The Big Brother is Watching You

Unforgettable lines from the hauntingly prophetic 1984 by Orwell?
Or reality?

Disclaimer: You are bound to brand as me a cynic. But i'll take the chance.

Look at the world around us. Technology has broadened the horizons. Distances have shrunk, communication has been revolutionised and on the face it seems George Orwell was a bit off the mark in his 1984. Look deeper and you see traces of 1984 materialising everywhere, most observably, in our (so-called) democratic societies.

Read an article recently. Excerpts from it:

Big Brother is not only watching you - now he's barking orders too. Britain's first 'talking' CCTV cameras have arrived, publicly berating bad behaviour and shaming offenders into acting more responsibly.

The system allows control room operators who spot any anti-social acts - from dropping litter to late-night brawls - to send out a verbal warning: 'We are watching you'.

Law-abiding shopper Karen Margery, 40, was shocked to hear the speakers spring into action as she walked past them.

Afterwards she said: 'It's quite scary to realise that your every move could be monitored - it really is like Big Brother"

Hehe. Must be funny to take orders from a machine. But thats besides the point.

So this is limited only to UK and what possible effect it can have on you? Sample this. What you search on say, google, can be used to make a profile of you. And in the near future , it will be. So if you, say, search for rockets, grenades or "how to build a nuclear reactor in your backyard" , it can be inferred that you are not exactly the biggest fan of Gandhi, and if you say search for Paris Hilton ,then, well ahem..

And all this without your knowing it. This indeed is true democracy.

The concept of newspeak in '1984' which is basically the use of false information and fear by state to keep the citizens suppressed, has been given a modern dimension by Bush and party with blatant lies and a conniving media ( Fox et al) in the past 5 years to commit crime in the name of war. I dont think i need to elaborate on Bush's dubious record or his Gunatanamo escapades but if you are more interested you can probably check this link out to understand newspeak in modern day context:

http://www.lewrockwell.com/higgs/higgs48.html

And with more technology the use of GPS and other satellite technologies for spying on people in the name of security is never too far. Of course all this can be indeed for genuine use. Just like the pre-cogs of Minority report. But History begs to differ. Or to paraphrase it, History shares a linearly increasing relationship with Murphy's Laws.

So am i just another paranoid cynic? Is it too far fetched? Thats the best we can hope for.

"It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could igve you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face… was itself a punishable offense. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime…" -1984 - Orwell

P.S. I tend to be apolitical but couldnt help myself from this post. Orwell stirs up the cynic in me.