By Brian Massie, A Watchman on the Wall
Dystopian means “relating to or denoting an imagined state or society where there is great suffering or injustice.”
“The primary theme of 1984 by George Orwell is to warn readers of the dangers of totalitarianism. The central focus of the book is to convey the extreme level of control and power possible under a truly totalitarian regime. It explores how such a governmental system would impact society and the people who live in it.”
It looks like Willoughby Hills is leading Lake County into a dystopian world where the government will control all movement, all in the name of “safety” for each citizens. It will be interesting to find out if facial recognition is part of the program, or can it be added at a later date.
Europe is foreshadowing what will happen in America…and it’s not pretty.
Excerpts from the article:
The UrbanEye project by Hempel and Topfer documents the proliferation of cameras across Europe since 2000, showing that when in the UK there were around 40,000 open street CCTV cameras monitoring public space, there were probably ‘fewer than 1,000 across the other European countries included in the survey’.
This trend can be seen across all European countries as demonstrated in the UrbanEye Survey. In France in 2007, the government planned to increase its 340,000 cameras threefold and expand the 6,500 cameras on the metro. Germany has doubled the number of cities with CCTV from 15 to 30, and the Republic of Ireland has increased the number of CCTV systems from 21 to 49.
As a study by Katharina Buchholz in 2019 shows, London is the most surveilled city with 68.4 cameras per 1000 inhabitants, compared to 11.2 in Berlin, 7.4 in Vienna, 7.2 in Turkey, 4.4 in Madrid and 3.1 in Paris. This means that despite most European cities having CCTV systems in place, there is still room for growth.
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