Capitol Hill Blue Forums Political Issues Constitutional Issues Big brother is watching

Many years ago the company I worked for was about to make some dramatic middle management changes and three post age 50 types fell victim to this sudden purge. Gone on Friday and youthful replacements in the office on Monday. Of course the replacements had lower salaries and a different title but the move was obvious. They sued. But after a few months their lawyers felt the case would be sketchy at best.

Since I worked with payroll and had access to some information that could be of great help such as job descriptions, Total personnel files (including confidential memo's) and personnel action forms I made copies and funneled the information to the victims who were eventually rewarded with a nice settlement. All they ever knew was what was sent and not who sent it (Moi). Totally anonymous on my part.

This was - IMO - a fairly cut and dry situation. It was obvious that valued employees were being jettisoned simple over age. I doubt any would disagree.

Now the current espionage on civilian population appear to be a grey area. One part of me buys into the whole national security but the part that does not is the one that says just how far will they go? Just how much do I trust government? I'm cynical enough to say "very little" and I would do as Snowden did.

There are a lot of decent people in the world. Doing a good deed anonymously is doing a good deed. I prefer discretion myself, but sometimes it isn't an option. I've always emphasized discretion and anonymity. However, sometimes the only choices are either to keep quiet or get another job. Snowden knew that he'd be tracked down as the source of the leak before too long and leaked the info anyway, which was one monumental sacrifice and act of courage! At any rate, his life is over. He knew what he was doing, because it troubled him enough to do it. God bless him! I just hope that it's not a waste of a life.

Complete surveillance of Americans isn't a power or control that should be allowed to government. It's not about keeping us "safe," but rather complete control. The way America is headed in our not too distant dystopian future is that a cop sitting in his/her squad car (or helicopter) will be able to pull up any citizen's records, traffic, criminal, medical, financial, educational, etc. from some massive data base. What pisses off the rest of the world is not only the US being privy to state secrets, but also industrial espionage.

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Joe:

What did he promise in that clip? He said no wiretapping, no tracking citizens because of their protesting a war, no more national security letters to spy on people who are not suspected of a crime, no more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient.

Show me what the current administration has done that is in contravention of those promises.

The term big Brother is watching has implications. The implications are from the book 1984. The implications are that big brother is not only watching he's doing something about it. He is disapproving of your behavior.

But in order for this analogy makes sense I think there has to be a connection between whatever watching is being done and some sort of social or political manipulation. And that is my primary disagreement.

Yes there are security cameras perhaps all over the place and they're watching/recording I suppose. And there are databases of what number has called what other number. B

But what are they actually doing to shape or judge my life?

Conceptually such systems could be the basis for some sort of big brother type of program... some program that intends to modify peoples believes behaviors and expressions.

But to me that it's not what I see being done What I see is that for instance with occupy Wall Street people went out on the street to make their point. Tea parties have rallies they do whatever they want to do to express their opinion. People are on the street expressing their opinions about all sorts of stuff... Both publicly and privately. There is no shortage at all of people expressing negative opinions about Obama... And they do not seem to disappear or suffer consequences.

I do not see big brother programs that are altering peoples freedom or restricting the way that people behave. And in fact if these so-called big brother programs were indeed as effective as apparently proposed, why don't they stop drug trafficking. Why don't they stop rape. Why don't they stop gun trafficking. Why are law enforcement agencies surprised by mass murderers that they have bugged and monitored for every instant of their lives?

There's all manner of things that theoretically could be easily controlled if we really did have some sort of all-knowing big brother society, keeping track of everything everyone does. But instead of knowing all this stuff ahead of time, Law enforcement seems only to find out after the fact, and even has a hard time figuring out who did what. How is this possible if they are intruding into every waking moment of each of our lives?

But that said I don't see people being inhibited in a particular way by this so-called big brother society we live in. I don't see that the so called security state is causing people to live their lives differently, I don't see that people feel a lack of freedom to express themselves. I do not see a reluctance to criticize the administration.

SO what the heck? If we live in this tremendously intrusive security state.... How come they seem so very inefficient in doing all the social structuring that is associated with the book 1984? How is it that people on this forum free to openly speak out against the administration?

It seems to me that in order to have a 1984 type scenario, there has to be more than databases, more than cameras.... there has to be verifiable evidence that people are being repressed in their thoughts, expressions and actions. And I just do not see that.