If anybody believes that they have the slightest privacy in this electronic age they are totally deluded. Some police forces have number plate detection cameras atop their cars that record every vehicle they pass such that everywhere that vehicle has been for years, and presumably that vehicle’s owner in most cases, can be extracted from a database.
Our smart phones enable enough data about our movements, history, life preferences and politics to be grabbed by governments and companies to fill volumes. Numbers of shopping centres round the world are dipping into data from such phones and sending it who knows where? Much of the data ends up in the USA where they maybe some constitutional protections for its own citizens but none for the rest of us.
If that isn’t enough our use of Facebook etc. gives governments even more information about ourselves to fill in any gaps in their knowledge. Doubtless, my views expressed in this blog have been collected somewhere by various government authorities. However, I am probably too insignificant for them to be bothered by them.
Edward Snowden’s revelations caused considerable protest against US spying by governments in Europe and elsewhere. Unsurprisingly, the Australian government along with both major political parties said nothing. It just hoped that the public would forget about it quickly.
Unfortunately, democracy is only as good as its Lowest Common Denominator. That translates as “democratic governments reflect the values and attitudes of the lowest level of their citizens where that lowest level boasts large numbers.”
It would seem certain that power brokers of our planet will destroy the environment and any semblence of a decent society at the same time as politically destroying the last vestiges of human freedom. In his vision of the future the only thing that George Orwell got wrong was the date!
cassandradoom 