The omnipotence of mass surveillance

Everybody is talking about full spectrum surveillance. But where do we really stand today? With modern technology it seems that this ancient dream is now a dream come true. In the following we will take a closer look at the actual status quo.

At least since the publication of George Orwell’s 1984, people have been wondering how much their governments could know about their private affairs. Even if they were sure that the possibilities to spy on every aspect of their lives are limited, the threat of a future invention of the needed tools was hanging over them like a Sword of Damocles.

And sure enough in 2013 the revelations of Edward Snowden shocked millions of people around the world. Ever since that time agencies like the NSA are in the news almost every day. Activists from left to right have been asking themselves how powerful these institutions have become. But what do we really know for sure?

Let’s take London, the capital of the United Kingdom, as an example. It is known that London counts almost half a million public cameras for capturing peoples lives in the streets. Some also report that western governments have the capability to record our most intimate time inside the walls of our homes by connecting to our own devices. Many people I talk to are very concerned about this - to say the least.

However the question that comes to mind is how all this could be realized. From a technical point of view as well as from the business perspective. Let’s assume that our worst fear has become a reality and our governments are able to watch every step we take. In our example that would mean that London alone would have to pay roughly two billion dollars a year to capture and store this huge amount of data.

While it would be possible to spend that much money, they needed some damn good AI to handle all that data without needing millions of employees to do the job. The problem with this is that there is no such thing. Having been programming for over 20 years I can say that much for sure. Every piece of software that I have ever seen is pretty stupid. The only thing that computers are great at is speed. That doesn’t mean they’re very smart. And since you have to be more intelligent than a human being to create something equally intelligent, I personally would be surprised to see that happen in my lifetime.

It seems to me the old problem of the insane amount of needed watchers and their payment has still not been solved. That is vertically speaking. Making people watch each other horizontally is a different story entirely. That has been achieved a hundred times before. All it needs is a good amount of fear mongering to wash brains by the millions.

And that’s where propaganda comes into play. Isn’t it a lot more likely that once again our government and media are fooling us? Isn’t it suspicious that the mainstream media is reporting about mass surveillance without a break? Don’t they usually try to keep the misbehavior of their own governments out of the news entirely? Isn’t it true that they use continuous repetition only when they’re trying to brainwash people into believing their narrative?

Some people have made the case that democracy is nothing else than just another religion. They say that governments have their temples (the parliaments), their priest class (the politicians and bureaucrats), their sacred book (the constitution and the laws) as well as the promise of paradise once you were obedient throughout your life (your pension, when you can finally enjoy your life).

The only thing missing was the omnipotent, imaginary deity that watches each and every one of our steps. Don’t you think it is quite convenient to have people believe in the capability of mass surveillance? It is the last piece of the puzzle.