Big Brother Is Watching

Big Brother Is Watching

You see the number of cameras on the roads these days or the insane amount of cameras all over the place. You've probably gotten used to the notion that where ever you turn, you're probably going to be on some digitally recorded video camera and you know, not fear, that big brother is watching your every move.

Which in itself is pretty scary. Not because you're up to something, but because you're being watched under the assumption that you may be up to something. In a sense it's guilty till proven innocent beyond a reasonable doubt.

Just look at street cameras. Those cameras on red lights or the ones that are above to monitor the flow of traffic are just one inappropriate use away from overstepping basic civil right. Let's be real, it's one thing to have cameras on every block:



But another when they are all over the place and most of all, you don't even see them anymore. Take for example the folks of Lancaster, Ca. They're going to have a public forum meeting tonight to see if they want to allow drone/man flown planes in the air at 10 hours at a time looking down on the whole High Desert.

It' essentially bringing a little bit back from Iraq. That little bit being the death from above predator drones in a capacity that will be used to... protect the neighborhood. I mean, who cares about privacy when you can look up on the internet where she was for the last few hours. More than likely she tweeted about every moment of such a cool night.

But anyhow, back to the issue at hand, it seems that you should prepare your funeral because the Death of Privacy is coming from Above...

Lancaster is weighing a proposal to allow police to perform surveillance using a specially equipped small plane capable of recording people’s movements on the ground.

The plan would involve a $1.3-million, piloted Cessna 172 fixed-wing aircraft affixed with optical equipment that would circle the High Desert town at altitudes of 1,000 to 3,000 feet some 10 hours a day, Lancaster officials said. The technology, developed by Lancaster-based Spiral Technology Inc., would record video footage that would be transmitted to the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department.

“We have worked closely with the sheriff’s department over the past four years to ensure we do everything to stomp out crime,” Lancaster Mayor R. Rex Parris said in a statement. “Now, the sheriff’s department will have an aerial advantage to add to their arsenal.”

The city’s initial plans to launch a so-called “eye-in-the-sky” aerial surveillance system two years ago were shelved after privacy concerns were raised by civil liberty advocates and some residents. Critics argued that the system bordered on government-sanctioned snooping. Others challenged spending money on a high-tech plane when helicopters could be used.

The city plans to pay for the program using existing funds in the fiscal-year budget, city officials said. The charge for surveillance would run around $300 an hour, or about $90,000 a month. The aircraft would be fueled and maintained at a local Lancaster airfield.

Lancaster’s city council is scheduled to consider the proposal Tuesday. If approved, the program would start next spring, officials said.

Talk about some shady shit. Though I guess this means that the high desert will no longer be a good place to go out and make meth. I just don't get it. How is it that we can be so carefree to throw away any of our civil rights.

I'm not even opposed to this because of my inability to commit crimes in the high desert. But because this just seems like a huge stomp on your right to privacy and the whole notion that you're being monitored under the assumption of criminal activities seems really wrong.

Besides that, wouldn't a helicopter be a whole lot cheaper or even one of the predator drones they're doing death from above across in Afghanistan. At least then it will be honest. And even if they are doing this with encoded encryption, how long till it's cracked? I'm willing to bet that you won't be very comfortable sitting in your back yard pool in your swimsuit anymore when you think that an organization could be looking at you from above.

Not to mention that it's a slippery slope. How is this not a step towards just automating the whole process. We've become too accepting of an eye in the sky. So for the sake of Lancaster as well as the safety of privacy for the rest of the areas as I'm sure the way one city goes in stripping away your rights, the rest will soon follow.