Um, Why Does this Scare Me?

Because its a sign of very unsettling times to come.
U.S. Develops Urban Surveillance System which, the article says, will be used to protect Americans in foreign countries and that's all well and good. But who's to stop our government from turning the camera's on us?

This new software and imaging system will record data for months at a time and allow our government to analyze any site on the planet. The software also allows high speed data analysis of bank records and other financial transactions to get a sense of what the terrorists are up to. But again, what's to stop them from using this on Americans? Or what if they redefine terrorist to mean anyone who doesn't agree with ShrubCo? What if a terrorist of tomorrow is just a Democrat today?

Scary quote of the day - "Government would have a reasonably good idea of where everyone is most of the time," said John Pike, a Global Security.org defense analyst.

Not that I expect things to happen that quickly but we are quickly approaching an Enemy of the State kind of scenario with the ability to look into places that the government has absolutely no business being able to look into. It scares the shit out of me to think about what privacy laws will be like in ten years or fifty years. There are already cameras everywhere, so much so that its impossible to go into any sizable town and not have your image recorded, without your consent or knowledge, for later analysis. Well this new software gets rid of that "later" part and goes straight to the analysis upon recording the images.

It'll be an easy seque from use overseas to "protect" Americans to being used by the police in the US to catch criminals to being used to make sure that crimes aren't being planned to having a camera on every man, woman and child in America at all times so that there will be no sedition whatsoever.

To which I say, when that happens, I am sooooo out of here. That or I'd better get my ass into politics so I can fight the system from the inside.

What in the hell is happening to freedom in this country anyway?

And this isn't even to mention about the rightness of being able to look into any other country. What gives us the right to spy on the world? Sure, there are matters of national security and what we need to do to protect the unholy sanctity of the American Way of Life. But do we really possess the right to do almost whatever we feel necessary to preserve ourselves?

What about our interests? Our allies? Our oil suppliers? Our cheap electronic device suppliers? Our cheap car makers? Where does it end?