“Omnipresent Surveillance:” Dystopian Society in Our Global Era

TRANSCEND MEMBERS, 5 Aug 2019

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D. – TRANSCEND Media Service

Imposing Authoritarian Control, Domination, and Rule: Strategies, Methods, Techniques, Tactics ¹

“Man is born free, but he is everywhere in chains.”
— Jean Jacques Rousseau (28 Jun 1712 – 2 Jul 1778), Social Contract, 1762

I. Authoritarian Control, Dominate, Rule: Course of Human History

Fictional accounts of compelling dystopian societies, including, Brave New World, 1984, The Handmaiden’s Tale, Fahrenheit 451, The Matrix, and scores of apocalyptic movies, are proving prescient

Once confined to popular reading, entertainment, and college seminars, fictional accounts of dystopian societies have assumed a frightening reality as government, military, corporate, and private sectors, impose oppressive surveillance strategies, methods, techniques, and tactics on citizens. These impositions are destroying the last semblances of legal and moral individual “privacy,” freedoms, civil rights, and USA Constitution First and Fourth Amendment rights, especially those guaranteed by the Bill of Rights. ²

Citizen fears for personal safety and security are encouraged and promoted media collaborators with governments, military, and corporate beneficiaries of violence and war; a pervasive sense of peril, danger, and jeopardy is now normal. This sense of fear both sanctions and authorizes authoritarian national security sectors to impose egregious abuses of citizen rights and privileges with oppressive and punitive measures.

Playing upon Western nations fears of  being overrun by invasions, occupation, and exploitation by international migrants, especially from Islamic, Sub-Saharan African, and Central American nations, citizens in many European countries have elected right-wing populist governments determined to implement draconian immigration and refugee policies, limiting or blocking immigration to selective groups and conditions.

USA President Donald Trump announced all “illegal” resident immigrants will be expelled form the USA beginning June 24, 2019, under the auspices of the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) by the Department of Homeland Security. President Trump considers illegal immigrants are a threat to national security as sources of violence, crime, disease, and competing cultural traditions.

A convincing xenophobia has found its way into minds and hearts of citizens and officials resulting in the emergence of widespread of “hate” cultures and outbursts of gun violence. “Our nation is under attack by dangerous foes seeking our demise and collapse!” This is the thematic cry of those seeking more power control and domination of citizen masses, an appeal to fear and heroic nationalism.

Condemnation of violations of citizen privacy and rights, guaranteed in the Fourth Amendment of the USA Constitution, is drawing urgent attention from legal and NGO sources, with little legal consequence. Government, police, military, and corporate and private agencies are supporting numerous laws and regulations legitimizing pervasive surveillance, monitoring, and storage of citizen information for potential prosecution.

Control, Domination, Rule of Citizens: An “Old” Policy and Practice

“Experience has shown that even under the best forms of government, those entrusted with power have in time, and by slow operations, perverted it into tyranny.”
— Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Preamble to a Bill for the More General Diffusion of Knowledge, Fall 1778, Papers 2: 526-527.

Control, domination, and rule of citizen thought, behavior, and identity by authorities and ruling classes is the story of human history; it is the logical outcome when States, Nations, Empires, and Colonial rulers, especially dictatorships, assume disproportional power.

Protests and rebellions are quelled by a variety of oppressive measures, including arrests, imprisonment, torture, as well as murder, beatings and crowd control tactics. Assassinations and disappearance of rebel leaders is common, as desperate authorities oppress contention.

While inspirational stories of citizen uprising protests of control, domination, and rule, including the French and American Revolutions, are celebrated each year as sacred holidays, the harsh reality emerging is “omnipresent-mass surveillance.”  Past glories are diminished in the presence of new oppressions.

Never before in history, have the vast means of citizen control, domination, and rule been as total and complete as now exists because of the uses and abuses of technology. Romantic notions of citizen heroes leading uprisings against abusive and corrupt governments and authorities are the stuff of past myths. Mass government surveillance and monitoring of citizens and groups has destroyed individual and group privacy and rights. Oppressive conformity, homogenization, and subjugation are now accepted goals for authorities claiming national security needs.

