pisshead
04-04-2007, 02:51 PM
Orwell's England Christopher S. Bentley
JBS (http://www.jbs.org/node/3298)
Tuesday April 3, 2007
Within 200 yards of flat number 27B, an unassuming fourth floor North London apartment, there are 28 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, their unblinking electronic eyes keeping a watch on everything that happens in nearby Canonbury Square. According to the British entertainment guide This Is London, the apartment's "rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre" nearby.
The chilling irony is that the apartment is the former home of prescient novelist George Orwell. And it's a sign that the all encompassing surveillance state envisioned by Orwell is all too real in today's England.
The cameras outside of Orwell's home are part of a much bigger problem. According to This Is London, "Britain has a staggering 4.2 million CCTV cameras â?? one for every 14 people in the country â?? and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily."
The British fetish for surveillance cameras is not unique. While that country is home to some 20 percent of the world's CCTV cameras, the United States has been installing them fast and furious. They are already in practically every convenience store, hotel, and big box retail store in America and police departments nationwide are rushing to install traffic cameras and surveillance cameras in as many locations as possible. In New York City, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) points out that a 2005 "survey found 4176 cameras below Fourteenth Street, more than five times the 769 cameras counted in that area in 1998."
The New York system is still expanding. According to the NYCLU, "The New York City Police Department, spurred by the promise of $9 million in Federal Homeland Security grants and up to $81.5 million in federal counter-terrorism funding, announced this year that it plans to create 'a citywide system of closed-circuit televisions' operated from a single control center." Other cities, large and small, are following suit.
Meanwhile, back in Canonbury Square, dozens of security cameras installed by the encroaching police state are keeping a close watch on the plaque that identifies the home where Orwell wrote 1984, his classic novel warning of the dangers of the totalitarian state.
JBS (http://www.jbs.org/node/3298)
Tuesday April 3, 2007
Within 200 yards of flat number 27B, an unassuming fourth floor North London apartment, there are 28 closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras, their unblinking electronic eyes keeping a watch on everything that happens in nearby Canonbury Square. According to the British entertainment guide This Is London, the apartment's "rear windows are constantly viewed from two more security cameras outside a conference centre" nearby.
The chilling irony is that the apartment is the former home of prescient novelist George Orwell. And it's a sign that the all encompassing surveillance state envisioned by Orwell is all too real in today's England.
The cameras outside of Orwell's home are part of a much bigger problem. According to This Is London, "Britain has a staggering 4.2 million CCTV cameras â?? one for every 14 people in the country â?? and 20 per cent of cameras globally. It has been calculated that each person is caught on camera an average of 300 times daily."
The British fetish for surveillance cameras is not unique. While that country is home to some 20 percent of the world's CCTV cameras, the United States has been installing them fast and furious. They are already in practically every convenience store, hotel, and big box retail store in America and police departments nationwide are rushing to install traffic cameras and surveillance cameras in as many locations as possible. In New York City, the New York Civil Liberties Union (NYCLU) points out that a 2005 "survey found 4176 cameras below Fourteenth Street, more than five times the 769 cameras counted in that area in 1998."
The New York system is still expanding. According to the NYCLU, "The New York City Police Department, spurred by the promise of $9 million in Federal Homeland Security grants and up to $81.5 million in federal counter-terrorism funding, announced this year that it plans to create 'a citywide system of closed-circuit televisions' operated from a single control center." Other cities, large and small, are following suit.
Meanwhile, back in Canonbury Square, dozens of security cameras installed by the encroaching police state are keeping a close watch on the plaque that identifies the home where Orwell wrote 1984, his classic novel warning of the dangers of the totalitarian state.