Speech recognition technology now makes it
possible for the government to carry out massive eavesdropping by way of
sophisticated computer systems. Phone calls can be monitored, the audio
converted to text files and stored in computer databases indefinitely. And if
any "threatening" words are detected--no matter how inane or silly--the record
can be flagged and assigned to a government agent for further investigation.
And in recent years, federal and state governments, as well as private
corporations, have been amassing tools aimed at allowing them to monitor
Internet content. Users are profiled and tracked in order to identify, target
and even prosecute them.
In such a climate, everyone is a suspect. And you're guilty until you can prove yourself innocent. To underscore this shift in how the government now views its citizens, just before leaving office, President Bush granted the FBI wide-ranging authority to investigate individuals or groups, regardless of whether they are suspected of criminal activity.
"Nothing
was your own except the few cubic centimetres inside your skull. "- George
Orwell
Here's what a lot of people fail to understand,
however: it's not just what you say or do that is being monitored, but how
you think that is being
tracked and targeted. We've already seen this play out on the state and federal
level with hate crime legislation that cracks down on so-called "hateful"
thoughts and expression, encourages self-censoring and reduces free debate on
various subject matter.
Total Internet surveillance is merely the next
logical step in the government's attempts to predict and, more importantly,
control the populace--and it's not as far-fetched as you might think. For
example, the NSA is now designing an artificial intelligence system that is
designed to anticipate your every move. In a nutshell, the NSA will feed vast
amounts of the information it collects to a computer system known as Aquaint
(the acronym stands for Advanced QUestion Answering for INTelligence), which
the computer can then use to detect patterns and predict behavior.
No information is sacred or spared. Everything
from cell phone recordings and logs, to emails, to text messages, to personal
information posted on social networking sites, to credit card statements, to
library circulation records, to credit card histories, etc., is collected by
the NSA. One NSA researcher actually quit the Aquaint program, "citing concerns
over the dangers in placing such a powerful weapon in the hands of a top-secret
agency with little accountability."
Thus,
what we are witnessing, in the so-called name of security and efficiency, is
the creation of a new class system comprised of the watched (average Americans
such as you and me) and the watchers (government bureaucrats, technicians and
private corporations).
Clearly,
the age of privacy in America is coming to a close. If Orwell's predictions
prove true, what follows will be even worse. "If you want a picture of the
future," he forewarned, "imagine a boot stamping on a human face--for ever."
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