Tragically, continued use of effective media and propaganda has resulted citizen concurrence and acceptance of oppression and violation of Constitutional rights and privileges.  A tragic paradox!  “Yes, oppress and control me; I need your protection in a dangerous world.” (“Escape From Freedom. . . . . .”)

Control, Domination, Rule . . .  

Governance is needed! This reality cannot be contested!  Contestations of   abuses of power, however, omnipresent in the government-congressional-corporate-military-educational complex is required and essential. As elections approach, why are no candidates willing to risk the tolls of exposing the situation? Where are calls and accusations of encroaching oppression,

A challenge for citizens is the reality “society” often hides, distorts, and represses concerns for freedom. Openness, transparency, participation is required in a democracy. Past presidential candidates have won on a platform of these admirable goals, only to find upon election, they succumb to shadow powers, and conform to traditional agendas using war and violence to achieve unwarranted goals. Who controls the leaders? Hidden governments?

In the USA, most citizens never imagined government would “betray” citizens given the protections of the USA Constitution. Today, however, surveys indicate less than 10% of USA citizens trust the government, and often see the government as biased in favor of special interests via lobbyists.

“Secret State” and “Shadow State” groups of powerful and positioned individuals assumed power and control, betraying their oaths and loyalty in favor of personal agendas keeping them in power.  Much of the “Secret State” individuals are ensconced in Justice Department offices and agencies (i.e., CIA, FBI, DHS, NSA). Crimes and abuses of these groups continue to unfold daily revealing a tragic story of corruption, collusion, and crime.

When societal institutions breakdown and collapse under pressures of corruption, cronyism, special interests, and inadequate funding, citizens are bereft of resources for protection and security. In an open and democratic society, transparency, social responsibility, and voting are keys to citizen awareness and empowerment. What happens, however, when these too are lost to political interests?

Tragically, many “secret state” societies around the world have already destroyed or denied citizen rights, enabling groups with special interests and concerns to exist and to exact their toll. Under these circumstances, citizen wellbeing and welfare yield to special interests and the advancement of control in favor of mega-groups pursuing their own interests.  Citizens are no longer players, and when they attempt to act against control, they are promptly subdued as enemies of the State.

Citizens look to government to protect them, but corrupt governments are too closely linked and connected to secret and known “power” groups, to offer citizen protection. In the process, citizens lose trust in governments and societal institutions; this raises the threshold for both protests and repression.

Within this context of institution collapse, and the rise of special interest and concerns, citizens become identified with certain groups at the cost of a society’s democratic identity and membership. They seek the comfort and security of identity with fringe elements offering simple solutions and identification of obvious enemies among minorities, immigrants, and radical revolution members. Heroes, calling for change, become victims.

II.     National Security Abuses and Excesses

“There is no greater tyranny than that which is perpetrated under the shield of the law and in the name of justice.”
— Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) , The Spirit of Laws, 1748

Section II provides:

• a reasonably comprehensive list of technologies used for gathering information on all citizens,
• a list of information sought for monitoring and storage in government Fusion Centers and private vaults, including those of foreign nations, and
• a list of behavior control and abuse methods related to technologies and information. Materials and items in the three lists often overlap with one another. All materials and items are in the public domain.

1. Technologies :

• Bill-Board Photography and Monitoring of Automobile Drivers
• Airport Body Scans (Gizmodo writes):

Within the next year or two, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security will instantly know everything about your body, clothes, and luggage with a new laser-based molecular scanner fired from 164 feet (50 meters) away. From traces of drugs or gun powder on your clothes to what you had for breakfast to the adrenaline level in your body—agents will be able to get any information they want without even touching you. And without you knowing it. (Gizmodo, July 10, 2012).

