Orwell Weeps

Big Brother watched the GOP debate this evening, and he was very happy.

   Republican candidate Carly Fiorina defended government surveillance of Internet traffic by pointing out that companies do it now, and parents do it now, tracking the activities of employees and children.
   Reminder: Employees are not children.
   She also proposed that the FBI "ask" technology firms to help them monitor Internet traffic, and added that the private sector would cooperate.
   Reminder: No encryption means no privacy.
   Other candidates endorsed the practice of bulk data collection by government, as its agents monitor all Internet activity and check all email messages and telephone records as part of efforts to snare potential terrorists.
   And the currently leading candidate, Donald Trump, referred to "our Internet," as if Americans invented it, and therefore the U.S. is entitled to monitor all traffic worldwide. Fact: The concept of an open World Wide Web of an interconnected network of computers (Internet) was developed by Timothy John Berners-Lee, an English computer engineer, who insisted that it remain fully open, with no central control.
   
   George Orwell must be shaking his ghostly head in despondency at the proposals that there be no encryption, and therefore no privacy, of messages or researches traveling on the Internet. His book, "1984", was published in 1948, and warned of the dangers of extensive, if not total, government control. We are now 30 years past the book's title date, and many of the predictions are well on their way to reality.
   The positions endorsed by the right-wing candidates amount to censorship, in clear violation of the right of free speech and communication that all are born with, and are guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution.
   Just because you can do something doesn't mean you should.