George Orwell's novel Nineteen Eighty-Four describes Britain under a socialist totalitarian régime that continuously invokes (and helps to create) a perpetual war. This perpetual war is used as a pretext for subjecting the people to mass surveillance and invasive police searches. The state destroys not only the literal freedom after action and thought meant by expressions like "freedom of thought", but also literal freedom of thought.
From Qik:
4 comments:
As our old CEO used to say-
"You have no privacy, get over it!", 'if you have nothing to hide why worry?' :-D
Hi Matt,
Thanks for chiming in - but I disagree very strongly. Council workers are now using so called anti-terrorism laws to be able to spy on people for almost any reason or suspicion, even if it's not related to terrorism. This includes checking phone and email records.
You can be completely innocent, but not want other human beings (often faceless civil servants with no direct accountability) to be able to pry into your every action and behaviour, even when it's within the law and within the privacy of your own home.
Josh, what a tricky experience! I'm sorry you went through it.
I'm glad the policeman allowed you to film it. This is an great way for individual citizens to keep a check over the officers of the state. The right to film should be something worth campaigning for!
Over extension of police powers to things like random stop and search for counter terrorism is a result of our phobia of terrorism, fear of crime, our increasing individual powerlessness against crime and ultimately the trail leads back to the breakdown in family and community in our cities.
Weak communities lead to local vacuums which mean people ask for the police to deal with issues that might otherwise be solved with a quiet word. This forces the police to over extend their powers. This is the authoritarianism you fear.
One point of yours in the video I think might be worth pursuing out of interest - what is the definition of a random stop and search? Clearly it's not one in five - it's more of a discretionary stop and search - the policeman picked you because you looked shifty?
Toby
Hi Toby,
Thanks for the comment. It actually wasn't me in the video; I picked up from a twitter link to Qik, but thanks for the sympathy!
Agree with you though - as long as citizens have the right to see clearly what officers of the state are doing it becomes much more difficult to abuse power.
The choice of random/discretionary is an interesting one. Personally I'd prefer that people are only searched if there is valid suspicion, rather than people at random being subjected to intensive and personal searching for no real reason. The problem here is that the personal prejudices of the police officers can cause issues; showing that they're just human, another reason that their power over other people must be limited.
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