Watched
A Near-Future Reaction to Nearly Total Surveillance
In a few neighborhoods like this one, where you’re as likely to be shot and killed as go to college, there are small planes circling over our heads, always watching. It’s like Google Earth but live, and mostly just for spying on brown folks, as far as I can figure.
I’m not sure that if I could see or hear the plane it would stress me out more than the nagging fact that neither ever happens.
Word has it that there are actually two, and they trade off when the other’s fuel edges near low. Important so that the livestream remains ever constant, uninterrupted. Given that they both operate without a pilot aboard, I’d guess that legend is nothing but a grand tale. Ever since that solar drone has been in the air for over a month now, with it’s sights set on five years, why they’d have to buy two just for us baffles me.
But what do I know? Those FOIA documents our government was so proud of allowing look more like boring white minimalist paintings than real reports. Ridiculous.
A group of hobbyist astronomers — think investigative reporter meets conspiracy theorists — figured out you how to photograph the drone. They even managed published a fairly precise schedule of it’s movements online. Turns out when things are on autopilot, they tend to be fairly predictable, especially if the operators, whoever they are, thought nobody could see it.
Of course, a couple libertarians instantly started trying to shoot the things down, and the schedule was promptly and algorithmically randomized. Them hobbyists were quietly asked to cease publishing their findings. Shocked us all when they actually did. I wonder what those spooks found on them, of course it’s wrapped up by some a nondisclosure National Security Letter. Democracy at work. Most transparent presidency they said.
Now whenever any of us get’s caught we just blame the drone, but I can’t rightly say any more of us has been getting caught than before. The business has been just about as profitable as ever actually.
A corrupt cop is worth more than that fancy toy any day.
Besides, all they’ve seem to use this damn surveillance for is harassin protesters, watching journalists, and getting free armature porn. Typical. You build a 52 billion a year industry, and get porn and a weirdo writer in prison.
Shit, I wonder what our schools could do with that type of dough. I wonder what some real police accountability could do for this city, and I don’t mean more settlements, but real change. I guess I’m one to talk, I did used to sling dope all over this town.
But I’m trying to get my shit back in line now, which is harder than you might think, say if you went one of those fancy schools. Once they installed those damned license plate readers all over this city, these days my criminal record and skin tone warrants probable cause. I’m algorithmically stopped nearly every week. You think that makes things easier on the job hunt? I’m trying here. To top that, this gang Injunction nonsense means I can’t talk to half the people in this neighborhood. It’s illegal for me to network.
I can’t even talk to my own brother on the phone, else that meta-whatever pops up and says I’m conspiring with the gang again. Shit’s just wrong.
And don’t get me started about what I’m supposed to do about AA meetings, a signal intelligence debacle if there ever was one. The only thing in my life that ever helped me get to be a better person raises major algorithmic eyebrows every time there’s a meeting. You think a bunch of ex-junkies strolling into a building at the same time, relentlessly calling each other for support, and which has anonymity as a founding principle goes unnoticed? Forget it.
Throwing people like me in prison faster than any country in the world certainly aint doing what AA is. It is the largest, entirely free, and member run chemical dependency program in the world afterall…
But hey I get it, I had my Escalade, they got a drone. Power baby, sometimes to keep it, you gotta flaunt it.
