Done in 2 posts, because it is so long.**
Yes I've resurrected this old thread but in the hopes of enlightening some of you to how things work.
First, know that a person's freedom is one of the most valuable things they own. Your freedom to go places, say things, do things, want things, desire things, love things, all that is you and what you desire. It's all yours for the taking as long as you have the freedom to do so.
Take a brick wall. When there are no bricks in place, you have absolute, total freedom. Every brick that is placed in that wall is a tiny little loss of some freedom. Until the wall is bricked all the way to the top and there is zero freedom left anymore.
I have no idea what either of those absolutes looks like. But it doesn't matter. Total freedom is unachieveable and I don't know that anyone would actually want that. Not if we're to live together in a functional society. And I don't think anyone cares for total loss of freedom either. What would that look like? Something akin to a maximum security prison? I don't know. But I know that if you are a person in a prison like this, then your wants, needs, desires, etc, are completely immaterial to society. You are a cog in a machine that's sole purpose is to keep you being a cog in a machine. You exist just to exist, and everything you do is just to keep you existing.
But back to the example in this thread, video cameras on cops. It doesn't sound that bad actually, taken by itself. It's to help cops against criminals. It's to help the public against naughty cops. Only a criminal wouldn't want to be filmed. And you're not a criminal, so you must want this. Most people aren't criminals, so they should want it too. This is easy. You're not a criminal.
But who are you? Well as I said above, you are a collection of wants, needs, desires, etc. How do these things manifest themselves? Well, in everything you do. Where you go, what you do, who you talk to, what you buy, what you read, what you eat, etc. Pretend for a second that you journalized everything you do, every day. Would you be comfortable with sharing that with the world? Some people would. Maybe a lot of people.
All of what you do is data. It's information about you. If you could publish your journals for people to read, let's say for their enjoyment, a lot people might do that. Maybe a lot of people.
If society could play nicely with this data, then we could all publish our journals. Share our information with all. It might be fun. Heck, there are many bloggers that already do this. It might be theraputic.
Unfortunately, society does not, cannot, will not, place nice. You, me, and everyone else are one huge database of information to manipulate and control.
But why would they want to do this? Many reasons. Political and business reasons mostly. Doesn't sound too bad, though, does it. Except...
Back to the cameras on cops. Again, not so bad. Until they implement face recognition. And start tracking people's movements. But it's really just to track criminals, so it's all good. If a cop is walking down the street and his camera picks up someone on the other side of the street who has a warrant out for him, and alerts the cop, an easy bust. What's not to like? Another criminal off the street. Heck, we already have a mug-shot system in place, an easy interface.
Or maybe a burglary happens that is accidentally caught on a cop camera, but the cop doesn't notice. The computers put 2 x 2 together, figure out that the cop was in the right place at the right time, the video is reviewed, and voila, there is the criminal walking away.
Or maybe it's a kid playing hooky from school. Perfect. Get that little bugger back in school. Oh, but that would require getting pictures of all our kids into the mug-shot system. Maybe I don't like that idea. Woah, what's wrong with me? It's for our kid's safety! Only a criminal wouldn't want our kid's pictures in cop hands.
Oh, but I have another idea. Let's get store-owned video interfaced with cop systems! That way, if there is a robbery, the video automatically goes to the cops, mug-shots cross-referenced, warrant issued, ba-da-bing! Who wouldn't want that? Only criminals! It's for our safety!
But, dangit, cops don't have mug-shots for most people. Well, why not get pictures straight out of facebook! That's easy, just two computers talking to each other. 500 million people on facebook, what a gold-mine! Who wouldn't want that? Only criminals! It's for our safety!
But, dangit, facebook pictures are a mess. Rarely do we have any real good mug-shot-type photos. If only the cops had another way to trace our activities... oh, hold on. Smartphones! GPS's! Location-based services! Our phones know where we are all day long. A simple interface with Bell, Rogers, AT&T, and there we go. A complete map if our daily travels. The cops know that I left the house at 7:30am, hit the Tim Hortons, was at work all day, left at 4:56pm, stopped at the pub for a beer, went home for dinner, then went out that night to the mall, hit a few of my favourite stores, let's say The Gap, The Sony Store, then over to Home Depot, then home again.
Only criminals wouldn't want their location tracked. It's for our safety!
