The Panopticon, Jason Ronin [nice books to read txt] 📗

Winston Smith: Does Big Brother exist?
O'Brien: Of course he exists.
Winston Smith: Does he exist like you or me?
O'Brien: You do not exist.

O'Brien: Power is tearing human minds apart and putting them back together in new shapes of your own choosing. George Orwell 1984.


CHAPTER 1


The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the incarcerated being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience."

Bentham himself described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."

The panopticon as metaphor

Contemporary social critics often assert that technology has allowed for the deployment of panoptic structures invisibly throughout society. Surveillance by closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in public spaces is an example of a technology that brings the gaze of a superior into the daily lives of the populace. Furthermore, a number of cities in England (UK), including Middlesbrough, Bristol, Brighton and London have recently added loudspeakers to a number of their existing CCTV cameras. They can transmit the voice of a camera supervisor to issue audible messages to the public. Similarly, critical analyses of internet practice have suggested that the internet allows for a panopticon form of observation. ISPs are able to track users' activities, while user-generated content means that daily social activity may be recorded and broadcast online.

Shoshana Zuboff used the metaphor of the panopticon in her 1988 book In the Age of the Smart Machine: The Future of Work and Power to describe how computer technology makes work more visible. In 1991 Mohammad Kowsar used the metaphor in the title of his book "The Critical Panopticon: Essays in the Theatre and Contemporary Aesthetics" (American University Studies Series Xxvi Theatre Arts). Earlier, Michel Foucault used the term more generally as a metaphor in describing Western society.

Examples in contemporary society
England and Wales

The use of photographic surveillance began in 1913 with the surreptitious taking of pictures from disguised locations of the suffragette inmates of Holloway Prison. The first use on record of camera surveillance in public space was that of the Metropolitan Police at Trafalgar Square in 1960. They used two temporary cameras to monitor crowds during the arrival of the Thai royal family and on Guy Fawkes Day. Between 1960 and 1996, the proliferation of the closed circuit system resulted in government spending on it accounting for more than three-quarters of the total crime prevention budget and a mass demonstration against camera surveillance in Brighton in May 1997. Over the next few years, face and license plate recognition was installed in key positions in London. With the recent 7/7 bombings, the effectiveness of the CCTV system has come under scrutiny, with emerging reports showing little or no deterrence of overall crime in London.
The United Kingdom is seen as a pioneer of mass surveillance. At the end of 2006 it was described by the Surveillance Studies Network as being 'the most surveilled country' among the industrialized Western states.
On 6 February 2009 a report by the House of Lords Constitution Committee, Surveillance: Citizens and the State, warned that increasing use of surveillance by the government and private companies is a serious threat to freedoms and constitutional rights, stating that "The expansion in the use of surveillance represents one of the most significant changes in the life of the nation since the end of the Second World War. Mass surveillance has the potential to erode privacy. As privacy is an essential pre-requisite to the exercise of individual freedom, its erosion weakens the constitutional foundations on which democracy and good governance have traditionally been based in this country."

United States

New York City has stated ambitions to create its very own 'ring of steel', very much similar to that surrounding London. It would surround 1.7 square miles (4.4 km2) of Lower Manhattan and cost $90 million. As of August 2007, the city had raised about $25 million. As in the case of the already-installed camera security system in London, its ostensible effectiveness is continually under question.
Unmanned-aircraft vehicle systems

A consortium of government agencies and the arms manufacturer BAE Systems intends to begin using drones for the surveillance of the 2012 Summer Olympics. Police forces have signed up to a scheme for "surveillance, monitoring and evidence gathering" to introduce unmanned aerial vehicles "into the routine work of the police, border authorities and other government agencies" for the ­"routine" monitoring of antisocial motorists, ­protesters, agricultural thieves and fly-tippers. The drones stay airborne for up to 15 hours with monitoring equipment such as high-definition cameras, radar devices and infrared sensors and reach heights of 20,000f. They could be used for road and railway monitoring, search and rescue, event security and covert urban surveillance. Other routine tasks could be to use the drones to combat "fly-posting, fly-tipping, abandoned vehicles, abnormal loads, and waste management". To offset some of the running costs it was proposed the aircraft could undertake commercial work during spare time and selling the surveillance data to private companies.
Now nowhere is safe from the prying eyes of the powers that be, our every move is watched, scanned and reported on. The NSA has been gathering information on financial records, internet surfing habits, and monitoring e-mails. They have also performed extensive surveillance on social networks such as My space.
European Union

The legislative body of the European Union passed the Data Retention Directive on 2005-12-15. It requires telecommunication operators to implement mass surveillance of the general public through retention of metadata on telecommunications and to keep the collected data at the disposal of various governmental bodies for substantially long times. Access to this information is not required to be limited to investigation of serious crimes, nor is a warrant required for access.


