Panopticon of global surveillance

[Jan Klimkowski]

My mind immediately casts itself back to the 60's and 70's at the height of the cold war, where citizens would film events surreptitiously - knowing that were they caught they would be sent to a gulag, and therefore, almost certain death.

To think that the "west" won the cold war only to become the new "eastern bloc" in all but name.

Indeed.

Apple has patented a piece of technology which would allow government and police to block transmission of information, including video and photographs, from any public gathering or venue they deem "sensitive", and "protected from externalities."
*In other words, these powers will have control over what can and cannot be documented on wireless devices during any public event.

And while the company says the affected sites are to be mostly cinemas, theaters, concert grounds and similar locations, Apple Inc. also says "covert police or government operations may require complete blackout' conditions."

To imagine that much of what passes for the avant garde Left in Amerika considers Apple to be a fantastic, radical, model company.

BOYCOTT APPLE!

I spent a decade of my life in the BBC Science department. We were divided between those who considered science as pure and apolitical knowedge and those who believed that ethically scientists must consider the benign and malign uses of their discoveries.

I was in the latter camp.

With this technology, there is no room for discussion. The purpose is clearly, unequivocally, malign: it is to suppress the truth.

Fuck Steve Jobs.

Fuck Steve Wozniak.

Fuck Arthur Levinson.

Fuck Apple Inc.