1. INTRODUCTION
• Surveillance is always presented as harmless: “only criminals object”.
• But that mindset already flips the relationship between citizen and state.
• When people must explain why they don’t want to be monitored, freedom has started to erode.
• The onus is on the individual to justify what they are doing in a surveillance state but remember we are born free and the state should not interfere with our natural freedoms... only fascist states do this.
2. THE EROSION OF FREEDOM
• Most people do not notice how far things have move
• In the UK, layer after layer of monitoring has become normal, both by the state and by corporations and banks etc
• It feels heavy, restrictive, time consuming and increasingly intrusive ... and once these systems exist, they rarely disappear
• By contrast, life elsewhere outside States run by neurotic governments and paranoid people can still feel open, relaxed, friendly and genuinely free.
3. WHY GOVERNMENTS TURN TO SURVEILLANCE
• Authorities fear public objection and revolt when their policies stop serving ordinary people.
• This is the irony: a Labour government elected by working voters now builds tools to watch and limit those very voters.
• When trust weakens, governments do not retreat, they up the anti the escalate the tighten further the controls.
4. REAL-TIME FACIAL RECOGNITION — THE NEW POWER
• Live face-matching allows instant intervention whenever someone behaves in a way the authorities disapprove of.
• Behaviour doesn't have to be illegal, simply behaviour judged undesirable buy someone with power over you power to limit your choices, your decisions, your freedom.... to satisfy their own ends, not yours
• This gives the state the ability to police your:
– attitude
– expression
– movemen
– dissent
Such power has no place in a free society.
5. THE PSYCHOLOGICAL DAMAGE
• The real harm happens inside people’s heads.
• When you know you are being watched, you censor yourself.
• People become:
– anxious
– cautious
– predictable
• Creativity collapses because people avoid risk.
• Innovation weakens because imagination needs freedom, surveillance is a turn off a no-no.
6. THE END STATE
• A watched population becomes manageable but dull and lifeless.... robotic in the sense of programmed
• People move and speak like they are walking on eggshells.
• The result is a nation of cardboard cut-outs ... obedient, frightened, and easily directed.
• This is not safety. It is control dressed up as protection. What has the state really got to fear from its people other than dissent, revolt, replacement.
7. CONCLUSION
The authorities can see the economy, society and politics - "events" - spiraling out of their control and the surveillance state will, they think, extend the duration of their power over the citizenry. In this way they can continue ruling in their own interests and avoid proceedings against them for corrupt behaviour.
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