• Brain Wave (EEG) Readers
• Bugs (intrusive car, phone)
• Bugs (intrusive computer)
• Collaboration between massive corporations (e.g., Amazon, Face Book, Google) and government agencies (Algorithms for sharing information)
• Drones (Use to photograph, monitor house odors, disable equipment)
• Facial Recognition
• Finger Prints, Hand Prints, Footprints
• Genetic DNA sampling
• House-Air Sampling (Drones)
• Monitoring, copying, and retaining all phone, email, texting communications:
• Source number,
• Target number,
• Time of communication,
• Date of communication,
• Precise location of source and target numbers,
• Record conversation,
• Archive data in Fusion Centers
• Neuroimaging Technologies (e.g., CAT, PET, EMR, SPECT, X-Ray)

Medical imaging information gathered via CAT scans, nuclear magnetic resonance, SPECT, and other methods reveal the distinct and unique pattern of electromagnetic radiation (EMR) from your various organs.  Everyone has a distinct pattern, and knowing that pattern makes one vulnerable to specific controls using low radio wave frequencies and other invasive technology methods.  This is especially a source for abuse using brain information.

• Radio-Frequency Identification Inserts (RFID)
• Satellite Monitoring
• Vision Data

Vision identification is more accurate than fingerprints. Thus, when you stare into optometric equipment to determine both your visual   equation and your eyes disease, a permanent record is photographed   and maintained.  Whether access to this record can be gleaned or shared willingly remains a question.

The ubiquitous camera at many traffic intersections has already recorded your face and upper body for security reasons. If you wear sunglasses, efforts will be made to affirm your visual identification.

• Wire Taps (Proximal and Distal)

2. Sources of Information:

• Brain Wave (EEG) Readers
• Catholic Confessional (Bugging & Taping)
• Medical Information (EKG, Blood Tests)
• Face-Book Data
• Fake Photos and Videos
• False Accusations, requiring Court and Legal Responses
• Finger Print Data Base
• Foreign Nation Surveillance (e.g., USA, UK, China, Russia, Israel)
• Garbage Analysis
• Google, Amazon, Facebook Monitoring
• License Plates Readers on Streets and Highways
• Neighbor & Friends as Informants (Project Infra-Gard)
• Photographs
• Political Ideology Organization Surveillance (e.g., AIPAC, Anti-Defamation League, Southern Poverty Legal Fund, Anti-Boycott, White and/or Black, Latino, Islamic Extremists and Radical Groups)
• Private Investigators (Elude Laws. PI can be ruthless and relentless in acquiring data; bugging cars and phones, planting rumors, calling police)
• Project INFRA GARD, FBI, 1997, Cleveland, Ohio, (Recruitment of Stores, Malls, Professions, etc. to report on targets.

Project Infra-Guard expands FBI data-gathering system. Numerous sources of information regarding individuals or groups are now available to local, national and foreign security groups via (1) shopping expenditures, (2) restaurant preferences and expenses, (3) hair stylists/barbers conversations, (4) grocery purchases, (5) gasoline purchases, (6) automobile information, (7) travel information, (8) hotel records, (9) publishers, and (10) medical/mental health services.  Yes, what you say to your physician and/or therapist is grist for the mill we have created.

• Pupillometry (Eye parameters)
• Radio Frequency Identification Device (RFID)
• Records Acquisition: HIPAA, Medical, School
• Records: Family history, pedigree, family tree mapping
• Smart and Interactive TV’s
• Smart Medicines (Track Use)
• Smart Meters (Utility Usage)
• Store Security Officials (While you shop, photos are taken, your preferred products identified, your shopping behavior; recall FBI Project Infra-Gard.
• Sting-Ray Computer EMAIL Monitor: (Obtains your email from a close distance. Illegal but uses by authorities, foreign nations, and suspicious neighbors)
• Subliminal Perception on TV and EMR messages (Can also be used for behavior control)
• Television Program Monitoring
• Use of consultants, collaborators, cooperatives, cronies, informants, plants, shils, and other forms of collusion to gather info, and to assess or create risk for investigation and persecution/prosecution (East German STASI).
• Use of Law (e.g., Section 215 of Patriot Act authorizes FBI to interview friends, family, professionals, and to swear all parties to silence)
• Video Records
• Window Vibration Decoding of Conversations

