The Digital Surveillance State Part I

A Lyrical Essay

Dr. E.
Dr. E.
Sep 8, 2018 · 4 min read
Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Apr 1, 1901, Patent US 586193 A, Transmitting Electrical Signals, Guglielmo Marconi

The better part of my childhood was bereft of television. I was a popular culture outcast No Scobby Doo, no A-Team, no Saturday Night Live, none of it. This forced me to play outside with friends and listen to the radio. The latter developed into a love affair with radio dramas, tales of comedy, police drama, space adventures, and the occasional dystopian story. When my grades dropped, the radio dramas were replaced with a “Good Grades” meditation hypnosis cassette, which appears to have worked.

Comment: At least my imagination grew.

Mar 31, 1981, US 4536791 A, Cable television control system, Tocom, Inc.

It was 1981, cable TV opened up a new world, music videos (on a channel called MTV that actually played music videos), and HBO where endless of movies looped for our passive visual consumption experience. Simultaneously the personal computer market emerged. Apple IIe computers objects that made us sedentary as we learned basic programing. This moved us from typewriters to word processing and eventually spreadsheets. We were the Guinea pigs of the computer revolution.

Comment: Sweet let’s play video games.

Dec 15, 1999, Patent US 6366907 B1, Real-time search engine, Napster Inc.

It started simply enough, a piece of software that would take CDs and convert them into digital audio files. This opened up a series of endless aural possibilities. Not only did mix tapes became mix-CDs, but we had a vast trove of digital files at our fingertips. When we pined for the big hair heavy metal of our youth, we were no longer beholden to paying $14.99 for a metal disc with only 1 or 2 good songs. This started to forever change our interaction with music. The greedy record companies were in serious trouble, but they didn’t know it yet. Napster was the wooden cross that pierced the heart of the vampire record industry. With a single program our computers shared more files than swingers shared fluids at Studio 56. It was an orgy of file swapping, all for free and a massive release of pent up tension. Music libraries grew massively while record company profits shrunk.

Comment: Screw you David Geffen.

Oct 22, 2001, Patent USD469109 S1, Media player, Apple Inc.

The rapid swelling of our music collections led to a new problem, where to store files for on-the-go consumption. Steve Jobs had the answer, the iPod. Now we could take large chunks of music with us on the go. Our playlists became infinite and more complex. We even started to share them with one another. Another step towards ultimate multimedia universe.

Comment: What’s the perfect song for working out? Eye of the Tiger it is.

May 20, 1977, Patent US4131919 A, Electronic still camera, Eastman Kodak Company

Digital cameras hit the market bringing photography to the masses. Digital photos eliminated the cost of film or processing (and pretty much the company that invented it), simply click, review, delete or save. Now photos can be organized like music or even with music. The rise of the digital photo album and egad the slideshow scored with sappy music.

Comment: Where was this technology when I got married?

Oct 12, 2001, Patent US 7705828 B2, Dual-mode mobile communication device, Research In Motion (Blackberry)

Then came the smart phones. Now we could get email and eventually text messages anywhere. Thus, we moved from upright bipedal homosapiens to stationary hunchbacks with our eyes fixed forever downward. And, the technology evolved, cameras were added further democratizing photography and video generation. Each human a one-person content generating machine. Then came Apps and with it GPS. Now we could get up to the minute traffic conditions, directions, or find out who is nearby and DTF.

Comment: Awesome now I’ll never get lost.

Jul 25, 2006, Patent US 8225376 B2, Dynamically generating a privacy summary, Mark Zuckerberg

With all the content generated, we needed a place to store and share it. Amazingly there was an answer to the question we didn’t even know to ask. Social networking, a place in the “cloud” for storing and sharing our profound thoughts, cultivated pictures, and “likes” with family, friends, old friends, people you sort of knew in high school and would consider hooking up with now, and other random people from work or friends-of-friends. And, we became addicted to this new way of sharing. We gladly spill our emotions into the “cloud” 140 characters at a time or with the latest picture of the food we eat.

Comment: Hmmm a central surveillance system owned by the business community, they’re trustworthy right?

Sep 27, 2013, Patent US 8781292 B1- Computer program, method, and system for managing multiple data recording devices, Digital Ally, Inc.

The police and the press report that the public can feel safe now. Police officers have body cameras, police cars have dash cams, and undoubtedly drones are far behind. A “veil” of safety created by total surveillance. Cameras embedded in armor to surveil and control.

“Police spokesman TJ Smith says, eventually, all 2,000 [Baltimore police officers] will have body cameras, a move aimed at improving community trust.”

Comment: Shouldn’t we be surveilling the police?

To be continued…

Dr. E.

Written by

Dr. E.

Vegan, trans woman, feminist, historian, data scientist, and innovator. I have a dry sense of humor and am full of sarcasm.

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