Governments use fear to cancel individual liberties, but they never mention what we should all fear the most: totalitarian government. From Elizabeth Melton at thedailyeconomy.org:
Targeted by smart doorbells or license plate readers, but tempted just to shrug off losses of privacy? The cumulative price of surveillance is higher than we can imagine.
A surveillance state is being erected around the American public at an alarming rate. In many urban and suburban settings, anyone traveling on public streets or sidewalks will have his image captured by the ubiquitous surveillance cameras. A leisurely stroll around the neighborhood, as well as any conversation along the way, might be recorded if the city uses surveillance-enabled street lights. Even our own front yards might not be safe from the prying eyes of the state if a neighbor has a “smart” doorbell that shares data with law enforcement.
Rural areas are not exempt from this intrusion. Automatic License Plate Reader cameras (ALPRs, often contracted under the brand name FLOCK), are being placed on rural highways and on county lines in an increasing number of areas. Audio and video surveillance now cover remote corners of the Amazon Basin. Satellite technology could ensure that, one day, no square foot of the planet is unobserved.
The power of the modern surveillance state is without historical precedent. The argument that “there is no expectation of privacy in public” no longer adequately addresses the huge quantities of data that surveillance apparatus captures, stores, and analyzes.
While civil rights and other niche groups are sounding the alarm about the dangers of Big Brother, critics are surprisingly underrepresented among popular news outlets. When the topic of citizen surveillance is covered at all, these stories are often portrayed as a benign solution to a dangerous problem with the dangers to civil liberties receiving a brief nod, if even mentioned.
So why does the average citizen not have greater concern over these intrusions upon their civil liberties, in some cases even championing it? One answer to that question might be that these systems are a Trojan Horse. While they are dressed up as a gift that will protect society from all that they fear, it is the gift itself that poses the greatest threat.
