The New Surveillance

TimeWatch Editorial
February 29, 2016

We have come to the place in our history when we are very aware of the constant surveillance that all of humanity is constantly subject to. This is not new. History is filled with instances of covert activity. The preparation to enter the Promised Land included reconnaissance. The assault upon the city of Jericho was preceded by spying. The Prophet Jeremiah, who was sent with a specific warning to Judah, was subjected to close monitoring.

“In the closing years of Judah's apostasy the exhortations of the prophets were seemingly of but little avail; and as the armies of the Chaldeans came for the third and last time to besiege Jerusalem, hope fled from every heart. Jeremiah predicted utter ruin; and it was because of his insistence on surrender that he had finally been thrown into prison. But God left not to hopeless despair the faithful remnant who were still in the city. Even while Jeremiah was kept under close surveillance by those who scorned his messages, there came to him fresh revelations concerning Heaven's willingness to forgive and to save, which have been an unfailing source of comfort to the church of God from that day to this.” {Prophets and Kings, page 466.1}

Gary T Marx in an article entitled: What’s New About the “New Surveillance”? In which he draws from a forthcoming book: Windows into the Soul: Surveillance and Society in an Age of

High Technology, says this:

“The last half of the 20th century has seen a significant increase in the use of technology for the discovery of personal information. Examples include video and audio surveillance, heat, light, motion, sound and scent sensors, night vision goggles, electronic tagging, biometric access devices, drug testing, DNA analysis, computer monitoring including email and web usage and the use of computer techniques such as expert systems, matching and profiling, data mining, mapping, network analysis and simulation.

Control technologies have become available that previously existed only in the imaginations of science fiction writers. We are a surveillance society.” Gary T Marx, What’s New About the “New Surveillance”?

So whether or not a phone company resists the surrender of an encryption code, the topic is indeed moot, since the concept of monitoring continues unabated. The idea that anyone has access to the information, even if it is just the manufacturer, defeats the very concept of privacy. Furthermore that fact alone calls into question the motivation of the existence of the information in the hands of the manufacturer at all. Can I really trust the one who built my home more than I can trust anyone else? And when he claims he does not have a master key, how can this be validated? I have been told that everything is fine because it is the owner who ultimately enters the code that CANNOT be broken; If this is true, then why the debate? Listen as Gary Marx continues:

“In the fifteenth century religious surveillance was a powerful and dominant form. This involved the search for heretics, devils and witches, as well as the more routine policing of religious consciousness, ritual and religiously based rules such as those involving adultery and wedlock and keeping basic records of births, marriages, baptisms and deaths. Over the next several centuries there was a gradual move to a broadly “policed” society in which agents of the state, industry and commerce came to exercise control over ever wider social and geographical areas.” Gary T Marx, What’s New About the “New Surveillance”?

This will not change. The present dispute will serve merely to prepare the population for an even more diligent and invasive approach to surveillance as a means of control. Matthew 24 verses 9 and 10 warn of the results of this scrutiny.

“Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name's sake. And then shall many be offended, and shall betray one another, and shall hate one another.” Matthew 24 verses 9 and 10

Matthew chapter 10 brings it home.
Matthew 10:34 - Think not that I am come to send peace on earth: I came not to send peace, but a sword.

Matthew 10:35 - For I am come to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter in law against her mother in law.

Matthew 10:36 - And a man's foes [shall be] they of his own household.

To be forewarned is to be forearmed!

Cameron A. Bowen