Cory Doctorow, writing on BoingBoing about a BBC article on Britain's "surveilance society":
Not only are cameras all over Britain — especially London — but many indoor spaces have rules that say you aren't allowed to shield yourself from their gaze, prohibiting motorcycle helmets and even hooded sweatshirts. The hoodie has become a symbol of surveillance-dodging hooligans — a favorite (ab)use of the expansive, extra-judicial "anti-social behaviour orders" (ASBOs) is to order kids to stop wearing camera-foiling hooded jumpers.George Orwell, 1984:
There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live — did live, from habit that became instinct — in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized.Part one of what now, dispiritingly, seems to be turning into a series of posts can be found here. Also, I wrote about Britain's use of ASBO's here.
I'm curious if you Surely you have any similar concerns about the growth of "surveilance society" in the US under the Bush administration, which has decided after 9/11 to monitor everyone, I am sure you understand that this including monitoring of domestic internet data, from ATT and other major telecom companies and apparently from Google as well.
Programs such as this must surely be the envy of world leaders everywhere.
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