Eavesdropping
"It's times like these that make one acutely aware of the tenuous nature of our...what's the term?"...
..."Civil liberties?"

IGNORANCE = FREEDOM LOST

"Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have,
nor do they deserve, either one.'
~ Benjamin Franklin

Dear Orwell Today,

I just [2005] went into the website www.orwelltoday.com and my attention was caught by the phrase "Freedom is slavery, Ignorance is strength". Coincidently, I came across a quite similar phrase when I was reading a text regarding corporate culture, which is: "Slavery is freedom" and "Strength is ignorance". Could you give some explanation as whether both the phrases have got a connection in a way? and what does "slavery is freedom" and "strength is ignorance" mean in the world of corporate culture?

Thank you for your help and attention. Hope to hear from you soon.

Regards,
Elena Tjoa

Greetings Elena,

My essay IN THE NAME OF FREEDOM WE'RE ENSLAVED answers part of your question.

A rule to follow when watching the news, which is where most people hear it, is to ask yourself, "What is the message they are trying to get me to accept".

For example, when they have a story saying that "A majority of people are afraid of going out of their homes during the day in case they get attacked by street gangs" they are softening you up for the "pitch" ie, "so the government is enacting a new policy of surveillance whereby cameras will be placed in city streets"...and here comes the clincher "to keep people safe".

Then also understand that there are multi-national corporations that are making many different kinds of surveillance equipment that they want to sell so that they can make lots of money. And people who work for these corporations take politicians out to lunch and fly them on trips to exotic places to get them to use public funds to buy the particular corporation's surveillance equipment, be it cameras, listening devices, infrared-night-time-vision things that see through walls etc, etc.

Then these corporations arrange for an increase in crime in cities all over the country so that people DO start getting the idea that their "communities" aren't safe. So then the politician does "pay back" to the corporation who took him out for lunch and spouts his scripted lines "The government has decided to allocate 1.5 billion dollars toward erecting rotating, zoom-lens cameras on all public buildings".

In the meantime private corporations like banks and department stores have also been "pitched" by the representatives from the surveillance corporations and have installed cameras etc all over their property.

So, even though having cameras and listening devices aimed at people as they go about their daily lives is an outrageous concept and an affront to civil "liberty" which is another word for "freedom" it isn't even mentioned in the scheme of things. Being watched by the "authorities" is what happens to people in prison, people who have lost their freedom, ie their liberty.

So when these same "authorities" watch people who are supposedly "free" the same way as they watch people who AREN'T free, then there's no difference between the free and the unfree.

And, the only way they can get people to accept the loss of their freedom without putting up any resistence is to keep them ignorant about what is actually being done to them so that the corporations can gain strength by selling freedom-invading devices which in effect enslave the taxpayer, ie citizen, to the enrichment of the corporation whose customer is the government.

So that is what's behind the phrase "strength is ignorance" in the corporate culture. THEIR strength is derived from OUR ignorance.

And OUR enslavement to THEIR freedom to do with us as they please is what they mean by "slavery is freedom".

I hope that helps you understand the "doublethink" behind those two phrases in relation to the world of corporate culture.

All the best,
Jackie Jura

CCTV state: watching you. Cafe Babel, Dec 4, 1997
Right now, while you read this. In western Europe 6.5 million surveillance cameras rob us of our freedom, with 4.2 million CCTV cameras in the UK alone. From a loudspeaker, the words ring out: Please pick up your litter and place it in a rubbish bin. This is no scene from George Orwell’s 1984; this is reality, and has been for some time now, in the port town of Middlesbrough in north-east England. Video monitors there now observe each person’s every move. Since the passer-by does not react, the local Evening Gazette will print his picture along with a request for his identification. In the UK, the police, authorities, local council, private companies and public services use around 4.2 million CCTV cameras to film their fellow citizens. In comparison, the remaining west European states number a total of 6.5 million surveillance cameras. The British, then, are the world champions in this respect: Londoners are caught on film, on average, 300 times per day.Other capital cities have also been creative. In Paris, the surveillance drone ‘ELSA’ (Engin Léger de Surveillance Aérienne) was recently unveiled, a kind of mini surveillance aircraft with an inbuilt camera that is supposed to ensure improved security in the simmering suburbs. The French Interior Minister Michèle Alliot-Marie described Elsa’s '(new) eyes' – in a literary reference to Aragon's poem of the same name – as 'technological fantasy.' The transport services in Berlin, for their part, aim to sufficiently irritate ‘undesirables’ - such as the homeless or drug dealers - with classical music, so that they leave the stations of their own accord. This, in turn, is supposed to contribute to an increased feeling of safety among passengers. Cameras have already been installed in numerous locations: in railway stations, on the underground, on trams and on buses, but also in front of post offices, private businesses and in public places. Many measures are introduced partly in secret, or so gradually that many people do not grasp the extent of their consequences. More and more citizens conform to these new norms, rather than stand out....Yet the authorities have long since known precisely who is telephoning who, when and for how long. The espionage network Echelon, managed by the American intelligence service the National Security Agency (NSA), has been monitoring calls via keywords for decades now. Online searches – though still judicially controversial and not yet legally enshrined – have also been carried out in Germany since 2005 through the so-called Federal 'Trojan' (Bundestrojaner) programme. The search engine Google also saves searches and builds up profiles, data which the authorities could potentially access. The meta search engine Ixquick from the Netherlands, on the other hand, advertises the fact that it does not record or save private user data. On Gmail, all e-mails are automatically searched for marketing purposes. What is more, the firm also restricts freedom of information and of the press through filtering search results, as is the case in China. If basic rights continue to be restricted, it will be increasingly difficult for journalists to protect their sources. As a result, even European countries are slipping down the rankings of freedom of the press, published for the sixth time by the NGO Reporters without Borders on 16 October 2007. And yet many people quite happily relinquish quite personal information to social networking sites such as MySpace or Facebook. Employers use these sites to check up on job applicants; it is also common knowledge that the job applications platform Monster has been hacked into and its CVs copied. With our customer loyalty cards and credit cards we are all making ourselves even more of a target, since these allow profiles to be refined. What is certain is that every surveillance method that is technically and financially viable is being used. Whoever is actually using these data and to what purpose, or to what intended purpose in the future, however, remains a mystery to the individual citizen. As such it is particularly risky to link several data together, since this allows extensive profiles to be constructed which can be accessed by the authorities. The concept of a man´s total transparency is vividly depicted in Tony Scott’s political thriller Enemy of the State. It becomes clear just how precious and important anonymity is for a free, democratic society. Indeed, as the father of the American constitution Benjamin Franklin said: 'Those who desire to give up freedom in order to gain security will not have, nor do they deserve, either one.'

House OKs switch to digital TV (mandatory by 2009). MediaWatch, Oct 28, 2005

Sheep TV (Americans over 50 watch more TV than any other group)

BENJAMIN FRANKLIN SYMBOL OF AMERICA

22.Doublethink and 3.Surveillance and 20.Thought Police & Snitches

Jackie Jura
~ an independent researcher monitoring local, national and international events ~

email: orwelltoday@gmail.com
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