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It's not so much the abuse of a current or soon-to-exist camera network, it's the potential to go further.
What happens, when five years from now, they come back and say "cameras aren't enough to fight crime, terrorism, etc., we need something stronger - perhaps limit open access to certain parts of the city".
Unless you live out in the country, you're on a camera 10-20 times a day at various places (banks/ATMs, traffic, security, etc.). At some point, they will take things further. That's what is scary - that so-called Conservatives will allow them to take things to the next level, because they will not stop - give the government an inch, they will take the proverbial mile.
This isn't about us being watched on a camera, this is about our grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and the kind of USA that they will inhabit.

We're pretty much there already, it's just a matter of tying together a few loose ends.

What do you get when you take the unbiquitous cameras, covering essentially the entire public sphere, and add to the mix facial-recognition software, and then, you simply network the cameras together, with a database backend that tracks each and every face everywhere it goes, all the time?

What you get is the ultimate totalitarian police state -- and, to a frighteningly large number of putative "conservatives", this will be as close to utopia as possible.

There will be no "privacy", no "anonymity" (and again, the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" chorus starts up, to which I simply reply, "Then what of 'Publius' and 'The Federal Farmer'?")

If your face is an "unknown", it will simply be tracked as an "unknown" -- a unique "unknown". (After all, "unknown" does NOT mean "unidentifiable".)

Your "unknown" face will be assigned an index number in the database. Let's say you're "Unknown_Face_032306_0099" (the 99th new face discovered on 03-23-06). Everywhere that you go, you will be observed, and everywhere that you are observed, a database entry will be made for "Unknown_Face_032306_0099" -- gradually creating a lovely "audit path" of your life.

Eventually, you will supply a matching identity to go with that face. You'll renew your driver's license, or stop by the ATM, or get pulled over for a "traffic check".

At that moment, "Unknown_Face_032306_0099" will be updated to reflect your actual identity -- and therefore, your entire "life story" beginning on the very first day that "Unknown_Face_032306_0099" was "caught on tape", will be indexed for retrieval.

In "utopia", we're all "suspects."

I find it beyond surreal, that in a world which has been exposed to Orwell's work for over half a century, we find ourselves at the point that his "fictional" technology is within grasp, and, "the people", rather than shunning it, decrying it, fearing it... rather than doing whatever they can to steer society away from that nightmare, are clamoring for it -- so that they might feel "safe."

The irony of the phrase, "Big Brother is Watching You" is apparently lost on an entire generation.

For our contemporaries, the natural response to that caption is something along the lines of, "Good! It's about time! We need that kind of observation to be in place, to keep us safe!"

In Orwell's world, "Big Brother" was allegedly watching them to keep them safe -- to protect them.

The ultimate irony is that the real "Big Brother" infrastructure is being sold to us on exactly that same basis.

And we're buying it!

We're pretty much there already, it's just a matter of tying together a few loose ends. What do you get when you take the unbiquitous cameras, covering essentially the entire public sphere, and add to the mix facial-recognition software, and then, you simply network the cameras together, with a database backend that tracks each and every face everywhere it goes, all the time?

Remember TIA? Where the government was going to track all kinds of crap in one database - magazine subscriptions, credit card bills, personal travel, etc., etc., on everybody? For all intents and purposes we have it, only it's not one database, although it wouldn't take too much to tie it into one database. There's a database about airline travel, about large purchases (for an example you go through a federal check when you buy a house or other such property).

There's MATRIX which is a huge database ties a bunch of states and all of their records together, although some appear to be backing out or wanting to.

We have REAL ID which amounts to a National ID (while leaving the issuing to the states).

It's just a matter of time before something happens, and end up with the PATRIOT Act from hell, and then a liberal in office that will use it.

What you get is the ultimate totalitarian police state -- and, to a frighteningly large number of putative "conservatives", this will be as close to utopia as possible.

I have a theory that a lot of these "conservatives" are relative newcomers, i.e. are either young or converted from the Democrats in the past 10 or 15 years (not all young ones or converts are that way). I can't explain this desire for more government and more monitoring in any other way. HOWEVER! It could also be that we are no longer routinely exposed to examples of what police states are - we no longer have the Soviet Union, East Germany, etc., - the closest we have are North Korea and Cuba, and we turn Cubans away all the time, and we take pity on North Korea and provide them aid.

I find it beyond surreal, that in a world which has been exposed to Orwell's work for over half a century, we find ourselves at the point that his "fictional" technology is within grasp, and, "the people", rather than shunning it, decrying it, fearing it... rather than doing whatever they can to steer society away from that nightmare, are clamoring for it -- so that they might feel "safe."

I find it even more surreal for two reasons - one, his own country is leading the way with the US closely behind. The other, that there are enough of us to remember what totalitarian states were like. In Orwell's world, "Big Brother" was allegedly watching them to keep them safe -- to protect them.

The ultimate irony is that the real "Big Brother" infrastructure is being sold to us on exactly that same basis.

And we're buying it!

While this is all happening with Republicans in power, keep in mind that much of this was outlined during Clinton's time in office, but they didn't think the American people would buy it. The ideas were only able to be sold after 9/11 and with Republicans in office.

Most Americans probably know more about the people on American Idol or any of the other "reality" shows, than what their government is doing.

It's all in packaging, if you can wrap it up and write "for your own good" across the label, you can sell anything.