3. Behavior Control and Harassment Methods

• Annoyance Phone Calls
• Baiting (Monitoring open purses, money on floor, wheel-chair elderly, flirtations to facilitate arrest)
• Behavior Control (Manchurian Candidate)
• Control of Brain Waves
• Develop and Foster Hostility for Certain Groups (e.g., Target Muslims, African-American Protest Groups, Drug Cartels)
• Develop “Pseudo” Face Book, Twitter, and Other Social Network Members to Entrap Individuals or Groups
• Drugs: Depression, Mania, Confusion (LSD), Dulling, Stoned, Amnesia
• Defamation of Character
• Entrapments (Use of Authority Promises of Reduced Prosecution)
• FISA COURT Abuses. Designating critics of government or political candidates as warranting FISA COURT listing as terrorist, criminal, or spy.
• Harassment: Planting False Evidence to Facilitate Arrest
• Harassment, Abuse, Prosecution of Whistleblowers
• Hypnosis
• Identification Implants
• Infiltration of List Servs, Media Services, Groups
• Informants (Use of Prior Offense People to Entrap)
• Microwave Stun Gun (Proximate & Distance)
• Rumor Planting and Monitoring: Plant rumors with friends, neighbors
• Use of paid private investigators to stalk and harass individuals
• Use of citizens as research subjects (injections, drugs, sprays) without consent (hundreds of examples by government agencies)
• Use of Toxins (Spraying)
• Use of spoiled or toxic foods when shopping. Exchanging similar foods in shopping carts with toxic foods.
• Voice Recognition (Monitoring, samples and recreating offensive messages)

Data from mass-surveillance technology methods and techniques are distributed to DHS/NSA State Fusion Centers, and a Computer System named AQUAINT, standing for “Advanced Question Answering for Intelligence.”

What Government Agencies and Organizations are Involved?

According to Wikipedia (2019):

The United States Intelligence Community (IC) is a federation of 17 separate United States government intelligence agencies, that work separately and together to conduct intelligence activities to support the foreign policy and national security of the United States. Member organizations of the IC include intelligence agencies, military intelligence, and civilian intelligence and analysis offices within federal executive departments. The IC is overseen by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) making up the seventeen-member Intelligence Community, which itself is headed by the Director of  National Intelligence (DNI), who reports to the President of the United States.[1][2]

The IC is headed by the Director of National Intelligence (DNI), whose statutory leadership is exercised through the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI). The other 16 members of the IC are:[9]

There are an extensive number of “Intelligence” gathering and utilization organizations, involving thousands of employees and an unknown, but obviously considerable, amount of money.  All of this in the name of domestic and national security.  There are numerous issues regarding duplication, competition, communication, hierarchies, strengths and weaknesses, costs, among these known groups. There is reason to believe there are also unknown groups which function independently.

There is irony and paradox here! The approved protectors and guardians impose constraints and abuses on citizens in the name of national security, however, in doing so, they impose control, domination, and rule constraints.

This is a bewildering anomaly, and one from which there may never be an escape given the secrecy and depth of penetration of governance and private surveillance groups. Can we really expect military intelligence to give up its roles and methods, and ties to weapons manufacturers like Lockheed Martin, and others in the war industry? Of course not!

There are powerful connections among Silicon Valley corporations, military weapons manufacturers, and the Defense Department.  They support one another in a “silent” conspiracy of financial relations and ties. Numerous retired military officials and officers go to work for Silicon Valley and weapon industry corporations as consultants and executives. The fix is on!  Will this system harvest what it sows? The fabled Military-Industrial-Congressional-Academic Complex lives . . . at least for now; too many on the take, too few lack an essential conscience!

