BS: 1984 -- 20 years on

Subject: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: TheBigPinkLad
Date: 16 Apr 04 - 01:37 PM

It's now 20 years since we passed George Orwell's fictitious triumph of Big Brother. Many Western jurisdictions have enacted legislation to ensure Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy. Are you finding information more accessible and your privacy better protected?

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 16 Apr 04 - 01:59 PM

a lot of things from 1984 seem to be coming true,

look at the naming of the patriot act, which basically is a restriction of freedoms.

former allies, are now enemies and vice versa,

in the Uk there's security cameras everywhere, some can see into peoples apartments.

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: Bill D
Date: 16 Apr 04 - 02:14 PM

What gives me the chills is that the US could have had Spiro Agnew for president in 1984, if HE hadn't been removed before Nixon! It would have all come true under that SOB!

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: GUEST
Date: 17 Apr 04 - 12:14 PM

No news is good news, and Agnew 's bad news

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: steve in ottawa
Date: 17 Apr 04 - 12:45 PM

I always thought George Bush Sr. gave the States a horribly nasty poison pill by choosing Dan Quayle as his running mate. One can only guess he feared impeachment over the Iran/Contra scandal.

Security Cameras:

There's an idea circulating in the science fiction crowd (first saw Dave Brin use it) that with the advent of broadband wireless communications, everyone may start carrying video cameras, especially elderly people who want a bit of personal security. We already have camera phones. Imagine continuously transmitting video back to your home computer. A somewhat horrible thought, that wherever you went in public, people may be filming you, but also, a comforting thought that you will be physically safer because of that filming. I'm not sure what would bother me most. (I think I'd want to enact laws prohibiting video devices that could focus on a face at over 300 feet.) This sort of thing would also give people limited protection from individual bad police officers.

There's another idea for public video cameras: put 'em up with public funds, but encrypt the data so that three or four keys are required to access the information: for instance, decryption keys held by the city, the province, the local branch of Amnesty International, and the Concerned Folksingers of MyTown. When a crime has been committed in an area, all four groups would have to supply the appropriate keys to give investigators access to the video. This technology is already feasible. Of course, judging from the huge expense governments tend to spend per unit on red-light cameras and photo-radar vans, perhaps it isn't affordable quite yet.

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Apr 04 - 05:26 PM

The actual date was just Orwell reversing the date he wrote it - 1948 became 1984. An arbitrary date, picked to be close enough to feel real, but far off enough to allow it to be different.

The actual technology envisaged in 1984 is one we now have. Not just the physical technology, the way in which language gets remodelled so that it becomes impossible to think certain thoughts.

The shape of the world is not that dissimilar to that envisaged - three big powers, the USA, including Airstrip One, Europe, and China, and everything in between is where the permanent war gets fought.

Some significant differences - at this point anyway the USA superpower is in a different league from the others, whereas Orwell's world has a relative balance between them. And it's a more comfortable and less formally centralised regime, with a greater degree of tolerated personal freedom. But potentially the amount of control which can be brought to bear on anyone identified as a non-person is every bit as great as Orwell envisaged.

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: Gareth
Date: 17 Apr 04 - 07:47 PM

Carefull Kevin - "Airstrip One" could go over a lot of heads !

Don't forget "Working Class" Political memory links the reversal of the alliance between Eurasia and Oceania as a pastiche on the Comunist Party of Great Brittain Conference in 1941.

Harry Pollitt (Qv) was passed a note saying "Hitler has Invaded Russia" - And without him even blushing this "Capitalist War" became the "Great Patriotic War"

Gareth

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Apr 04 - 08:41 PM

If it goes over their heads they can't have read the book or seen the film, so presumably they wouldn't be contributing to the thread? Or is that naive of me.

The Ministry of Truth is supposed to have been based on Orwell's time with the BBC. In fact the whole thing is in many ways very 1948 flavoured, hence the austerity aspect.

But the idea of a society where everything you do can be scrutinised and recorded, which seemed like wildly over the top at the time, is now virtually here. It's just happened in a different framework. And the same goes for the idea of a permanent war at a distance being a method for a power elite retaining control.

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 18 Apr 04 - 01:35 AM

Well, I read the book a half-century ago, and I'd forgotten about "Airstrip One." I've never been able to read it again. It gave me the horrors. Too much truth.

I suppose If I was British "Airstrip One" would have made more of an impression on me.

I remember some of the newspeak: blackwhite, doublethink, ducktalk &c because, I suppose, there's a lot of it going round.

And as you say, "the idea of a society where everything you do can be scrutinised and recorded, which seemed like wildly over the top at the time, is now virtually here.... And the same goes for the idea of a permanent war at a distance being a method for a power elite retaining control. "

clint

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: Firecat
Date: 18 Apr 04 - 03:21 PM

Well, I wouldn't know what life was like before 1984. That's the year I was born!!

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: Amos
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 07:16 PM

Declan McCullagh writes:

http://news.com.com/2061-10796_3-5820618.html

Montana Supreme Court justice warns Orwell's 1984 has arrived
August 5, 2005 12:13 PM PDT

Believe it or not, it's perfectly legal for police to rummage through
your garbage for incriminating stuff on you -- even if they don't have a
warrant or court approval.

The Supreme Court of Montana ruled last month that police could conduct
a warrantless "trash dive" into the trash cans in the alley behind the
home of a man named Darrell Pelvit. The cops discovered pseudoephedrine
boxes -- a solvent with uses including the manufacture of
methamphetamine -- and Pelvit eventually ended up in prison.

