And these folk are hewers of the
trees and hunters of beasts; therefore we are their unfriends . . . .--J.R.R.
Tolkien, The Silmarillion, 2nd ed., Christopher Tolkien,
ed., New York,
Ballantine Books, 2001, p. 166.
Evangelicals [of the South before the
War--W.G.], who regarded cities as places of worldliness and temptation,
worried that inexperienced youths who came to live in them, having left “the
salutary restraints of the domestic circle,” would be led astray.--Anne
Loveland, Southern Evangelicals
and the Social Order, 1800-1860, Baton
Rouge, La., LSU Press, 1980, pgs. 171-2
A
look at where we’re being taken by the satanic, transnational,
banking-corporate-think tank Elite.
(The
Luciferian light shines brightly on Techno-Babylon. Image from http://smartcbi.org/index.php/en/,
opened 27 Dec. 2016)
The
century of ‘big data’ will be the century of unprecedented surveillance. The
dream of tyrants down through history has been the total monitoring, control
and management of the public, with the ability to predict the behaviour of
entire populations the most efficient means of achieving this objective. For
millennia, this has mainly existed in the realm of fantasy, however with the vast
leap in technology in recent decades, this idea is becoming less a dystopian
science fiction movie and more the daily business of totalitarian high-tech
regimes.
Most
readers are now familiar with the predatory surveillance practices of agencies
such as the NSA and GCHQ, which high-level NSA whistleblower William Binney
describes as “totalitarian” in nature, adding that the goal of the NSA is “to
set up the way and means to control the population”. Yet many people may not be aware
of the next phase in 21st century surveillance grid; the ‘smarter city’.
Promoted
by some as a low-cost and efficient way of managing the workings of a city,
others see the surveillance implications of such initiatives as chilling to say
the least. Smart cities are broadly defined as digitally connected urban
areas filled with ubiquitous sensors, monitors and meters, which collect data
on every aspect of the city; from energy usage, to transport patterns. This
data is then analysed and used by city planners to ‘improve decision making’.
Today, more than half the world’s population lives in urban areas – a trend
that is set to accelerate into the future – meaning the smart city concept is
going to affect the lives of billions of people around the world. India is at the forefront of this push as it
plans to build 100 smart cities in the coming years, with Singapore set
to become the world’s first smart nation. Smart cities are not just
confined to Asia however, as Glasgow (where I’m
writing from), Rio de Janeiro, New
Orleans and Cape Town
are just a handful of cities involved in IBM’s “smarter cities challenge”.
Privacy in a Smart City
The
global move towards a ‘smarter planet’ is a worrying prospect for many who are
concerned with the growing erosion of privacy in the modern world. Can privacy
exist in a smart city where every corner and crevice of the urban environment
is fitted with digital sensors collecting data on every movement of the city 24
hours a day?
Furthermore,
many of the supporters and proponents of smart initiatives are multinational
corporations and notorious foundations, including IBM, Siemens, Cisco and the
Rockefeller Foundation. The notion of corporate giants managing a smarter
planet becomes even more troubling when you consider the history of companies
such as IBM, which played a pivotal role in the holocaust and worked closely
with Nazi Germany. Given IBM’s dark history, should we trust it
with the power to regulate and manage numerous cities around the world?
. . .
The Age of Big Data and Predictive Policing
The
amount of data generated in recent years has skyrocketed, with IBM CEO Ginni
Rometty noting in a 2013 speech that “90% of all the data ever known to man has
been created in the last two years”. With this trend only set to continue into
the future, the race is now on to develop systems to accurately predict the
behaviour of entire populations through scanning copious volumes of data for
behavioural patterns.
In Australia,
the federal crime commission is now using big data systems to analyse patterns
of behaviour in a quest to predict criminal activities before they occur. It seems the
world is moving closer to the themes in the 1950’s science fiction story by
Philip K. Dick and the later film adaptation of the work, ‘The Minority
Report’.
It is not just Australia however that is engaged
in such activities, as the Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD) has a division
called the Real-Time Analysis and Critical Response Division (RACR).
The RACR uses cutting-edge algorithmic systems and analytics in an attempt to
predict future crime. British police in Kent have also been using a
precrime software program called Predpol for two years, which analyses crimes based on date,
place and category of offence, in order to assist police in making decisions on
patrol routes.
The ethical and moral questions of the move towards
predictive policing are obvious, leading many to fear a potential ‘tyranny of
the algorithm’ in the future. With big data being used in the field of law
enforcement to surveil and
attempt to predict criminal behaviour, you can be assured that intelligence
agencies and corporations will be using big data in the futuristic smart city
to monitor and predict the behaviour of the city’s population.
. . .
Source:
Steven MacMillan, http://journal-neo.org/2015/06/15/smart-cities-are-the-next-phase-in-the-21st-century-surveillance-grid/,
via www.globalresearch.ca, opened 6
Dec. 2016
--
Holy
Ælfred the Great, King of England, South Patron, pray for us sinners at the
Souð!
Anathema
to the Union!
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