THE DISTURBING TRUTH ABOUT YOUR LIFE

I am about to tell you some disturbing truths I've realized after meditating on them and studying various material from researchers for a long time. Now I have to warn you though, this is very disturbing and once you realize them, you will never look at the world and life the same away again. As they say "Once you see the prison bars, you cannot "UN see" them". So read at your own risk. Choose now whether you will take the "red pill" or the "blue pill". If you choose the latter, then stop now. But if you choose the former, then read on.

The disturbing truth is, we are all slaves to the economic system and our minds are programmed as well. The world is a global enslavement machine and we are programmed with illusions that help us bear our enslavement so that we don't even see it. All those science fiction films that depicted automaton brain-dead societies of the future or on other planets, were trying to tell you something after all.

Moreover, we are also slaves to our bosses, company, spouses, peers, media, parents, teachers, society, government, political system, our ruling elite, our own implanted thoughts and desires, etc. in direct and indirect ways, whether we are aware of it or not.

This is not just physical enslavement, but enslavement of the MIND as well.

Freedom, for the most part, is just a word, not an actual state of existence. The reason people, especially Americans, believe that they have freedom is simply because their minds are programmed to think that they do. You see your slave masters need you to be satisfied with your enslavement to keep you controlled. In order to do that, they give you choices in consumerism and in selecting your occupation. You are "free" to choose your form of slavery and vote for your puppet dictators.

But deep in our subconscious, we all know that we are living an enslavement existence. We are aware of this in our unconscious to some degree. To cope with it, we have to be programmed to accept it, with delusions and mantras such as the notion of "living in a free country which makes us great" and "living to work and serve" etc. None of it makes any sense and only serves to pacify and appease us.

If you think about it, the only reason you believe that you are free or living in "the land of the free" is not because it's true or backed by any objective evidence or reason, but because you were TOLD to believe it. It's no different than Christians believing that the Bible is God's word because they were TOLD that it was and they accept it.

And of course, you are also programmed to believe that "Authority = Truth" and that "Majority = Right". Thus, whatever you are TOLD is what you must believe and accept, and if everyone else accepts it, then it must be right. According to this indoctrination, truth is NOT something you seek and investigate; it's whatever you are TOLD - plain and simple. Most accept this without inquiry. People are not programmed to seek truth. They are programmed to seek a good life and to serve the system, not to think for themselves. Thus, truth is not the highest value, conformity is.

In America, you are raised to believe that you are free and living in "the land of the free". Yet right when you enter public school, all your freedoms are taken away. You are totally controlled like in an Orwellian state. You are told what to do, what to think, what to believe, how to behave, etc. and PUNISHED for dissidence or disobedience. So, you are told one thing, and given the complete opposite! It's like telling someone you love them and then killing them right after. Yet most people never question it, or if they do, they keep it in their private thoughts, because dissidence and nonconformity are NOT allowed in the school system. You'd have to be the biggest idiot not to see the total contradiction, yet because the mind control system in the US is so aggressive and effective; most don't, at least not consciously.
Those who run your media and education establishments are also programmed, just like you, but even more so. In order to serve in their managerial positions of influence, they are held to stricter standards by the controllers, and thus must be controlled even more than you the sheeple are. Their job is not to teach you the truth, but to indoctrinate you with whatever those at the highest levels of power and influence - your slave masters and above - want you to believe. These institutions do not teach you how to think, but what to think, cause that is their function.

Your mainstream media are not truth tellers or truth seeking investigators. They are public relations people for the official version of events - propagandists so to speak. Government, media and education are not there to teach truth to you or enlighten you. They are there to CONTROL you. That's their function. But you don't know that cause you are programmed to assume that "Authority = Truth" and that if everyone else believes it, then it must be true.

William Colby, former director of the CIA, upon retirement came out and said, "The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." This makes sense, and explains why even though it is an established fact that the CIA is involved with drug trafficking into the US,