Pelvit's attorney argued that his client had a reasonable expectation of
privacy in his trash, but the court rejected the argument and said the
trash was, well, meant to be thrown away.

What's remarkable is the concurring opinion of Montana Supreme Court
Justice James C. Nelson, who reluctantly went along with his colleagues
but warned that George Orwell's 1984 had arrived. We reproduce his
concurring opinion in full:

---

Justice James C. Nelson opines:

I have signed our Opinion because we have correctly applied existing
legal theory and constitutional jurisprudence to resolve this case on
its facts.

I feel the pain of conflict, however. I fear that, eventually, we are
all going to become collateral damage in the war on drugs, or terrorism,
or whatever war is in vogue at the moment. I retain an abiding concern
that our Declaration of Rights not be killed by friendly fire. And, in
this day and age, the courts are the last, if not only, bulwark to
prevent that from happening.

In truth, though, we area throw-away society. My garbage can contains
the remains of what I eat and drink. It may contain discarded credit
card receipts along with yesterday's newspaper and junk mail. It might
hold some personal letters, bills, receipts, vouchers, medical records,
photographs and stuff that is imprinted with the multitude of assigned
numbers that allow me access to the global economy and vice versa.

My garbage can contains my DNA.

As our Opinion states, what we voluntarily throw away, what we
discard--i.e., what we abandon--is fair game for roving animals,
scavengers, busybodies, crooks and for those seeking evidence of
criminal enterprise.

Yet, as I expect with most people, when I take the day's trash (neatly
packaged in opaque plastic bags) to the garbage can each night, I give
little consideration to what I am throwing away and less thought, still,
to what might become of my refuse. I don't necessarily envision that
someone or something is going to paw through it looking for a morsel of
food, a discarded treasure, a stealable part of my identity or a piece
of evidence. But, I've seen that happen enough times to
understand--though not graciously accept--that there is nothing sacred
in whatever privacy interest I think I have retained in my trash once it
leaves my control--the Fourth Amendment and Article II, Sections 10 and
11, notwithstanding.

Like it or not, I live in a society that accepts virtual strip searches
at airports; surveillance cameras; "discount" cards that record my
buying habits; bar codes; "cookies" and spywear on my computer; on-line
access to satellite technology that can image my back yard; and
microchip radio frequency identification devices already implanted in
the family dog and soon to be integrated into my groceries, my credit
cards, my cash and my new underwear.

I know that the notes from the visit to my doctor's office may be
transcribed in some overseas country under an out-sourcing contract by a
person who couldn't care less about my privacy. I know that there are
all sorts of businesses that have records of what medications I take and
why. I know that information taken from my blood sample may wind up in
databases and be put to uses that the boilerplate on the sheaf of papers
I sign to get medical treatment doesn't even begin to disclose. I know
that my insurance companies and employer know more about me than does my
mother. I know that many aspects of my life are available on the
Internet. Even a black box in my car--or event data recorder as they are
called--is ready and willing to spill the beans on my driving habits, if
I have an event--and I really trusted that car, too.

And, I also know that my most unwelcome and paternalistic relative,
Uncle Sam, is with me from womb to tomb. Fueled by the paranoia of
"ists" and "isms," Sam has the capability of spying on everything and
everybody--and no doubt is. But, as Sam says: "It's for my own good."

In short, I know that my personal information is recorded in databases,
servers, hard drives and file cabinets all over the world. I know that
these portals to the most intimate details of my life are restricted
only by the degree of sophistication and goodwill or malevolence of the
person, institution, corporation or government that wants access to my data.

I also know that much of my life can be reconstructed from the contents
of my garbage can.

I don't like living in Orwell's 1984; but I do. And, absent the next
extinction event or civil libertarians taking charge of the government
(the former being more likely than the latter), the best we can do is
try to keep Sam and the sub-Sams on a short leash.

As our Opinion states, search and seizure jurisprudence is centered
around privacy expectations and reasonableness considerations. That is
true even under the extended protections afforded by Montana's
Constitution, Article II, Sections 10. and 11. We have ruled within
those parameters. And, as is often the case, we have had to draw a fine
line in a gray area. Justice Cotter and those who have signed the
Opinion worked hard at defining that line; and I am satisfied we've
drawn it correctly on the facts of this case and under the conventional
law of abandonment.

That said, if this Opinion is used to justify a sweep of the trash cans
of a neighborhood or community; or if a trash dive for Sudafed boxes and
matchbooks results in DNA or fingerprints being added to a forensic
database or results in personal or business records, credit card
receipts, personal correspondence or other property being archived for
some future use unrelated to the case at hand, then, absent a search
warrant, I may well reconsider my legal position and approach to these
sorts of cases--even if I have to think outside the garbage can to get
there.

I concur.
/S/ JAMES C. NELSON
_______________________________________________

Subject: RE: BS: 1984 -- 20 years on
From: Ebbie
Date: 05 Aug 05 - 08:20 PM

Amos, I like that man!

Bill D, I have never thought that the timing of Spiro Agnew's downfall was accidental. I even wrote Jack Anderson to that effect. Remember Jack Anderson? After Drew Pearson he had that political scandal sheet in the Sunday paper supplement. I never heard back from him- probably thought I was loony - but I haven't changed my mind.

I think Agnew's bribetaking activities were well known in certain circles and it was not until Nixon was perceived to be vulnerable that the powers took steps to see to it that Agnew didn't become president.

Looking at it that way makes me face the possibility that our politics are ye long corrupted...