[Air-l] "Big Brother"

[Derek McMillan]

The phrase "Big Brother" has been hijacked as a title for an increasingly
tacky piece of exploitation TV but the original meaning of the term is still
alive.

The music corporations are boasting about finding a teenage girl who has
been downloading music so that the corporations can now prosecute her
mother. The media report with a straight face the idea that downloading will
ruin the business. (Just as video recorders ruined the business or taping
music off the wireless ruined the business presumably.) There has not been a
peep of protest about the invasion of the teenager's privacy by the
corporations. It is OK for the corporations to know the contents of
everyone's computer "for their own good" so to speak.

At least they have dropped the laughable - "if you download a tune you are
funding terrorism" line which was greeted with sceptical derision whenever
they broadcast it.

On the TV there are a series of public service adverts threatening people
without licences for watching TV and threatening people who work while
signing for benefit. In both the message is the same "we know all about you,
we are coming to get you." This is New Labour's image of a caring society.

The BBC dismisses anyone who opposes these measures as "civil libertarians"
to create the impression that ordinary people are uninterested in liberty or
privacy and such interests are just the province of some special interest
group of "civil libertarians".

The corporations openly boast about their infringements of our liberty and
the government joins in the chorus.



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