and I’m not talking about BB4 on Channel 4 at the moment. Two articles from CNN that I noticed recently on different subjects along the theme.

1 – The Language Police is a new book on the words that have been banned in US textbooks. Newspeak comes to mind when are work such as Yacht can’t be used cos it’s elitist and blind because it’s offensive. How are these kids going to learn anything?

2 – Jay Walker wants people sat on their computers to monitor webcams of infrastructure that could be attacked by terrorists, in order to protect the “homeland”. The ‘spotter’s would see static images – if they spot someone suspicious, they can click on the image and it gets referred up the chain. To keep them on their toes, some suspicious images are fake and if the spotter misses it – they are suspended for a few minutes. The scary thing is the webcams can have a speaker attached. It reminds me of the scene in 1984 (the film) when they go to the countryside away from the cameras. But in this scenario, you could be walking through a forest, say near a power plant. You might hear a voice “What are you doing here” – now if that isn’t Orwellian, I don’t know what is. You could have a small proportion of the population watching multiple screens and compromising freedom of movement…. (just like CCTV but on a bigger scale)…