Foundations of the National Security State

The USA’s National “Security State” and its impositions is possible for a number of reasons:

• Technological developments (e.g., Big Data) permit mass surveillance, monitoring, and archiving of all information on citizens;
• Suppression and condemnation of protests, including harassment, persecution, and prosecution of those speaking out against the National Security State;
• Collaboration and cooperation of a biased and compromised Media, which is, arguably, the most important societal check and balance against the abuses, violations, and identification of government and private criminal actions;
• Location and control of power within a small group of individuals (oligarchy) who by stain of temperament, disposition, position, and financial interests seek to increase, sustain, and protect USA state terrorism policies, actions, and organizational structures;
• Development of a vast complex of “escape” clauses within our executive, judicial, and congressional systems permitting individuals to lie, distort, misrepresent, and speak with impunity without fear of prosecution. In brief, a privileged and oligarchic “group” is “free” to engage in illegal actions without accountability, transparency, or risk;
• Lust for power, wealth, position and the domination and control accompanying these impulses. Selfish motives from troubled minds.
• Use of Congressional acts and secret agreements to justify and protect abuses including The Patriot Act, The Department of Homeland Security and Fusion Center authorizations, the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA), and Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF).
• Marc Slavo (2019) points out the nefarious cooperatives among countries with mass surveillance systems. He writes:

Many countries have surveillance systems, but the countries in the Five Eyes, Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes alliances work together to share data on a massive scale, according to a report by Cloud Wards.  Innocent people are spied on every day. The Five Eyes, Nine Eyes, and 14 Eyes groups are big players in the global surveillance game. Each country involved can carry out surveillance in particular regions and share it with others in the alliance.

The Five Eyes are the U.S., UK, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.

The Five Eyes alliance, also known as FVEY, was founded on Aug. 14, 1941, and can be traced back to the WWII period. During the second world war, the exchange of intelligence information between the UK and the U.S. was important, and the partnership continued afterward.

The Nine Eyes alliance consists of the Five Eyes countries, plus Denmark, France, the Netherlands and Norway. Though there’s evidence that the Nine Eyes and 14 Eyes exist, little is known about what they can and can’t do.

The 14 Eyes alliance is made up of the Nine Eyes countries, plus Germany, Belgium, Italy, Spain and Sweden. It’s an extension of the Five Eyes and Nine Eyes alliances, but its actual name is SIGINT Seniors Europe. –Cloud Wards

“Legal” authorizations serve to increase control, and to limit and restrain citizen rights and privileges needed to question and to protest.

A recent CIA sponsored Bill, Intelligence Authorization Act” (SB: 3153; HB 3194) garnering Congressional support would criminalize whistle blowers and reporters. Imagine, citizens are to be criminalized and punished for engaging in citizen expected responsibilities of complaint.

Daniel Schuman (July 25, 2019), policy director of DEMAND PROGRESS, writes:

“House Intelligence Committee Chair expansion of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act beyond all reason will effectively muzzle reporting on torture, mass surveillance, and other crimes against the American people — all at the request of the CIA.”

Dagny Taggart (2019), a pseudonym for a seasoned reporter fearful of retaliation, based on Pew Survey, results, writes:

“Americans Don’t Trust the Govt, the Media, or Each Other: Fading         Trust is “Sign of Cultural Sickness and National Decline.”

Is this any wonder? Years of corruption, cronyism, and crime by government, private corporations, military, and other societal institutions make “trust” a foolish and unwarranted action.  This is nothing new!

How Did We Come to This Point?

There are a number of now class sources for understanding how we came to this point of of abuse: Priest & Arkin, 2011; PBS Frontline Documentary: The United States of Secrets – Parts I and II), The Emergency State: America’s Pursuit of Absolute Security at All Costs” (David Unger [2012],  “The Short American Century: A Post Mortem” (Andrew Bacevich [2012] CW Mills (2000) The Power Elite, Shane Harris (2010) The Watchers. Chumley, (2014). Police State USA.  There are scores of others deserving mention and response.

Answers to this question are complex, and involve historical, economic and sociopolitical explorations.  Perhaps, however, there is something to be studied and known about the very individuals who developed and administered this mass surveillance system. In the end, these people had choices, and chose . . .

