\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/consortiumnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/05\/street-surveillance.png\")
<\/a>By<\/strong>\u00a0<\/strong>Lee Camp<\/strong><\/a>\nSpecial to Consortium News<\/em><\/p>\n
While many of us remain quarantined \u2014 inexorably welded to our home\/apartment\/RV in an abandoned Walmart parking lot \u2014 the surveillance state is actually stretching its legs, brought out for a run by our friendly neighborhood oligarchs like a young golden retriever let off its leash on a nice day. Unfortunately, in this case what it\u2019s retrieving is all of our information, movements, thoughts and desires.<\/p>\n Right now violations of American\u2019s privacy rights do not hold many people\u2019s attention. We\u2019re too busy adapting to a new, confusing, and anxiety-filled form of existence. (Last week I myself finally saw my dentist, my therapist and my prostitute all via Zoom calls. Unfortunately, I had performance anxiety \u2013 but that was with the therapist [flaccid super-ego].)<\/p>\n More Americans have now been killed by Covid-19 than were killed during the Vietnam War. (I mean Americans killed in Vietnam of course. \u201cOthers\u201d killed have never much mattered to us.) As the virus death toll rises, various governments around the world have discussed using smart city technology to trace where infected people go and who they come in contact with. At first that sounds great. What kind of psychopath doesn\u2019t want to end this pandemic? But it turns out there\u2019s one problem with allowing the moneyed rulers to track every man, woman, and child. That problem \u2014 stop me if you guessed it \u2014 is that they\u2019re tracking every man, woman, and child.<\/p>\n >>Please<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0<\/em><\/strong>Donate<\/em><\/strong><\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0<\/em>CNs\u2019 25th Anniversary Spring Fund Drive<<<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n As was written in the crazy anarchist rag known as\u00a0Forbes Magazine<\/a>:<\/em><\/p>\n \u201c\u2026the use of masses of connected sensors makes it clear that the coronavirus pandemic is\u2013intentionally or not \u2013 being used as a testbed for new surveillance technologies that may threaten privacy and civil liberties. So aside from being a global health crisis, the coronavirus has effectively become an experiment in how to monitor and control people at scale.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Oh goody! I love being gerbilized for the ruling elite. (Maybe they\u2019ll give us yummy treats \u2013 like carrots or cucumbers.) And it\u2019s not just your phones they\u2019re tracking in these \u201csmart cities.\u201d<\/p>\n Forbes<\/em>\u00a0again<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cMaking use of a traffic light indicator system, their algorithm is able to anonymously identify and label people who maintain safe distances, while flagging violations.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n If they\u2019re able to track \u201cviolators\u201d who follow within a flying spit particle of someone else, then it stands to reason they could choose to track pretty much any other type of behavior. Such surveillance activity can effectively shut down all dissent or resistance, both large-scale and small. For example: would my hobby of mooning every Bank of America be an arrestable offense? Is a gentlemanly mooning illegal now? I thought this was a free country. What happened to \u201cGive us your tired, your poor, your huddled asses?\u201d Apparently, they didn\u2019t mean it. Now our asses have to be covered and they can\u2019t even be huddled \u2014 they have to be 6 feet apart.<\/p>\n Data Governance and SMART cities, @NTusikov lays down the concerns.\u00a0(Giulia Forsythe, Flickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Point is, the reason police officers post up every two blocks in minority neighborhoods is ostensibly to \u201ccatch\u201d people committing crimes. But as we know from the stats, most of these \u201ccrimes\u201d are really nothing \u2014 loitering, noise complaints, open alcoholic beverages, possession of a half a joint. Essentially the surveillance creates or stirs up the \u201ccrimes\u201d in order to lock up people of color, thereby protecting the class structure and insulating the rich.<\/p>\n As we\u2019ve seen in dictatorships the world over (most of them friends-with-benefits of the American government) a police state can be used (abused?) to arrest anyone the rulers desire. Now imagine a state where those political elite know exactly how and where you walk at all times \u2014 what you do, where you do it, and why you did it.<\/p>\n Dystopian Hellholes<\/strong><\/p>\n They\u2019re calling this kind of surveillance \u201csmart cities,\u201d but a more accurate term would be \u201cdystopian surveillance state hellholes.\u201d However, that name doesn\u2019t fit on the signage as easily as \u201csmart city.\u201d It\u2019s similar to how landlords give the shittiest apartment buildings grandiose names like \u201cThe Cromwell\u201d or \u201cThe Victorian.\u201d When you see a name like that, you know it has \u201cthe Bed Bugs.\u201d But they often throw in \u201cLe Black Mold\u201d free of charge. Hence, the fact they\u2019re calling these \u201csmart cities\u201d scares the shit out of me.<\/p>\n Army researchers investigate how the internet could complement military assets in urban operations.\u00a0(U.S. Army)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n Even if this technology is only used to help with the Coronavirus outbreak right now, what makes you think the top execs at America Inc. won\u2019t keep using it after the pandemic is over? As we know from the historical record \u2014 George W. Bush, Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, Donald Trump, etc. \u2014 if a government acquires a tool that swells its power, it never relinquishes that tool. No one in power ever says, \u201cYou know what? These nuclear weapons are kinda dangerous. We better get rid of them. And this unlimited surveillance of American citizens doesn\u2019t feel right anymore. Do me a favor and click the OFF switch on that big machine with the sign that reads \u2018Watch Everybody.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n As Edward Snowden stated<\/a>:<\/p>\n \u201cFive years later the coronavirus is gone, this data is still available to them \u2014 they start looking for new things. They already know what you\u2019re looking at on the internet, they already know where your phone is moving, now they know what your heart rate is. What happens when they start to intermix these and apply artificial intelligence to them?\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Think about that. If the government and big tech know someone\u2019s web searches, purchases, standard travel behavior and their heart rate, A.I. systems can basically figure out everything about them. They can know who you are, what you want, when you \u201cmisbehave\u201d in societal terms. The systems could define \u201cmisbehaving\u201d as criticizing power structures, pushing back against authority, or not giving in to the standard cultural institutions like marriage, car ownership, sports team allegiance, owning a treadmill you have an emotionally abusive relationship with, falling for a timeshare in the Virgin Islands you don\u2019t want and can\u2019t afford, etc.<\/p>\n \u201cI\u2019m Edward Snowden \u2013 Stop Watching Us, Berlin,\u201d 2013.\u00a0(mw238 Monitoring Your Pulse \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n The surveillance state can know that your heart races every time you see a fucking Cinnabon. They can know you have a gambling or alcohol or Adderall problem. They can know your pulse doesn\u2019t race when you see your wife. In fact, on the list of things that grab your attention, wife isn\u2019t even on thesame page\u00a0<\/em>as a Cinnabon. She\u2019s below Cinnabons, sharks, and a good pass in the NFL. Wife is just below a partially warmed-up gas station burrito on the excitement index.<\/p>\nI<\/strong>f we don\u2019t fight back against the secretive surveillance state growing steadily around us, your wife\/husband may find out you love a Cinnabon more than you love her\/him. And that might be just the beginning of it.<\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/a><\/p>\n<\/p>\n
\nFlickr)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n