James Shaw says privacy will be protected when cellphone companies partner with Stats NZ to track the movement of people through their cellphones. Photo / Mark Tantrum
James Shaw says privacy will be protected when cellphone companies partner with Stats NZ to track the movement of people through their cellphones. Photo / Mark Tantrum
Opinion
COMMENT
A line from a politician this week didn't surprise me but had me gobsmacked. Who are you most astonished by, the politician or me? "Well, how would I know," you might rightly ask, "until I know what the politician said?" To which I would reply, "What does it matterwhat he said? Could you not answer the question via deduction?"
The reported quote stated: "He was aware there could be perception issues around every step being recorded, but has full confidence the system would protect people's privacy.
Statistics Minister James Shaw was referring to the partnering of cellphone companies with the government (Stats NZ) in a population density programme which will track the movement of people through their cellphones. It's being sold as "there will be adequate security in place to protect privacy issues". Reminds me of Ronald Reagan's scariest quote, "I'm from the Government and I'm here to help."
After last week's column on surveillance capitalism, I thought there was little left to say, at least for the present. Instead, there is an increase in discussion over Big Brother issues. So, a question. How prescient was George Orwell? Let's try unbelievably, incredibly so. Of course, he was just one man. How alert are we, the many? In the main, asleep at the wheel. He wrote about us. But you say, there are many, many other tangents at play. Yes, including the ability to be seduced. Seduced is a good word. It once had a touch of romance attached to it. Seduction today is more likely to fall under contract law.
George Orwell's book 1984 wrote about us today. Photo / File
Of course, Orwell wrote much more than 1984 and Animal Farm, including essay Politics and the English Language. He advised on elementary writing skills that are still valuable today. There is no doubt that he would state, as a foregone conclusion, that politically correct language encourages, even dictates, dishonesty and restriction; that it inhibits the path to truth. He also suggests that, in certain political circumstances, corrupted language is inevitable. What would he say of today's abuses?
In 1984 there were the Ministries of Truth, Peace, Plenty and Love, which were 180 per cent the opposite. The first two, Truth and Peace, were arguably the most outrageous. Truth was a lie, Peace was war. I was once particularly amused by the Peace conflict with Truth. My fascination with communism was not the political romanticism that captured so many intellectuals and journalists from Lenin to Gorbachev. My interest was in the deceit and corruption-riddled system that fooled so many supposedly elite thinkers in the period 1917-1989. On January 7, 1989, I stood on the deck of the cruiser, Aurora, in Leningrad, now St Petersburg, with my hand on the gun that fired the round signaling the start of the Bolshevik Revolution. It was Old New Year Eve on the Julian calendar and it was gratifying that Soviet Communism was in its death throes.
I was there partly because I had been awarded the Media Peace Prize for a series I did on Conversations with Moscow. Most amusing is that I was in the Reagan camp. To me, the Soviet Union was the evil empire.
The Ministry of Truth in Orwell's book was a lie: there was no truth. Today we play around the edges of that ministry in ways that Marx and Lenin would have applauded. For example, matters family, education and science. The assault on religion and speech, free or otherwise.
Inevitably that brings us back to Israel and Maria Folau, and I am forced to ignore some of Orwell's advice re writing. But I'll replace it with another Orwell quote. "If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." Corporates, need to butt out and run their companies for the benefit of shareholders rather than the social justice pretentions of management.
But the biggest danger of all is the combination of big tech and Government. James Shaw's comments regarding safety and privacy of information reek of danger. At a time of ever-increasing power of governments, bureaucracy and global corporations, Shaw's vague assurances mean somewhere south of nothing to me. They are a representation of either how foolish politicians can be or how foolish they think we are. Take your pick.
1984 was written as a warning. It's not a conspiracy if it's laid out before you.