The revelations of the national and international mass surveillance, monitoring, and archiving complex is overwhelming in implication and consequence.  Claims of disbelief can no longer be dismissed.  Events have been unfolding for decades even as USA citizens continue daily life activities, and honoring government leaders who betrayed the Constitution. As the mass surveillance system become better known, what opinions will citizen have of leaders who betrayed trust and promise?

What Can We Do?

There have been many suggestions about a needed response to the growing national security state of the United States.  Responses have come from around the world, and many names are now familiar (e.g., Noam Chomsky, Mairead McGuire, Amy Goodman, Johan Galtung, Chris Hedges). While it is likely only small protests will arise soon be oppressed, its participants brutalized, imprisoned, and subjected to torture, there are options for building a more enduring and effective response:

• Informed: Become informed and educated about the scope and sources of the national security state threats tp privacy and behavior control. This can only be done by reading credible sources, reading beyond popular media, and questioning sources with specific hidden agendas (i.e., corporate, military).

This will require learning across different sectors and disciplines. A single profession or discipline is inadequate to understand the complexities of our challenges.  Multisectoral, multidisciplinary, multicultural learning is required.

• Activism: Become as active as your circumstances permit in peaceful protests that may include opinion writing, letter writing, petition signing, phone calls to elected representatives, and joining discussion groups via the internet or in real time. Become as active as your circumstances permit with regards to supporting alternative information sources (e.g., Transcend Medial Service, Truthout, Guardian), and with supporting pathways to prosecution for those violating Constitutional and civil rights.
• Non-Violence: Become committed to non-violence and nonKilling as viable pathways for bringing about change. This may well make change a slow and arduous process, and it may never be completely successful. Yet, the course of violence, insurgency, and revolt can only lead to destruction and death, as we are witnessing in the United States and around the world.

The challenges are many and complex; there is little reason to believe citizens can reduce or eliminate the massive national and international surveillance network. If change is to occur, it will be because hope as an essential enduring human virtue can inform action.  But hope itself needs to grasp the essentials may mean accommodation and compromise to new forms of existence and human nature.

Conclusion

Attention! We are now living in a dysfunctional surveillance state akin to those written in fictional novels and science fiction movies.  Do not dismiss this harsh reality! There is no privacy! Mass surveillance technologies, including satellite spy systems linked to ground surveillance systems, gather, monitor, and archive data on every person and organizations. As the System is proud to claim: “We know more about you, than you know about yourself.”

While this mass surveillance reality may be accepted passively, amid a felt sense of helplessness to contest this “Leviathan,” acceptance compels recognition of evolutionary changes in epistemology, ontology, and praxeology. Comforts from religions and political belief systems are deceptions, serving fearful minds.

Advent of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies resulting in major changes in robotics forewarns human life is not sacred. Robots, capable of assuming many human tasks and responsibilities without protests, complaints, or risks, will replace humans.  Perhaps new species of human-robot interfaces will emerge amid the massive data bases, permitting specific human beings to be duplicated and interfaced with robotic qualities and potential.

New ontologies of human nature are upon us.  There never was, in my opinion, a single human ontology, but rather a spectrum of ontologies defined by culture, place, and situation.  Biblical notions of God making man in his image failed to grasp God’s image as an omnipotent omnipresent force was capable of creating evolutionary species connecting humanity with AI technological capabilities and potential.

The human and life form cycle of “survival, adaptation, adjustment, becoming, and evolving is present and always has been occurring, blind to human understanding and aspirations. Certainly amidst decline and destruction of planet Earth by connections across (1) climate change, (2) air-land-ocean pollution, (3) noise-vision-taste pollution, (4) poverty-malnutrition- toxicity, and (5) violence-aggression-war, and  (6) greed-inequality-capitalism, and (6) nuclear-plastics-garbage waste, indicate robotic-human forms may be the only viable alternative.

