to say: I heard some fellas talking about it at work
2 Smokin Barrels said:
Usual stuff I s'pose. If you've nowt to hide, no probs.
If it's a by-product of all the other advantages of technical advances, no probs.
If it helps cut crime, no probs.
This is not tin foil hat mentality speaking here, but I think that is a very naive point of view.
There is something deeply sinister about the idea of the state having total control of our lives. Time we read Animal Farm again I think , because we seem to be going down a path that will take us to an Orwellian nightmare.
I won't live in a country where I am controlled, and where the government knows where I am, who I mix with , when I go out, when I stay in, and seeks to control and tax everything I do.
Its wrong. Pure and simple. And the idea that if you have nothing to hide there is no problem is misguided.
Society should exist on the premise that each citizen has the right to freedom of passage. Any measure which sets to monitor that movement is wrong, because it is not a great leap from monitoring someone to restricting someone - and thats when we all lose.
We must abandon apathy and fight these ideas.
I'm with topstuff on this. What I do, where I go, as long as it is legal is my business and no-one elses. I resent being monitored constantly - and it is only going to get worse. The argument that if you have nothing to hide why worry is naive and entirely misses the point. With a nanny state determined to poke its legislative nose into every aspect of our lives, what freedoms are you prepared to forgo when some misguided idiot in Whitehall decides it doen't fit with his particualr view of the world?
I'm not keen on the orwellian future, but I'm not keen on the media contolled future either.
Don't ever forget that the media presents these issues in a very subtle way. There are benefits to technology and disadvantages. It is enevitable that the development of information technology leads to problems like this.
The REALLY frightening part of this is that Government is so lacking in technological savvy.
In real terms the choice is not over which government to trust these issues with, but do you want the government or the media to be in control.
Edited to make sense;
>> Edited by dilbert on Thursday 9th June 23:42
Don't ever forget that the media presents these issues in a very subtle way. There are benefits to technology and disadvantages. It is enevitable that the development of information technology leads to problems like this.
The REALLY frightening part of this is that Government is so lacking in technological savvy.
In real terms the choice is not over which government to trust these issues with, but do you want the government or the media to be in control.
Edited to make sense;
>> Edited by dilbert on Thursday 9th June 23:42
In my opinion the benefits of technological intervention and the all-encompassing state, such as ease of provision of services such as health and policing in particular, and commercial advantages such as store card points are meaningless when compared to the potential for a human being to lose his or hers freedom of activity.
RickApple said:
In my opinion the benefits of technological intervention and the all-encompassing state, such as ease of provision of services such as health and policing in particular, and commercial advantages such as store card points are meaningless when compared to the potential for a human being to lose his or hers freedom of activity.
But the fact is that technology can both give and take freedom. For example technology is allowing this conversation to take place.
We live in an increasingly information-based economy.
Goods are no longer profitable - it's information, it's demographics, what you know.
And if you're living in a country where the government know every last thing about you, they 'own' you, you are its assets.
So you've got to ask - what will they do with them then?
Goods are no longer profitable - it's information, it's demographics, what you know.
And if you're living in a country where the government know every last thing about you, they 'own' you, you are its assets.
So you've got to ask - what will they do with them then?
RickApple said:
Well yes, but its not as if we couldnt have it in the pub or in the park....
Yes, but that's the issue.
The answer to the problem of road pricing is technology. If you want to get people off the road, you use technology, so that people don't have to be on the roads. The technology saved me from having to travel to the same park as you, yet we were still able to have a conversation.
So why is it that the government insist on developing the technology to track everybody? Shouldn't they be sponsoring the technology to prevent people from tracking you? That way, when you want to save yourself from having to journey down to the park, you can have an online converstion in saftey.
Sadly, the government of the day is your technological enemy, and not your ally. The answer is not to reject technology, it's to be stronger, and have the facilities to protect yourself.
If you don't you loose out, either the victim of technology, or the victim of not having the technology.
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