The technology exists today, in theory, to track all 7 billion or whatever human beings on the planet. AI, facial recognition, gait analysis, satellite imaging, all combined: a person sitting at a computer in Utah could locate anyone within seconds. Even in, say, Kyrgyzstan, even if they don’t care what people’s names are, they can identify “Kyrgyn tribesman number 4,426”. AI can track their long term patterns. You can know in an instant their movements for the last year or ten years, or since they started tracking.
Now, the full equipment to make this a reality is not yet in place. There are not enough cameras, not enough satellite time, not enough–perhaps–funding. But when the NSA speaks of Total Informational Awareness, this is what they intend. I can’t see any reason to doubt it. It is the end logic of their project. Now, of course, they merely track everything you do in electronic form. They capture as a matter of daily habit everything public you do on the internet. They have everyone’s Facebook history in total. They have the results of all the psychological tests you took for fun.
The only thing that saves us is the individual goodness and courage of the people that matter. In every descent into tyranny, there are always lots of people who went along to get along. They said later “it didn’t seem like that important of a compromise at the time”. They say “well, it was only slightly outside of the lines, at the beginning”. The process of creating whores begins slowly too. You begin with things that make them slightly uncomfortable, then as they adjust, you keep doing it. You wind up with someone comfortable in being covered in feces, as was apparently done to Catherine DeNeuve in “Belle de Jour”. You wind up with an FBI which somehow manages to excuse its own corruption, which winds up with the HABIT of covering for those in their ranks who no longer respect the Constitution, jurisdictional law, the American people, or the immense responsibility for fairness and justice which their power necessarily conveys. You wind up with a judiciary which views politics as more important than the law, and convenience as more important than integrity.
The bell is tolling for the souls of many in this benighted world, most of whom are quite confident, quite sure, that they are the highly moral, extremely clever people they imagine themselves to be.
I was told by an astrologer many years ago “You have Cassandra in you. You will make prophecies and no one will listen.” Now, obviously, self evidently, I am saying things many people are saying. It is because he lives in this world of doubt about our current path that I like Alex Jones. All is not well. You are not safe living in a world of fantasy. Simply because our democracy has not imploded yet, does not mean it will endure forever.
It is easy, of course, to be overwhelmed, to not know what to do. I don’t know what to do. I do this. It’s all I can think of. But as I keep saying, surely to God the first step is to speak the truth openly, publicly, and consistently. That is far better than most people do. James Comey lacks the moral depth and personal integrity to realize the enormity of his crimes. He can’t see how he is putting down paving stones on the road to perdition. He thinks he’s the good guy. He’s proud of himself. He is walking around peacocking.
Humanity can only survive in freedom and something like dignity if the good among us retain control of the reigns of power. If the many among us who envision darkness get and keep the power they want, I can’t see how our future can be bright.
A core feature of most dystopian movies is gaps in surveillance. In “V for Vendetta” the hero somehow gets around in secret. That won’t be possible. Now is the time for good people to speak and to act. Now is the time for the Supreme Court, or the courts in New York, or any remaining honest people at the FBI, to do the right thing. Now is the time for Jeff Sessions and Trump to work hard to drain the Augean Stables. It’s not a swamp: it is a cesspool.