The use of an all-seeing deity may have its roots in various historical religions, often represented by the all-seeing eye. But whether you are religious or not, the belief that you are always being watched is no longer the subject of debate, but of truth.

You are being watched.

You are being watched as you read this article, you are being watched when you use your smartphone or drive your car.

And the new omnipresent deity is the State.

Historical surveillance has roots going back hundreds of years, but it was the ever-efficient Germans who are the fathers of the modern surveillance state.

Although open to dispute, the modern surveillance state stems back to Reichstag fire decree of 1933 which nullified many of the key civil liberties of German citizens, with the right to privacy of communication by mail or telephone no longer existing.

It was Nazis again, this time former Nazis working for the Stasi, East Germany’s Secret Police, that took State surveillance to new heights.

The Stasi had as its goal to “know everything about everyone,” and had in its employ 90,000 full-time workers who were assisted by 170,000 full-time unofficial collaborators, who managed to create files on nearly 6 million East German citizens, out of a population of only 16 million.

But that was then, and the technology available during that time was nothing compared to what we have today.

The scary truth is that State monitoring of its citizens is far more pervasive than even the Communist East Germans could have dreamed.

Every day

When many think of Government surveillance they think of crack FBI or CIA teams tracking down a criminal suspect, bugging a home, camped out in a surveillance van.

While that may still be a method used in law enforcement, it’s no longer necessarily needed to track a potential target of State surveillance because the chances are the Government can already track your movements and what you are doing passively through the all-seeing eye of Government accumulated data.

Driving a car along a highway or through a tollgate with an electronic tag? Not only does the e-tag provide data of all your movements, many countries now have automatic license plate recognition systems that can track the movement of your vehicle through surveillance cameras, which are themselves all pervasive.

Those same surveillance cameras also support facial recognition technology that is so widespread and easy to access now that you can even utilize it through a web browser for free.

Using public transport? the smart card you’re using to enter and exit is being tracked.

Driving a vehicle with an emergency assist built in? Not every car on the road does, but many late models do and at least in the European Union they are set to become compulsory from 2018; not only can they be used to track your vehicle, but as recently as December last year a woman who fled a hit and run was arrested due to her car calling 911.

The NSA monitors all internet traffic going into and out of the United States, meaning that anytime you access a site or send an email you’re being monitored, and if for example if it includes key trigger words such as Islam or Jihad, it is immediately flagged for attention.

Using a smartphone? They can be tracked as well not only via court order to a telco, but through devices such as the Stinger, exposed by Daniel Rigmaiden, that can pinpoint a phone within two meters at the whim of an investigating officer.

Debit card? credit card? store loyalty card … all are being tracked.

Anything that is digital or being monitored by digital devices can be tracked, and there is no way to escape it, but what has changed in 2016 is that all of that data can now be tracked centrally by the State and although they won’t admit to it everyone has a record with the Federal Government that gathers all sorts of data that can be mined at anytime, or in the case they have reason to suspect you of anytime at all, easily added to.

You are being watched in the surveillance society of 2016.

photo credit: justinsomnia via photopin cc