About: Sinister Surveillance   Sponge Permalink

An Entity of Type : owl:Thing, within Data Space : 134.155.108.49:8890 associated with source dataset(s)

There are cameras on every street. Private phones can be tapped. Every electronic device is open to monitoring, and a hundred or more companies, governments and secret organizations can and are accumulating all this information on individuals into a huge database of discrete files which a simple algorithm can use to divine anyone's actions. The wake of 9/11 has brought the likes of The Patriot Act in many countries, curtailing privacy and enhancing the legal tools for governments to spy on their own citizens. Examples of Sinister Surveillance include:

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  • Sinister Surveillance
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  • There are cameras on every street. Private phones can be tapped. Every electronic device is open to monitoring, and a hundred or more companies, governments and secret organizations can and are accumulating all this information on individuals into a huge database of discrete files which a simple algorithm can use to divine anyone's actions. The wake of 9/11 has brought the likes of The Patriot Act in many countries, curtailing privacy and enhancing the legal tools for governments to spy on their own citizens. Examples of Sinister Surveillance include:
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  • There are cameras on every street. Private phones can be tapped. Every electronic device is open to monitoring, and a hundred or more companies, governments and secret organizations can and are accumulating all this information on individuals into a huge database of discrete files which a simple algorithm can use to divine anyone's actions. The wake of 9/11 has brought the likes of The Patriot Act in many countries, curtailing privacy and enhancing the legal tools for governments to spy on their own citizens. Of course, so are the criminals, terrorists, foreign spies and sundry malcontents. Surely, our well meaning governments will use these tools and powers to ensure our safety. Eh... no. The problem with surveillance is that it's inherently squicky, sinister, and dark. It's what George Orwell warned us about, and even if it is used exactly for what it's intended for, the potential for misuse is terrifying. Couple this with Everything Is Online and expanded government surveillance will be treated one of two ways, depending on the user: 1. * If the government or the good guys use it, it will most certainly not be a Magical Computer or the like, with a super Enhance Button. It will barely ever work, enemies thus tracked know how to avoid, hack, or shoot out cameras, and they'll invariably get the intel "five minutes too late" and fail to thwart Stage One of the Evil Plan. 2. * Villains on the other hand, can get this technology to sing and dance for them, tracking heroes with amazing precision, using crackers to fool any government techies, and generally stealing this technology out from under the governments nose and putting the heroes on the ropes. That is, if the technology isn't the villain to begin with. Thankfully, the heroes always manage to escape earlier than the villains (e.g. less than a week vs. an implied 2-3 years). Villain Ball indeed. This trope is usually part of an Anvilicious Aesop against government surveillance. Surely, something so ineffective and prone to hijacking can't be useful in real world. See also Surveillance as the Plot Demands and Big Brother Is Watching. Examples of Sinister Surveillance include:
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