There is no place to run and no place to hide=>Big Brother

There is no place to run and no place to hide in the 1998 techno-thriller, Enemy of the State, where Robert Dean (played by Will Smith) is an innocent everyman framed for murder. The man who has framed him is a sinister top official with the National Security Agency (played by Jon Voight). Faster than you can say "Resistance is futile," Voight's character has the awesome technology of the near-total surveillance state targeting the hapless fugitive, as teams of NSA agents relentlessly pursue. Supercomputers, data banks, sensors, transmitters, microphones, bugs, surveillance cameras, satellites, helicopters, planes, vans, informants, and a nonstop torrent of technological wizardry are deployed to capture the quarry. The walls have eyes and ears. So does virtually everything else: the ceilings, floors, chairs, streets, trees, shirt buttons, etc. Against such overwhelming odds, resistance does indeed seem futile, and escape impossible.

Tapping the same man-against-the-Orwellian-state theme, the 1997 suspense flick Conspiracy Theory features a New York cabbie (played by Mel Gibson) on the run from a super-secret federal agency employing Gestapo-like methods. In one frightful scene, the government agents hunting Gibson's character are able to zero in on his exact location because of a purchase he makes. Because of his programming by the agency, Gibson's character is obsessed with the book Catcher in the Rye. So, when the agency's super snooper computer jockeys detect a sale of a copy of the book in midtown Manhattan, they are sure they have found their man. Within minutes, agents are jumping out of black vans and rappelling out of helicopters to surround and search the bookstore.

Reality Overtakes Fiction

Far-fetched Hollywood psycho-drama? Not anymore. The political and commercial applications of invasive surveillance technologies, together with the collecting and processing of vast quantities of data made possible by the Internet and ever-faster computers, have brought such frightening scenarios uncomfortably close to the realm of possibility. Citing security imperatives in the fight against terrorism, government officials are pushing aggressively to adapt and deploy these technologies in ways too closely resembling the terrifying total state of George Orwell's dystopian world in 1984. In fact, a couple months ago alarms sounded in some of the major U.S. media, warning that Big Brother is on the horizon, if not already on the doorstep. New York Times columnist William Safire, for instance, warned in a November 19th broadside:

If the Homeland Security ActDown the Memory HoleSince the September 11th attacks, the Bush administration, Congress, and local governments have adopted (or attempted to implement) numerous measures moving us giant steps in that direction, such as:

• Millions of citizen-spiesMammoth new federal police force. Security at our nation's airports has been nationalized, with 58,000 new Transportion Security Administration (TSA) officers replacing private and local security/police forces.

• X-ray strip searches. In March 2002, a new whole-body-scan surveillance system was installed at Orlando International Airport in Florida. The new system, which provides a "virtual strip search" that sees through clothing, is a prototype being tested for possible use throughout the country.

• Increased wiretaps. On November 18, 2002, a three-judge panel approved the U.S. Justice Department's request to grant much wider use of wiretapping and other surveillance technologies in the war against terrorism.

• Ubiquitous cameras. In the wake of 9-11, installing public surveillance cameras has skyrocketed throughout America. Washington, D.C., which appears to be the model, has installed hundreds of new cameras, not just around federal buildings and monuments, but throughout the city, to surveil streets, parks, schools, malls, and other public areas.

In addition, 9-11 has been used to give renewed impetus for a national ID card, increased national monitoring of all firearms and ammunition sales, human micro-chip implants, and a host of other dangerous proposals. Vast new police-state powers are being proposed and supported by Republicans who would not dream of supporting the same programs if the White House were occupied by Al Gore, Hillary Clinton, or Dick Gephardt. Since constitutional arguments have failed thus far to reach many of these folks and halt their rush toward dictatorship, we must resort to the practical appeal to survival: They must be reminded that sooner or later a Democrat administration will retake the Oval Office and will then will be able to use and abuse whatever offices, powers, and programs the current Republican administration has set in place.

Fortunately, the sheer in-your-face audacity of the TIA total surveillance program has alarmed a broad cross-section of America, spanning the political spectrum. The 9-11 terrorist attacks have been used repeatedly to stampede popular support for many questionable programs and harmful legislation. Hopefully, programs like TIA will awaken sufficient numbers of Americans to realize that some "cures" can be worse than the disease.