The affluent west is addicted to technology. That much is obvious. The problem gets more serious when people start to believe that its application can solve social problems. This is innocuous enough in films when the water shortage is solved by bombing ice flows or when the earth-bound comet is taken out by a nuclear missile. But when the propaganda seeps into real life the effects are more just sad than dramatic. Thus the widespread belief, almost a common sense assumption that CCTV's would 'solve' crime in some preventative way. The empirical data (which probably won't dent the government's enthusiasm for CCTV's since they seem immune to material evidence - witness their reaction to their own cannabis research) shows that only 3% of crimes are solved by CCTV ". . .despite billions being spent on kit." according to DCI Mick Neville.
The surveillance society is often described in 'Big Brother' terms, though recently, Orwell's vision has been superceded in people's minds by the TV show, and both the Mailers and parts of the left can frighten themselves into thinking that our freedoms are being curtailed.
The reality is far less dramatic but shocking in a different way. It is less dramatic because once one starts to think about Orwell's idea of a camera constantly perceiving you - it is easy to forget that the camera needs one awake person at the other end of the line alive to what is been recorded. Shocking because of all the wasted money. Think it through a bit further and it becomes clear that it would be far too expensive to employ hundreds of thousands of people to constantly watch over us and that far too much money has been wasted already. Tons of CCTV footage never gets watched. People just find it too hard to find images. The technology is unreliable. Footage gets erased.
This is probably what happened to the 'recordings' supposedly showing the July 7 bombers. To some it is tempting to think that there is a state cover up and the footage has been deliberately supressed. The reality is far more prosaic. The cameras weren't working (come on, this is Britain), someone forgot to press record or the tape had worn out. This can't be admitted too many middle class jobs would be at stake and so in the gaps conspiracies grow.
There is no Big Brother - just a system gradually, gleefully sliding into chaos.
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