George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house – ThisIsLondon.co.uk: Those Brits really love their CCTV cameras…
The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell’s 1984 has become a reality – in the shadow of the author’s former London home.
It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell’s vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person’s movements is now here.
According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras – one for every 14 people in the country – and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.
Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell’s fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.
On the wall outside his former residence – flat number 27B – where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.
In related news, Reuters is reporting that British goverment wants to install loudspeakers to CCTV cameras to berate people if they are misbehaving.
“Talking CCTV is another tool in creating safer communities,” Reid said in a statement. “It uses modern technology to allow camera operators to speak directly to people on the streets to stop or prevent them acting anti-socially.”
Wasn’t that almost word for word Big Brother’s job description in ‘1984’, over and above recording every action of every person in the country at any given time?
As I recall, the citizenry in ‘1984’ weren’t very happy (stunned, really).
So why are we doing this to ourselves? I guess we’re choosing stunned safety over glorious freedom? Well, it’s not like we weren’t warned.
Sorry about that, Patrick Henry (and great grandchildren). We really, really let you down!
Liberty … you don’t know what you have until it’s gone.
I’m more worried about the cameras you don’t see. They cost a dime a dozen.
Plastic decoy cameras that make you turn away to the real hidden one…
From a time when America was about to lead the world on these issues:
“Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
Benjamin Franklin circa 1755.
And they dare to claim that Judge Dredd is based on the US.
Irony is dead, because it’s not really all that funny any more.
The thing I love about this is …….sitting in the University pub with my Brit mates, drinking beer and listening to them rag me about how we Yanks have no freedoms anymore. I just smile….while we talk there are 4 CCTV cameras in the room with us, if we walk out to the terrace above the river, there are 3 more….as we walk home to our various rooms, we are watched through the whole campus by at least 14 more cameras and are on camera as we enter our housing buildings and more cameras as we go to our rooms. The sad part is…..none of them seem to notice.
This isn’t an isolated incident….but a 58 y/o woman goes into a pub, wearing a plastic rain head piece(because it’s raining cats and dogs outside) and being told to remove it or leave….she protests(her hair is all frizzy) and she is told the CCTV must be able to see the full face of any patron. This is now standard procedure in bars, resturants and most public commercial buildings.
It’s not a joke anymore….and when I read about the new **berating speakers**, I just shook my head.
the CCTV must be able to see the full face of any patron. This is now standard procedure in bars, resturants and most public commercial buildings.
It’s not a joke anymore….and when I read about the new **berating speakers**, I just shook my head.
Comment by joshua — 4/4/2007 @ 10:49 pm
Is this true? Good Grief, Charlie Brown. So the next big biz there is undetectable face masks good enough to fool the face recognition software. Not like it’s going to be going on in airports here in the US….
#9….Unfortunatly….yes….it’s true. Sadly, as I said above….very few people are agitated by this growing menace.