Latest update May 14th, 2024 12:59 AM
Nov 10, 2011 Editorial
There is always a fear that the state is doing everything in its power to keep its people in subjection. There was the Soviet Union and even East Germany and some totalitarian states where people were afraid to voice any inner feelings if those feelings were perceived to be contrary to what the state considered to be contra to the rules as adumbrated by the state.
People would never be heard criticizing the administration since to do so was to invite either a term of imprisonment preceded by torture or death as a traitor to the state. Cuba reached the stage where people sat among family members and socialized because they trusted only those close to them. Certainly, there would have been caustic comments about the regime but these comments stayed within the family.
We have read about the state placing secret police to spy on people suspected of seditious behaviour. These secret police would mingle in crowds and would either arrest anyone who voiced a concern about the happenings. Leaders in the society were not exempt. Many ended up in jail, sometimes on a lie told by someone who wanted to extol himself and to enhance his status.
In 1948, a novelist, George Orwell, completed his famous ‘1984’. That novel had the catch phrase, ‘Big Brother is Watching.’ It was a case of the state spying on its people—their every move and action.
George Orwell’s work became reality. In many countries there are close circuit television cameras—CCTV—that actually spy on the society. These cameras are not limited to totalitarian states. The United States, Canada, Great Britain, Brazil and even Guyana now have these cameras.
In Great Britain, the cameras helped capture the men who detonated some explosives in the subway. Sadly, they also caused the British police to kill an innocent Brazilian merely because they saw his image on the cameras and assumed that he was one of the terrorists.
In Canada, the cameras have helped the law enforcers detect criminal activity and to apprehend criminals. However, that country still claims that the cameras have only helped in solving no more than thirteen per cent of the crimes.
The United States seems to enjoy better luck. That country now swears by its CCTV and so too do the other countries in which these cameras are installed. It has used the cameras to monitor and to convict members of the Italian Mafia whom the authorities had placed under surveillance for sometimes years.
The cameras have also monitored people entering the country and as such, helped track criminals and other terrorists. Drug mules entering the United States are recorded on the cameras that dot the terminals.
In Guyana the cameras have been erected. Head of the Presidential Secretariat, Dr Roger Luncheon, has admitted that not all are in place but those that are have actually helped in the arrest of criminals. That may not be a bad thing with the number of carjackings and robberies in the city. What is bad is the surreptitious listening to people who make their telephone calls.
These days it is not unusual to find that people are afraid to communicate via telephone. They would be heard to say that what they have to say they cannot say on the phone and it matters not whether they are using a landline or a cellular phone.
This has not come about easily. Indeed, people have been able to intercept calls made on the internet. In Guyana, during the days of the heightened criminal attacks, it transpired that a piece of equipment had been imported. It had the capability of monitoring telephone calls.
Then there was the bugging of the telephone in the offices of the Police Commissioner. People became more afraid to use the instruments.
The fact is that everyone is watching over his shoulder because he feels that people are watching and listening to everything he does.
A few days ago, Home Affairs Minister Clement Rohee boasted that the state was having successes with the Wiretapping Legislation. This scary disclosure is being challenged by none other that the Head of the Presidential Secretary.
Whatever the case, communication may never be the same and indeed the government will always be spying on its people, sometimes for their own good.
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