There is a body of information being used by government to control the way people think and act. And experiments are systematically designed to increase government’s knowledge about that. This is the most threatening part of being a citizen in a democracy. When your government can manipulate how you vote and how you think. You no longer live in the democracy. Professor Alan Scheflin
The American people should be made aware of the trend toward monopolization of the great public information vehicles and the concentration of more and more power over public opinion in fewer and fewer hands. Spiro T Agnew
Citizens deemed enemy combatants can be held indefinitely, with no charges against them, no right to see an attorney, no right to go before a judge. Aftermath: Unanswered Questions From 9/11
The Homeland Security Act which passed about a year later in November 2002 outlines in great detail the degree to which the government can now spy, listen in, record, get access to internet, library cards, bookstore records, medical records, school records ... ibid.
Washington – A massive database that the government will use to monitor every purchase made by every American citizen is a necessary tool in the War on Terror, the Pentagon said yesterday. Fox News
The more you can increase fear of drugs and crime, welfare mothers, immigrants and aliens, the more you control all the people. Noam Chomsky
There is no reason to accept the doctrines crafted to sustain power and privilege, or to believe that we are constrained by mysterious and unknown social laws. These are simply decisions made within institutions that are subject to human will and that must face the test of legitimacy. And if they do not meet the test, they can be replaced by other institutions that are more free and more just, as has happened often in the past. Noam Chomsky
Across the nation ordinary American claim they are being watched harassed and targeted ... The government is collecting data on its citizens. United States of Paranoia, Discovery 2015
They have put out the lights in the ordinary world – something Bob said. The Whistle Blower 1985 starring Michael Caine & James Fox & Nigel Havers & John Gielgun & Felicity Dean & Barry Foster & Gordon Jackson & Kenneth Colley & David Langton & Dinah Stabb & James Simmons et al, director Simon Langton, father to Bob’s bird
Big Brother is bullshit. Penn & Teller, Bullshit! s3e7: Big Brother, Showtime 2005
When we’ve got these people who have practically limitless powers within a society. If they get a pass without so much as a slap on the wrist, what example does that set for the next group of officials that come into power? To push the lines a little bit further, a little bit further, a little bit further, and we’ll realize that we’re no longer citizens – we’re subjects. Edward Snowden
Orwell’s 1984 convinced me, rightly or wrongly, that Marxism was only a quantum leap away from tyranny. By contrast, Huxley’s Brave New World suggested that the totalitarian systems of the future might be subservient and ingratiating. J G Ballard
Members of this Labour government once spoke out eloquently for civil liberties. That government is now enacting measures from identity cards to restrictions on free speech that are unprecedented in modern times. And its leader maintains that these new laws are needed to make us all safer. There is little evidence that these new laws and powers are actually making us any more secure. But there is evidence such changes are making us less free to speak our minds. Dispatches: Stealing Away Your Freedom, Channel 4 2009
You now have to seek police permission to hold a demonstration within eleven hundred yards of parliament. ibid.
Train spotting: a full body-search in a public place. ibid.
They also seem curiously zealous when it comes to investigating unfashionable opinions. ibid.
This sort of policing may not be familiar here but other countries know it all too well. ibid.
The move to allow detention of suspects for thirty days is a direct blow at habeas corpus which is meant to prevent anyone being held without charge. What’s more, Labour and Tory governments have seriously discussed limiting jury trial. The prime minister himself clearly thinks that he knows better than centuries of British tradition ... How is it that these benevolent liberal-minded people have ended up presiding over the current bonfire of liberties? ibid.
There are now 24,000 under-18s on the official DNA database who have never been cautioned or convicted. ibid.
The one thing I will say that the past fifty years has given me – I would say that nothing in this world works the way you think it does. Nothing. Governments do not operate the way you think they do, banks do not do what you think they do, the police department is not here for what you think it is. Nothing in your world works the way you think it does. There’s a far higher bigger picture. Shade: The Motion Picture, Jordan Maxwell, 2013
In 1954 a group of industrialists, political elites and even royalty set out to form an organisation that would essentially pull the strings of society from behind the scenes. ibid. Jason Bermas
Yes, we can elect our leaders but you can’t select your leaders. You don’t select anyone. Your masters who own you will select who will run. That’s all they want to know: which one do you like best? ibid. Jordan Maxwell
Big Brother is on the march. A plan to subject all children to mental health screening is underway, and the pharmaceuticals are gearing up for bigger sales of psychotropic drugs. Phyllis Schlafly