Surveillance is a growth industry across the West nowadays. The revelations that governments are claiming new powers to track citizens, almost always using “terrorism” as an excuse, are coming fast and furious. Powers that were never debated, never authorized, but simply claimed are the order of the day.
In Britain, we learned today of a plan for 100% surveillance across the entire Internet, with British spies hoping to read every web visit and every email sent in real time. The question is if the program is practical or not, but as rights groups complain there seems little doubt that the effort will be attempted, if not accomplished.
But the Brits may feel at least somewhat lucky that they aren’t in France, where the claim to surveillance is not only taken for granted already, but President Nicolas Sarkozy is also claiming the right to imprison citizens for reading certain websites seen as too sympathetic to terrorism. The threatened arrests, and several actual arrests of French Muslims as “extremists,” comes in the wake of the deadly Mohamed Merah shootings, and as Sarkozy looks to secure an election victory in a heated race with a far-right opposition.
Americans aren’t immune to the growing surveillance state either. A new report from the ACLU shows that the use of cellphone GPS data to track Americans without legal oversight is growing common not just for FBI types, but for rural police as well. The Supreme Court ruled recently that law enforcement can’t install GPS trackers on cars to track people without a warrant, but declined to rule on cellphones, which have the “feature” built in.
It would seem Mr. Blair and his prophecies of old were only shy a few decades. Who's laughing now?
Well, cellphones may have the GPS feature built-in, but they still need to pump the position information to some outside agency (over a data link, or SMS) for this to be useful for third-party tracking. This is how "GPS tracking" works. You have a GPS tracking devices work. Then you have a cellular device attached to that to send the information.
Tracking by radio signal strength however can be done without having modify the cellphone.
Big Brother is here. We are rapidly losing our freedoms such as they were. Orwell warned us.
But did we listen? Did we stand up to the erosion of our rights?
Of course not!
How long before the pressure cooker exploses?
And why exactly should China want to open up to western survalence of Internet?
At least we now know that The Terrorists (TM) don't want to kill us because of our freedoms.
And why exactly do I *need* a cellphone? I don't need a GPS tracker feature- I already know where I am and it's none of your business. I'll read whatever website I want to, Mr Sarkozy, thank you- so much for my trip to France and my donations to the Louvre. I'll send whatever I want in an email to my friends, and if you get off on reading strategies for World of Warcraft, more power to you. If you think I'm doing something wrong, arrest me and I'll see you in court.