You’re Being Watched by Security Surveillance Camera Equipment Right Now! 

George Orwell’s terrifying vision of the future in 1984 depicts a tyrannical state who maintains control of it’s populace by economic and political oppression with constant surveillance means to those ends. 

While dismissed as dystopian science fiction by most, the 1984 of Orwell’s pen and our nightmares is closer to reality than you think with modern security surveillance camera equipment. 

You’re every move is being watched. 

Don’t believe me? Try and find a place where there isn’t security surveillance camera equipment. 

Offices, schools, high ways, banks, intersections, bars, restaurants, stores and even homes are all being equipped with cameras to record your comings and goings. 

Some estimates put the amount of cameras in the United States at 30 million and that number is growing. 

While some of these cameras are controlled by private institutions many are government tools used to keep an eye on the populace. 

Chicago has one of the most sophisticated networks of security surveillance camera equipment with thousands of them around the city. 

A new IBM system being put in place can track suspicious activity, such as a car circling a building or a bag being left alone, and automatically alert the police. 

Combine this with face recognition software and there is no end to what the government will be able to track without you ever knowing.

Satellite and Airial Surveillance

Surveillance camera equipment doesn’t have to be on the ground necessarily either.

Government controlled satellites orbit the earth photographing everything possible.

Post 9/11 the Bush administration pushed for stronger use of satellite imagery in criminal cases and for homeland security.

Warrants are not needed for this surveillance and since the records are considered matters of national security, we have no idea who or what the government is watching. 

Surveillance camera equipment has also been attached to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) that continue to see a lot of military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. UAVs are being used domestically now too.

They have been used to monitor the borders, ports, cities and even a gathering of motorcycle riders at a fairground! 

Corporations and Watching Too

The government isn’t the only ones who are watching you.

Private corporations like Google have used surveillance camera equipment to map the earth.

Now with “street view” angles you can see photos that someone took of your house from just a few feet away.

Seeing a potential market, Google has also begun working with the Federal government.

They currently help the Coast Guard and other Federal agencies map and monitor the United States. 

There is no end to the amount of security surveillance camera equipment out there watching us all right now.

From the satellites in the sky, to the CCTV camera in the parking lot your privacy is being blatantly ignored.

And it’s only one piece of the surveillance system. 

Combine these sources of monitoring with warrantless wiretaps and personal info the government can gather without anyone ever knowing and civil liberties take a back seat to the government wanting to maintain control.

More and more companies are introducing Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) tags in order track where individual products go, store user’s personal information, whittling away privacy even further.

The EU has even experimented with RFID tags in money; giving them the ability to scan a bill and see its complete ‘history’. 

Orwell’s 1984 didn’t happen overnight. It takes letting our rights and liberty slowly slip away in the names of security, efficiency and ease.

It won’t come from just security surveillance camera equipment either. 

A mix of video, audio, personal transactions and consumer profiles will eventually render privacy and the world we know obsolete.

Make sure you clear room for your new Orwellian television that can also watch you.