Thus, omnipresent surveillance represents an anticipatory tragedy of human evolutionary decline, an outcome of anthropogenic assaults on Earth’s resources and life forms, incapable of attenuating its own destructive survival demanding a continuation of human life in dramatically different forms and expressions.  Life forms at all levels are applauding!

Footnote 1:

The term “omnipresent surveillance” is taken from John W. Whitehead’s recent article, “The Omnipresent Surveillance State: Orwell’s 1984 Is No longer Fiction.” Information Clearing House. June 11, 2019. See also Rutherford Institute, Virginia, USA

References:

Bacevich, A. (2012). The short American century: A post-mortem.  Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Chumley, C. (2014). Police State USA: How Orwell’s nightmare is          becoming our reality.   NY: WND.

Deneys-Tunney, A. (July 12, 2012) Rousseau shows us there is a way      to break the chains from within. The Guardian, London, UK.

Harris, S. (2010).  The watchers: The rise of America’s surveillance         state. NY: Penguin Group.

Hedges, C. (2015). “A Nation of Snitches – Nation of Change.” http://www.nation ofchange.org/2015/11/a-nation-of-snitches/ MassPrivateI. (July 25, 2019) https://www.activistpost.com/2019/07/the-cias-intelligence-authorization-act-would-criminalize-whistleblowers-and-reporters.html

Mills, C. W. (2000). The Power Elite. NY: Oxford University Press

Priest, D., & Arkin, W. (2011). Top secret America: The rise of the new American Security State. NY: Little Brown.

Slavo, M. (July 31, 2019). Satellites Have Already Started Watching Your Every Movement. file:///C:/Users/Tony/Desktop/Satellites%20Have%20Already%20Started%20Watching%20Your%20Every%20Movement.html

Taggart, D. (2019). Americans Don’t Trust the Govt, the Media, or Each Other: Fading Trust is “Sign of Cultural Sickness and National Decline.” file:///C:/Users/Tony/Desktop/Americans%20Don%E2%80%99t%20Trust%20the%20Govt,%20the%20Media,%20or%20Each%20Other%20Fading%20Trust%20is%20%E2%80%9CSign%20of%20Cultural%20Sickness%20and%20National%20Decline%E2%80%9D.html

Unger, D. (2012). The emergency state: America’s pursuit of absolute security at all costs. NY: Penguin Press

___________________________________________

Anthony J. Marsella, Ph.D., a member of the TRANSCEND Network for Peace Development Environment, is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility, Emeritus Professor of psychology at the University of Hawaii’s Manoa Campus in Honolulu, Hawaii, and past director of the World Health Organization Psychiatric Research Center in Honolulu.  He is known internationally as a pioneer figure in the study of culture and psychopathology who challenged the ethnocentrism and racial biases of many assumptions, theories, and practices in psychology and psychiatry. In more recent years, he has been writing and lecturing on peace and social justice. He has published 21 books and more than 300 articles, tech reports, and popular commentaries. His TMS articles may be acessed HERE and he can be reached at marsella@hawaii.edu.

This article originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 5 Aug 2019.

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2 Responses to ““Omnipresent Surveillance:” Dystopian Society in Our Global Era”

1. “Omnipresent surveillance:” Dystopian society in our global era, Part 4 – Engaging Peace says:

   16 Aug 2019 at 15:46

   […] lightly edited and abridged, originally appeared on Transcend Media Service (TMS) on 5 Aug 2019. TMS: “Omnipresent Surveillance:” Dystopian Society in Our Global Era […]

2. Barbara G. Melamed says:

   18 Aug 2019 at 07:15

   Tony,

   You are brave, knowledgable and amazingly thoughtful. I need to reread this article many times. I need to understand why you caution me to be careful about my public criticism…when it is clear we have no real privacy. I will reread your brilliant words many times before I make further comment. Thank you for opening this important discussion. Our freedoms are being challenged everyday..and you make this clear.

   Attention! We are now living in a dysfunctional surveillance state akin to those written in fictional novels and science fiction movies.
   Your conclusion is scary…what can we do individually and collectively to fight back?