05 April 2014

Your Digital Papers Please

The Establishment or Power Elite fear the connectivity available in the new technologies. Never before have the ruling regimes and their corporate collaborators felt such fear. I don't believe they are primarily afraid of terrorists along the lines of Al Qaeda. These surveillance and police programmes as well as some of the strategic goals of the War on Terror antedate 2001.

Terror is serving the same purpose as Communism did during the Cold War. It's the perceived threat that is important, not the actual danger. Far more people die every day from car accidents, the flu and suicides than terrorism. A permanent enemy justifies the goals and aspirations of the Capitalist-Industrial class. It's an excuse, a rallying cry, a narrative. Whether the threat is real or not has little to do with it.

The technology has afforded them the ability to consolidate power like never before but it has also proven a useful tool to their enemies, the activists that would use media to expose them, and by stirring grass root passions to overthrow them and cast them down.

Right now we don't need to fear the surveillance state. The present is simply the establishment of precedent. When the next big terror attack or some other event occurs, then all the programmes that will have been up and running can really begin to function and be applied.

Not only will they go after the dissenters but corporations will also be empowered by this information. The level of surveillance has reached the point that if the totality of gathered information were collated it would be quite easy to recreate the movements of individuals as well as trace them in the present. The utilization of drones will only enhance this capability.

The so-called and misnamed War on Terror has unleashed a whirlwind of new domestic powers and the police have been put on the front line.

With the consolidation of wealth and the growing underclass it would seem social conflict is inevitable. Are these laws and procedures being enshrined to deal with anticipated domestic unrest?

Those who believe the philosophy of Machiavelli is the order of the day might argue the coming social unrest is in fact being orchestrated in order to fully implement these laws.

Bureaucracies by nature seem to justify their existence and there is no surer way to do this than to expand jurisdictional reach and function. The sphere of law enforcement has greatly benefitted from the new post-2001 paradigm. They have been increasingly militarized and granted sweeping powers. The already existent megalomania and sociopathic behaviour that seems to be inherent in the community has reached new heights.

We continually hear of license plate readers, the plans to acquire drones, but the police are also increasingly availing themselves of 'Stingray' mobile phone towers which are doing nothing more than collecting massive amounts of personal data and registering movement.

Growing up during the Cold War we always joked about the poor people in the Eastern Bloc who had to show their 'papers' and were restricted in their movements. Was this to restrict movement for movement's sake? Largely it was about control and tracking. Their Secret/Internal Police forces were afraid of subversive activity and infiltrators.

We've already moved beyond that. We don't need bored guards standing at checkpoints. The guards of course also functioned as a fear/deterrent to the people of the oppressed society. We don't need that here. The public is already afraid of terror and knows they are being surveilled. In addition they are distracted by worldly cares and brainwashed and manipulated by the consumer economy.  America doesn't need guards with checklists. All the information that would be collected at a checkpoint (and much more) can be collected via automated technology. We're showing our 'papers' without even realizing it.

When the government combines its own resources with that of the corporate world, they already possess far more information about all of us than the Stasi or Gestapo could have even dreamed of acquiring.

The restriction of movement was a hindrance to freedom but for many of the people who live in such societies it was also the fact that even if you could go here or there, you still didn't feel 'free' because you knew that you might be watched. Today we can count it.

The powers that be fear trouble is on the horizon and are taking steps to counter it and counteract it. The irony is that in many ways they are creating a self-fulfilling prophecy. Their actions are beginning to upset people and leading to a growing resistance, but right now it doesn't seem to be enough.

We should have no part in this new state paradigm. It is fundamentally deceitful and thrives in a climate of fear and violence. It is also a form of theft. They are stealing our thoughts and the basic privacy necessary to freedom. We pay their taxes but we don't owe them an account of our thoughts and actions if we're law abiding and not harming others.

Rejecting the new paradigm outright we as Christians need to reconsider our place in this society, our use of technology and to what degree we are invested in the social project.

While I believe the notion of a Christian Social Consensus is something to be rejected, has our society reached a point that it's becoming almost impossible to function within the mainstream and maintain moral integrity?
Here are some related links:
http://www.wired.com/2014/03/stingray/




 
 

1 comment:

  1. You're crazy if you let 'Alexa' or Google Home or any of this stuff into your house. No one imagined that 1984's telescreen would happen voluntarily.

    Amazon's connections to the state and intel services seem to grow by the day.

    http://www.zdnet.com/article/amazon-turns-over-record-amount-of-customer-data-to-us-law-enforcement/

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