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If Use of PC Surveillance Technology Becomes Required by The Government, it Can be Used to Attack Freedom.

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The surveillance of personal computers (PCs) in the workplace is justifiable by professional codes of ethics.

Unethical use of work time during time for which the company is billed can be tracked for the purpose of maintaining and honest workforce.

Beyond ethical uses, however, PC surveillance bears dangerous implications when it is placed in the context of government monitoring.

As technology becomes increasingly pervasive in American culture, Big Brother has grown with the technology available for mass consumption.

Key loggers can track every keystroke on PC keyboards, and their use is increasingly common.

If the government were to require the use of PC surveillance technology by civilians, one would probably suspect the government of instigating a police state.

When it becomes criminal not to subject oneself to Big Brother’s watching eyes, then something has gone horribly wrong with the justice system.

The resulting morality is a forced morality born out of fear, and the resulting peace is simply a lack of violence that occurs because anyone who speaks up is exterminated.

PC surveillance is symptomatic of Orwellian control in many unsettling ways, and the use of this surveillance appears only to be increasing.

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Keystroke Logs

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Cookies

Cookies are small files stored on computers that make retrieving data from a recurring source faster and easier, increasing performance and convenience for the use.

These little files contain information about what web sites have been visited and how they were accessed.

Obviously, the constructive use of cookies is presented to consumers as a benefit with no drawbacks.

Access to the cookies, however, constitutes the power to spy on the users of that computer.

In a way, access to the cookies amounts to a form of PC surveillance.

The potential exists for government to require the installation of surveillance technology in manufactured PCs.

Unless one knows how to remove that technology, one is probably better off building one’s own PC.

The surveillance tied directly to the PC, the government can watch where we go in cyberspace, how often, and for how long.

This kind of information can then be used to incriminate would-be terrorists, or to rob the American people of their freedom.

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Video Surveillance

Video surveillance tied to PCs is a growing concern, especially with the ubiquitous popularity of web cameras.

The silent cameras are often made to look like an eye, a slightly frightening representation of the heartless Big Brother.

Government’s use of video surveillance is entirely Orwellian.

Its voyeuristic role would extinguish any remaining trace of the right to privacy, which is guaranteed by the United States Constitution.

When the government can make any laws it wants, sometimes by mechanisms that do not involve the approval of the people, care must be taken to avoid laws that incriminate the maintenance of basic rights.

It is also important to be aware of the illusions that are placed in front of the view of the public that would distract the populace from the potentially Orwellian intentions behind the use of some tools.

Invariably, the constructive uses are the ones the government will want the people to see, but the government’s own uses only promote its own interests, at the expense of the basic rights of the people.

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