This Is Our Future in 1984.

“Big Brother is Watching You.”

Do you ever feel like you are being watched? Do you ever feel that you should be watched at all times of your life? Have you ever read 1984 by George Orwell? Do you see any similarities to our current state of the country? You are under constant surveillance and you have no idea. There are hidden applications being run on your smart phone to track your whereabouts and even send pictures without your knowledge or permission, There are cameras on street corners all across America supposedly to catch people running red lights and speeding, but what are they really catching? They have the ability to trace, monitor and record all forms of communications. What happened to the Fourth Amendment, being safe in your personal effects?

The Patriot Act is one of the most diabolically intrusive pieces of legislation passed since the Alien and Sedition Act of 1798. It gives power to the Government to wiretap without a warrant, without reason and without an official report of the findings of the wiretap. It allows Big Brother to monitor and record your private communications of every type. Every single resident, not citizen, resident is subject to this invasion of privacy. Who do you believe would be in control of this act? That’s right the dictator in chief. The president can order an illegal invasion of your privacy without giving reason, with no approval from anyone, and with no official report to be given of the findings of the wiretap; I wonder how this could be used fraudulently. This was signed into law by a republican president after the events of September 11^th 2001, it was approved by the then sitting congress. When the democrat president took office after him he allowed continuation of this law.  Again this was approved by the sitting congress. This is Bipartisanship at its worst.

The issue of Smart meters has become a big one in the past few months. If you do not know what the smart meter is, I will give you a rundown of the idea. The power companies who hold a monopoly on each and every community and city in the country are pushing for a new meter, one that would make it possible for them to wirelessly read your meter. Now what this does in actuality is lay off the people who were reading it manually, the power company will say that they are being relocated to various positions but in reality they are being released back into the wilds of unemployment. The power companies also say that this will update the “grid” and will provide the consumer the ability to see areas of potential change in their energy consumption. Now that sounds cool huh? You can go online and see what time of the day you are using energy. Now what would happen if a criminal hacked into these accounts and could see if you are home or not by your energy consumption, or since these meters can link with individual appliances around your home, they could see if you have an alarm set or even installed? Still sound so cool? Now another aspect of these “smart meters” that the power company doesn’t want you to know is the health and safety risks involved, what they will not tell you is that the meter emits radio frequency waves 24 hours a day 7 days a week, they won’t tell you of the multiple house fires reportedly caused by these meters, they won’t tell you of the radio frequency waves interfering with medical devices and causing health problems in people from all age groups. Why can’t they tell you this? Because you would possibly fight it and then they wouldn’t be able to spy on you.

Red light cameras and street cameras are everywhere these days. The use of the traffic camera is one that cities across the nation are undertaking, WHY? Revenue, that’s why. But hang on there are some constitutional challenges here, what about due process of law, how can one be judged guilty by a photo of a vehicle that is assumed to be driven by the owner of the vehicle. There are cases where the driver of the car is not the registered owner of the car, but that doesn’t matter to the court, you own the car you pay the ticket. There have been cases where the officers that have viewed the picture and signed off on the ticket have made mistakes in the characters of the plate number, this results in the owner of another vehicle receiving a citation. What do the police think about this; well many times it is the person who has received the citations responsibility to prove that it is not his tag or vehicle. The use of traffic cameras has taken the basic presumption of “innocent until proven guilty” and turned it completely on its head. But why do they need to monitor our driving? What are they looking for? How can this be used to spy on us. Let’s take Ybor city, Tampa Florida for example, the cameras that the city uses are installed for the purpose of catching vehicular regulation violations, but why then do they point to the streets? Why then do they have facial recognition software? Why then have they used this to catch people walking down the street that had misdemeanor warrants for arrest? Why are they tracking people if their use is for tracking vehicles?  

Smart Phone applications and operating systems now have the capabilities to track your every move and to take pictures of your surroundings even when you are not aware of it. Many of these applications are hidden in games and banking apps, there is one way to stop this intrusion in the early model smart phones, you can turn your location services off. But the new Operating systems will not have this option. It has been rumored that they will have the capability to take pictures and send them to storage sites for download by various agencies, we can hope not but in our current police state, I wouldn’t put it past them to do something like that. Why would they want to track your every move and take pictures without your consent or knowledge, what will they do with this added benefit to capture people at their most vulnerable, what will they use this for and when will it stop.

The ways in which the Government can track and monitor you are endless and the ways in which you can protect yourselves from this unlawful voyeurism are limited. Because we have encouraged and allowed this type of behavior for so long it will be hard for some to see giving up their false sense of security. There are many more ways that Big Brother can track you, RFID chips, drones being used over U.S. soil, magnetic strips on state and federal issued licenses and cards, the new implementation of black box devices in all new cars, even clocking in and out of work can be used against you at some point. What is it worth to you to remain free? What does it take for you to say you have had enough? When will Big Brother decide that your right to privacy is nothing compared to your complete subjection to their right to watch you? You are being watched 24/7.

What are you doing with your camera time?