As O'Brien passed the telescreen a thought seemed to strike him. He stopped, turned aside and pressed a switch on the wall. There was a sharp snap. The voice had stopped. Julia uttered a tiny sound, a sort of squeak of surprise. Even in the midst of his panic, Winston was too much taken aback to be able to hold his tongue.
'You can turn it off!' he said. 'Yes,' said O'Brien, 'we can turn it off. We have that privilege.'
Just finished a few of his and it was well worth it.
I’m left with the impression that he seemed to do things just to see what they were like. His descriptions of hunting critters in his squalid Paris bed sit and of going over the top in trench warfare are memorable.
This is exactly what I was thinking, and it's a little scary. The officials are smart enough to know why this kind of system is dangerous and refuse to be subject to it, yet they'll forge full steam ahead whilst applying it to the general populace. I hope they recognize the danger of this.
This attitude is not unique to government officials. People are incentivized to care more about themselves and those close to them than the whole entirety of humanity. Malignant self interest is mainstream, cooperation is taboo.
It's not too dissimilar from what we do at home, in secret. Listen to William Binney, former Director for Global Communications Intelligence at NSA. He might know a thing or two. It's too bad we collectively sit in silence as we build our future prison and bicker about things that aren't nearly as important. It's not the Chinese you really have to worry about.
Those 2 guys are only talking about declassified info. Imagine what they would tell you about the real classified stuff. Also take note at what the government tried to do to them, and they actually broke no laws.
Look at how cities like Chicago, New Orleans and Tampa have gotten in bed with Peter Thiels Palantir systems (with funding from NSA). Sometimes, the public isn't even made aware, like in New Orleans where they (the Mayor and Palantir) figured out a way to be able to keep it from the public.
> the program escaped public notice, partly because Palantir established it as a philanthropic relationship with the city through Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s signature NOLA For Life program. Thanks to its philanthropic status, as well as New Orleans’ “strong mayor” model of government, the agreement never passed through a public procurement process.
> In fact, key city council members and attorneys contacted by The Verge had no idea that the city had any sort of relationship with Palantir, nor were they aware that Palantir used its program in New Orleans to market its services to another law enforcement agency for a multimillion-dollar contract.
Look at how some cities and counties are contracting with Amazon Rekognition systems and piping the results back to police. Washington Country, OR (the largest populated county containing Portland) has it. Cameras mounted on poles everywhere.
This stuff is happening right here at home. Your 1st and 4th amendment constitutional protections have gone away and you're living under an illusion. Your attention is diverted. Wake up people. It's not just "the other guy". We are complicit. Don't trust they will only use it for "good" purposes. That's just how they sell it, but that's not how it ever ends up. The problem is there is no oversight to be able to tell they are doing what they say they are doing. We've gotten rid of that pesky oversight thing. It was getting in the way.
They have no right to collect any data on you without a search warrant, signed off by a judge, once probable cause has been established. Read about the history of China, Russia and Germany to know what these kinds of files produce, and why we have the 4th amendment to begin with - The Revolutionary War - British soldiers entering anywhere and everywhere they wanted without notice using a "general writ", aka blank search warrant.
I think we all need a history lesson, as we seem to be very hellbent on repeating it. 100 million deaths under Mao, Stalin and Hitler. One Hundred Million. Let that sink in. Left extremists, right extremists - it doesn't matter, they both lead to the same end result - a totalitarian police state and many, many millions of deaths. They're still discovering mass graves.
