Week 8 - Tute Task

Hi,

This weeks Tute Task we had to discuss a Cyber Punk film and then find a modern article to explore the similarities. The film and book I chose to do is '1984' originally written by George Orwell in 1949. It was made into a popular film in 1984. In the film there are cameras everywhere. They can see what you're doing, and quickly stop people who are doing anything the government disagrees with. I feel like this falls under the category of 'Corporate control over society.' Every house has a screen built into the wall that doubles as a camera. It plays propaganda 24/7, you can turn it down, but never off. A whole new dictionary has been created with dangerous words like 'protest' taken out of it, if the word doesn't exist how can people think it? Children are encouraged to turn in their parents for crimes against the state, and sex is designed to be purely for reproduction.

My own words are in red.

George Orwell, Big Brother is watching your house

George Orwell’s 1984 may not be as unlikely as we all thought. While North Korea and China have been compared to George Orwell’s totalitarian Britain before, signs of this political control are being seen in Western countries now.

The Big Brother nightmare of George Orwell's 1984 has become a reality - in the shadow of the author's former London home.

It may have taken a little longer than he predicted, but Orwell's vision of a society where cameras and computers spy on every person's movements is now here.

According to the latest studies, Britain has a staggering 4.2million CCTV cameras - one for every 14 people in the country - and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily.

Use of spy cameras in modern-day Britain is now a chilling mirror image of Orwell's fictional world, created in the post-war Forties in a fourth-floor flat overlooking Canonbury Square in Islington, North London.

On the wall outside his former residence - flat number 27B - where Orwell lived until his death in 1950, an historical plaque commemorates the anti-authoritarian author. And within 200 yards of the flat, there are 32 CCTV cameras, scanning every move.

Orwell's view of the tree-filled gardens outside the flat is under 24-hour surveillance from two cameras perched on traffic lights.

The flat's rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre in Canonbury Place.

In a lane, just off the square, close to Orwell's favourite pub, the Compton Arms, a camera at the rear of a car dealership records every person entering or leaving the pub.

Within a 200-yard radius of the flat, there are another 28 CCTV cameras, together with hundreds of private, remote-controlled security cameras used to scrutinise visitors to homes, shops and offices.

If someone is photographed that often in a day, it’s over 12 times an hour! It’s a gross violation of privacy knowing that we could be filmed at our homes, grocery shopping or at the local pub. The watchers would know everything about us and our daily habits.

The message is reminiscent of a 1949 poster to mark the launch of Orwell's 1984: 'Big Brother is Watching You'.

In the Shriji grocery store in Canonbury Place, three cameras focus on every person in the shop. Owner Minesh Amin explained: 'They are for our security and safety. Without them, people would steal from the shop. Although this is a nice area, there are always bad people who cause trouble by stealing.'

With all this CCTV footage, our privacy is being invaded by those designed to protect us. How long until they put CCTV inside our houses to ‘protect us’? When will other measures be implemented to insure our safety and the safety of the country? Soon we’ll have a TV, compulsory in all homes, that plays propaganda 24/7 (the likes of which are already found in North Korea). Things develop slowly, but they snowball out of control and this will happen with the CCTV cameras in London.

Three doors away, in the dry-cleaning shop run by Malik Zafar, are another two CCTV cameras.

'I need to know who is coming into my shop,' explained Mr Zafar, who spent £400 on his security system.

This week, the Royal Academy of Engineering (RAE) produced a report highlighting the astonishing numbers of CCTV cameras in the country and warned how such 'Big Brother tactics' could eventually put lives at risk.

When the government can see everything we are doing, they are going to try and quell unrest at its source. They can use the cameras to weed out opinions and ideas they don’t like, just like in 1984.

The RAE report warned any security system was 'vulnerable to abuse, including bribery of staff and computer hackers gaining access to it'. One of the report's authors, Professor Nigel Gilbert, claimed the numbers of CCTV cameras now being used is so vast that further installations should be stopped until the need for them is proven.

One fear is a nationwide standard for CCTV cameras which would make it possible for all information gathered by individual cameras to be shared - and accessed by anyone with the means to do so.

The RAE report follows a warning by the Government's Information Commissioner Richard Thomas that excessive use of CCTV and other information-gathering was 'creating a climate of suspicion'.

This idea of a ‘climate of suspicion’ naturally leads to fear, and more government control. At the rate Britain is deteriorating 1984 could be a reality in the next forty years. Forty years ago you didn’t even need a transport to travel to and from the country, now the government is controlling so heavily the traffic and trade of the country it will soon be cut off from the rest of the world. This will lead to people in Britain having to be totally self-reliant in order to survive. The government will use the CCTV cameras to ensure everyone does their part and there are no uprisings.

It’s a clear spiral that is inevitable- the British government already has the cogs in place to create a machine that they are in ultimate control over.

Only time will tell if George Orwell’s shocking predictions come true.

The original news article can be found here:
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/news/article-23391081-george-orwell-big-brother-is-watching-your-house.do