Thoughtcrime?

My son sent me a link to a recent article by John Pilger entitled You are all suspects now. What are you going to do about it? Pilger states that because Echelon exists and identifies words associated with terrorism that we may all be considered terrorists if we use any of these words in our electronic communication with others. This is such old news! I remember in the 70s provocatively using the word 'bomb' or 'explosion' in my telephone conversations, knowing full well that any intelligence system in place would have to be going on more than words to identify someone as a potential threat to the security of a country or people. We are NOT all suspects as Pilger suggests! Basically he uses emotive language to attack America, to defend the actions of Julian Assange and to criticize Julia Gillard -  again, old news.
But it's not any of the above which concerns me, it is his question What are you going to do about it? that fills my thoughts. He gives absolutely no clue as to what the ordinary, everyday person can do and if even they really want to 'do anything' about such surveillance systems, instigated to protect them against potential threat of those who wish to cause damage to person and property & who would, if allowed, destroy personal freedoms by disrupting our hard won, peaceful life. Fact is, that what Colonel Jessup (Jack Nicholson) says in A Few Good Men (Rob Reiner,1992) is true: 'We live in a world that has walls, and those walls have to be guarded by men with guns'. I'm not saying that I like living in this kind of world, I'm just stating facts.
Newer weapons in the arsenal against our real or perceived enemies include surveillance systems. However,regardless of the thousands of CCTV, video surveillance systems, spy satellites and signals intelligence systems operating to monitor human communication and behavior, if you're not a terrorist and not planning to commit a crime then there's nothing for you to be concerned about. Sure, it might be a bit unnerving to think that a mechanical instrument can track your movements and take a photograph of that pimple on your nose from space, but other than that, this 'Big Brother 'world is not going to go away anytime soon and no amount of signing petitions on Face Book is going to make any difference!
I think the worry is that many of us have read 1984 (George Orwell) and we think, like Winston that we might be arrested and persecuted for 'facecrime': 
It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself--anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face...; was itself a punishable offense. (Book 1, Chapter 5).
I for one am glad that large shopping complexes have CCTV, which can help identify an individual who has unlawfully absconded after abducting a small child, or the security mirrors in place so that you know that you can go to an isolated toilet area and a least feel that you have a level of safety. But really, we cry about our lost freedoms, but we bought into the convenience of EFPOST, even though it records electronic information about our location when we made that financial transaction and would, if necessary, aid police officers if we suddenly went missing. We enjoy our email, social media sites, new technology, iPhones, GPS tracking devices, but cry out that our personal freedoms are being infringed upon! Give me a break!
Pilger writes his article amidst a background of person freedoms, when he knows full well that we already have limited personal freedom. We can't just do what we like, especially since our behavior impacts on the welfare of others.However, having said all this, if we ever get to a time, described in 1984 in which thoughtcrime is punishable, then I'll be careful to avoid surveillance and start wearing a mask!

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: a short review

I have to admit to being a bit of a sucker when it comes to spy films. Alfred Hitchcock's The 39 Steps (1939), Notorious (1946) and North By Northwest (1959) as well as The Spy Who Came in from the Cold (Martin Ritt, 1963) were some of the first films I saw and still stand as some of my favorites. However, more recently the BBC Television series Spooks has surpassed any spy film I've ever seen and set a level of sophistication that I expected when I went to view Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy (Tomas Alfredson, 2011) at the Rivoli Cinema this morning.
I've never read a novel by John le Carré so wasn't, like many in the audience, comparing the film to the book, but realized that in its adaptation to the screen,  slices of information about the myriad of characters who surrounded the central MI5 agents needed to be supplied as background information in the early part of the film. Unfortunately this meant that viewers were offered fragmented vignettes that eventually made sense once the film progressed.
This was a quiet and measured production that revealed, as many spy dramas do, the complexities of espionage, the politics and personalities. I personally didn't find it either intriguing or exciting, but enjoyed the bleak aesthetic of the film achieved by an emphasis on rather dull architecture, punctuated briefly by scenes that included decorative ironwork staircases.
I did find Garry Oldman's acting superb as George Smiley, Control's right hand man and John Hurt, just brilliant as Control.
In this film dominated by old men of British Intelligence; men who decided who should live and who should die within and without their own ranks, I enjoyed one particular frame, which showed a piece of graffiti written across a wall outside the secret house. It read: The Future is Female. Unlike Ros Myers (Hermione Norris)  who is a formidable spy in Spooks, the few women in this film are allotted stereotypical roles of keeper of the house where the spies meet, a love interest who has vital information to share and a teacher who used to work for the circus and reminisces over photographs of 'her boys' - the old MI5 guys when they were young.
For me at least there were several scenes that made the film more interesting. In one, a bee is trapped inside the car  in which the operatives are traveling and in another, an owl, which has been trapped inside a lit fireplace, screeches headlong into the class room, but is callously bludgeoned to death by the male teacher in front of the children. Another scene, which puts a human touch on this otherwise cold and callous film shows Smiley unwrap a mint whilst waiting, gun in hand for the mole.
If you love le Carré novels then you are probably going to love this film, but if you love Spooks, or films that are high powered then you may be a little disappointed.