Quotes About Surveillance

You weren't in any real danger. We knew exactly where you were all the time.

One of the most frightening things, I think, is the capacity for retroactive searching, so you can go back in time and trace who someone is in contact with and where they've been.

By the time of the GDR's demise, two in every 13 citizens were informers.

That's what animals do all of the time; they watch out, they watch out, and I saw, "This is us now." Us, the world, we are watching out.

When he stopped pacing, his shadow loomed behind him, watching. Someone was always watching.

caughtoutedness. Some examples: People jumping out of alleys. Schoolteachers suddenly being aware of every sin you've ever committed. Police showing up at the door each time a leaf turns or a distant gate slams shut.

The more the data banks record about each one of us, the less we exist.

The misleading effect of books like George Orwell's 1984 is to project into the future a state of affairs that already exists.

As I've already mentioned, 1984 and I were getting on famously. A no-frills setup, run without sentiment, snobbery or cultural favouritism, Airstrip One seemed like my kind of town. (I saw myself as an idealistic young corporal in the Thought Police.)

Is there any point to which you would wish to draw my attention?" "To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time." "The dog did nothing in the night-time." "That was the curious incident," remarked Sherlock Holmes.

What do you wish to draw my attention to? To the curious incident of the dog in the night-time. The dog did nothing in the night-time. That was the curious incident, remarked Sherlock Holmes.

In every part of the legendary Valley of Kashmir, whatever people might be doing—walking, praying, bathing, cracking jokes, shelling walnuts, making love or taking a bus-ride home—they were in the rifle-sights of a soldier. And because they were in the rifle-sights of a soldier, whatever they might be doing—walking, praying, bathing, cracking jokes, shelling walnuts, making love or taking a bus-ride home—they were a legitimate target.

In any decent police state, they'd be a lot more efficient. In Red Spain, for example, toward the end, the discipline we had achieved was phenomenal. The Spaniards made excellent secret policemen.

No one likes to see a government folder with his name on it.

I didn't like the thought of being watched all the time.

We're creating a culture where people feel constantly surveilled, where people are afraid to be themselves.

The casual destruction of privacy is one of the most momentous and least visible social revolutions of our time, and the safeguards to anonymity that remain are largely a function of numbers—what I call the Big World Problem.

and had been observed entering and exiting one of Larue's current

Once available, the inquisitorial toolbox could be put to use by any authoritarian regime with the will and the means to unpack and use it.

Big Brother really is everywhere.

Su suite la ilumina una bombilla de voltaje muy débil y tan acogedora como la cámara frigorífica de una carnicería. En otro tiempo podías estar seguro de que las paredes y el télefono estaban atiborrados de micrófonos, pero ahora ya no puedes tener la seguridad de nada.

Foaly: Anyone see you come in here? Holly: The FBI, CIA, NSA, DEA, MI6. Oh, and the EIB. Foaly: The EIB? Holly: (smirking) Everyone in the building.

While only a handful of the thousands of non-Jews who took our survey had ever been sent to jail, taken into protective custody, or sent to a concentration camp even though the majority had committed illegal acts during the Third Reich, great numbers of the Jewish respondents

When in unknown territory, before you did anything else, make darn sure you look around to see if someone was about to blow your head off.