Thursday 29 April 2010

Erasing David - 29/4/10 - Cameo

"If you've done nothing wrong you've got nothing to worry about"

You must have heard people say that before?

There is a collective term for the sort of people who believe it; idiots.

What they seem utterly unaware of is that what is "wrong" is not a constant, it changes regularly and is decided by other people. Just because you and I think that something is "right" or "wrong" does not mean that it is right in the eyes of the law today or that it will still be right in the eyes of the law tomorrow.

Despite this people in Britain have allowed themselves to become the most observed country in Europe and we come behind only China and Russia in the world. Why? To make us "safer" of course. This despite the fact that the ever increasing numbers of CCTV cameras have had no impact on crime or anti-social behaviour.

Did you know that ever telephone call, text message and email you make or send is kept on file for twelve months?

Did you know that your mobile telephone can be turned on without your knowing it and then used to track you and to record conversations?

"You're paranoid"

"The government aren't about to start using that sort of information"

"What are you worried about?"

"You're a conspiracy theorist"

Yes, yes I may well be.

In "Erasing David" direcor David Bond decides to see exactly what information is out there about him and how easily it could be used to find him or be used against him.

The answers to both of those questions are utterly unsurprising to a "conspiracy theorist" like me but if you are the sort of person who believes that there is nothing to worry about by government and industry holding huge amounts of your personal data (and handling it very carelessly in the case of this government) then what he discovers will shock you.

This is a film that deals with issues that everyone should be concerned by...the fact that so many of us are not is, possibly, more worrying than anything else.



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