Big Brother is Being Watched

George Orwell’s novel 1984 appeared to be prophetic – until it got stood on its head.

Cameras, Cameras, Everywhere

The first closed-circuit television system (CCTV), came into being in 1942 in NAZI Germany. It was invented by an engineer named Walter Bruch for the purpose of monitoring rocket launches at a safe, indoor location. It had no recording capability, which would have made it useless for security applications, but it set the groundwork for future technology.

In 1966, Marie Van Brittan Brown patented the first home security video system, but due to the high production cost, nothing much came of it directly. However, it did garner recognition in the world of electronics, and it became the basis for modern security systems.

Beginning in the 1970s, surveillance cameras were showing up in banks, and even some retail stores. I remember people feeling a bit nervous about those big, bulky cameras watching your every move, but they were understandably necessary to deter shoplifters and bank robbers.

Over the next couple of decades, video security systems gradually became more compact, more sophisticated, cheaper – and ubiquitous. It was when cities began installing surveillance cameras in public places that the conspiracy theories began in earnest. References to the book 1984 were flying around. Then a niche group of tin foil hatters spread the rumor that the government could watch you through your television screen.

In the mid 1990s, the World Wide Web became accessible to the masses. The numbers of computers in homes, connected to the internet, increased exponentially over the next several years. That one rumor evolved; the government could watch you through your monitor.

In the meantime, security cameras became ever more technologically advanced and more affordable. They were being installed everywhere: inside and outside businesses, government building, schools, apartment complexes, places of work, and every traffic light and busy public street; even telephone poles! Wealthier people were installing security cameras on their own homes.

Mobile Phones Enter the Fray

Although the first hand-held mobile phones became available in the 1970s, they did not have built-in cameras, and very few people could afford them. The first mobile phones with cameras showed up around the year 2000, but they could only hold a few low resolution photos at a time, which had to be uploaded to a computer for viewing.

The early 2000s saw a flurry of new phone models hitting the market, and they were becoming more affordable. The first iPhone showed up in 2007, and the first Android followed in 2008. Within a few years, more people owned a mobile phone than those who didn’t, and phones with a built-in camera were becoming commonplace.

Mobile phones with still picture and video capabilities soon proved their worth. People doing things in public places that they shouldn’t be doing, like committing crimes, were being caught on tape. Hit-and-run drivers were having their license plates photographed. Common people on the street were a boon for police investigations.

It Doesn’t Stop There

The last ten or fifteen years has seen an explosion of video-capable technology. Fancy surveillance systems monitoring houses inside and out are no longer a prerogative of the well-to-do. Even homes in modest neighborhoods boast doorbell cameras, HD wireless security cameras with night vision, motion-only recording and two-way audio. Not to mention, they have the marvelous ability of linking to your phone so you can watch your house when you’re not home.

Hardly anyone in advanced countries doesn’t have a smart phone that they carry everywhere. If that isn’t enough, dash cams continually record everything that’s going on in front of and behind your car.

If you live in a populated area, you can’t leave your house without being recorded everywhere you go. Whether you’re taking a walk in your neighborhood, strolling around the mall, driving through town, or in your place of work, you are caught on video dozens of time throughout the day.

The Tables Turn on Big Brother

We all know there are crooked cops. When they get caught doing something they shouldn’t, they might get fired, or they might even go to prison. In modern times, many are equipped with body cams, but they have been known to turn those off before committing their dastardly deeds. Like that isn’t obvious or something. But deactivating body cams is becoming ever less effective.

Outside or inside a home or business, out on the street, wherever they are, they are likely being recorded by security cameras and cell phones. The public has become hyper-aware of the need for pointing that camera phone at any suspicious activity.

The ICEmen Cometh

Which brings me to the reason I got the idea for this post. The out of control ICE raids.

People are angry at the brutalism, the NAZI tactics, the innocents being targeted. When ICE shows up, every cell phone in the vicinity comes out and begins recording. These videos get uploaded to social media, and news outlets local to given incidents play some of them on the air. I’ve watched numerous of these videos, and interviews with affected people.

A few of the reprehensible acts committed by ICE and caught on video:

• They’ve arrested US citizens! In many cases, the agents have filed false reports, accusing the arrestee of having attacked them or otherwise hindered them in some way. They’ve then been forced to drop the charges when a dozen or more videos of a given incident comes forward proving they lied about what really happened, and that the detainees are innocent of the accusations.
• They’ve tased many innocents, American citizens or otherwise, who weren’t doing anything other than being in reach or because they have brown skin. They have also shot bystanders with rubber bullets, such as this incident involving a reporter, which got a lot of publicity, but there have been other occurrences, also.
• They have shoved people to the ground with no provocation, sometimes giving the victim a severe beating, even when the person was trying to be cooperative.
• They raid places of work, specifically targeting and chasing down the brown-skinned people, including the legal ones and American citizens. They completely ignore the pleas of their victims, begging to get their DL or Visa Green Card out of their wallet. Several times agents have been filmed grabbing the wallet and throwing it aside. They won’t even look.
• They have brutalized elderly and disabled people, citizens or not. Does it really take 6 agents to shove an 80 year old woman to the ground and immobilize her?
• They’ve tried to go into schools, looking for specific children. Fortunately, the schools generally run them off the premises, even though the Trump admin has declared that K-12 Schools are not off limits to ICE. Agents have, however, accosted children on the street or in public places, threatening and terrorizing them.
• They have raided churches during services.
• They raid clinics and hospitals, arresting patients and medical personnel, regardless of legal status.
• ICE ambushes Court houses, arresting LEGAL people as they are leaving.
• Without knocking, identifying themselves or presenting a warrant, they break down doors and barge into houses to start arresting people.
• ICE agents bash in car windows and drag drivers out when they did NOTHING to warrant the attack. Some of these victims have been American citizens.

I could go on and on, but I need to keep it brief.

Your Phone is Your Weapon

What I want to say in closing is, keep bringing out those phones when anything starts happening. Whether it’s law enforcement officers doing anything, or someone committing a crime, or any kind of suspicious activity at all, catch it on video. Get images of license plates. Use your phone’s zoom feature.

If your video will help solve a crime, show it to the police. If it caught something that law enforcement is denying, upload it to every social media platform.

Mobile phones are powerful tools in the hands of the people. Take advantage of that.