Tim,
I would not worry about the Orwellian world too much because it is already
with us. For example, certain departments of the Crown, I believe Custom
and Excise is one and there is one other, which can enter any home without
a warrant. London is already the most heavily surveilled city in the
world. Moreover, t-ray surveillance, aka millimetre wave imaging aka
tadar, allows the authorities to look inside buildings or into bags or
under clothing.
With all of this surveillance, street crime will continue. With all of
this surveillance, benefit fraud will continue.
We need not worry about the technology, we need to worry about the people,
like you and me, who operate the machines and to what ends. When we worry
about the ends, I believe we benefit from having a healthy democratic
system that allows this process. To put it differently, would we have
this e-mail exchange if we lived in North Korea? The ends raise an
important caveat because we are lucky enough to live in a liberal
democratic system, which affords us due process and legal redress for
abuses by the state. If the regime changes then we will have problems. We
need to be vigilant against that change because the balance between
individual and state is always precarious and weighted in the state's
favour. To sustain that balance we need to exercise our rights under the
FOIA, DPA, and RIPA. However, we, as individuals within a liberal
democratic system, have accepted that social contract which has given rise
to the surveillance society.
For more information on the question of surveillance, surveillance
technology, and people's attitudes to surveillance see the Information
Commissioner's website:
http://www.ico.gov.uk/documentUploads/CCTV%20report.pdf
The report does give one pause for thought.
Best regards,
Lawrence
Lawrence W. Serewicz
Scrutiny Manager
Management Support Unit
Wear Valley District Council
01388-761-985
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