big brother is watching the evolutionof satellite surveillance（老大哥是看着evolutionof卫星监测）（14页）.docVIP

Write Around The World 2002 “Big Brother Is Watching” – The Evolution of satellite Surveillance Jenni Doonan AMIEE Introduction Imagine a world where all citizens of Earth are under constant surveillance. The people are brainwashed into believing a particular version of World history and politics, they had to abide by specific rules and if found to be disobeying them the punishments are severe. Of course with the surveillance systems in place it is impossible not to be caught breaking the rules and thus people go about their lives in a state of fear with no privacy. This is frightening world that was described by George Orwell in his book “1984”. When it was published in 1949, the type of World it described must have seemed a long way away, if not impossible. Today our planet is surrounded by a range of satellites that are capable of both photographic and communications surveillance. Our towns and cities are covered in CCTV cameras; we can be tracked on the Internet and by using our credit cards. Civil Liberties groups are horrified at the to ever-increasing levels of identification and monitoring we are subject to in modern society. The majority of people believe that they can choose to avoid most methods of identification and surveillance by not using credit cards or the Internet and generally not supplying their personal details to companies. However they have forgotten the ever present “eyes in the sky” that silently orbit the Earth 24 hours a day with the ability to zoom in on any location within minutes.  A recent example of the power of satellite imagery is of the World Trade Center. The first picture (right) shows the enormous 110 storey twin towers, standing in the middle of the busy financial centre of New York, USA. Figure 12: The Demolished WTC (image courtesy of ) The second picture (left) shows the same area after the September 11th 2001 terrorist attacks. Not only is the devastation obvious but the l