So I posted a thread about the NSA today and was actually a bit nervous about doing it.

[trumad]

First time that's happened to me.

I can't imagine what folks went through behind the Iron Curtain or in regimes that your every move was watched.

God---the paranoia must have been overwhelming. Like I said, I actually felt it today for the first time and I don't like it.

[Feral Child]

1. Very good post.

Impactual. Rec.

[Coyotl]

18. If you think paranoia is rational.

[Feral Child]

53. Often

it is.

[Coyotl]

54. But not for posting on DU!

[Neoma]

56. This is a popular political website, and people keep tabs.

That's pretty common knowledge on here.

[Feral Child]

61. You're not making sense.

At times, it is appropriate to let a healthy paranoia flower.

For example, when the government proves time and again that it will violate it's own rules in order to stifle dissent.

When the president that represents our own party engages the forces of intelligence agencies to spy on our entire citizenry under the excuse that it's for our own protection.

When the Constitution only protects "approved" speech.

Under those circumstances the sanity of the Naysayers and Appeasers becomes suspect.

I'm done with this conversation. If you have another empty rejoinder, have at it. You can only convince those desperate to believe that everything's OK.

[Coyotl]

62. You're not making sense.

Paranoia is just that, paranoia. Reason is reason.

Be reasonable, not paranoid.

[NYC_SKP]

2. Yeah, I've had that feeling. And I'm old enough to remember not ever feeling that. Ever.

It sucks.

[Th1onein]

3. I know what you mean.

It's awful to think this is the country I grew up in. We are a police state now, make no mistake about it.

[FreakinDJ]

4. I posted about the cop shooting the 13yr old boy and had a Sheriffs Helicopter circling overhead

I know I know

it must have been a coinkydink

[woo me with science]

5. I made a post similar to this a while back.

I wrote a post about a dinner conversation I'd had in which someone suggested that Anonymous should try to collect and then publicly post private conversations of Obama, Feinstein, and every politician who defends this monstrous surveillance state and its invasions of privacy.

I hesitated before posting about this offhand remark in a casual conversation, and the fact that I hesitated --that the very *existence* of the surveillance state made me hesitate - made me very angry.

They have no right to do this to us.

I really don't think you can overstate the psychological ramifications. The relationship of the people to our government has been fundamentally changed, and in a ugly, poisonous, malignant way. This is personal. This is something people feel and have to deal with psychologically every time they sit down to write an email.

It is the dark, omnipresent threat that anything you say could come back to be used against you in the future.

Perhaps we have not lived in a free country for some time now, but they have now destroyed any remaining illusion and have driven home the ugly reality of our true relationship to this government.

[frazzled]

6. Oh, you think you're paranoid

I cleaned out my spice drawer the other day (looking for cardamom to put in some cookies I was making, I decided the whole drawer needed a rehab), and an hour later I go to my computer and .... an ad for spices comes up on the TPM website for me. I have never googled anything about spices. This was a real-world to computer phenomenon.

This is a true story, not intended (solely) for humor. I think "they" are watching me in my kitchen. And Google apparently has made an account for me on YouTube, completely without my consent or knowledge.

Actually, I gave up being paranoid about the NSA a long time ago: if they didn't come get me throughout the Bush years, when I was posting all the time about them, and if they haven't come to get me over the years for my more-than-occasional yelling at them to "get off my phone" when I am talking to my sister and the line gets all buggy, I don't think they care about me. Honestly, give me a single report of someone being whisked away for saying something bad about the NSA.

Here, I'll take a stab: NSA is a big fat lot of poopy-heads! Nyah!

[awoke_in_2003]

26. The most effective police state...

would approach slowly. Looking over the last 20-30 years, to me it looks like it is doing just that. By time the water starts boiling it will be too late.

[KoKo]

33. Have you ever protested against the Iraq Invasion..before it started? Were

you ever involved in signing a Petition, writing "LTE" or a Member of a "Subversive Website" (we don't know which websites are on their "watch list"...but you can bet that this one has been and is being surveiled along with Kos, Democracy Now, and any other Progressive leaning Blog or Website) and have you ever in your life been involved with any Activist Group or read those who are considered Activists like Michael Moore, ACLU, Common Cause, Doctors without Borders, Greenpeace...etc. Are you a person who has a record of demonstrating "On Campus in the late 60's" and did you continue your activities after that time frame which might cause attention to the groups you belong to and activities since?

Have you ever clicked on sites that feature posts from Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn and Chris Hedges. Do you like Bill Moyers and Thom Hartmann equally?

Well..I could go on...but, I think you would understand what I'm trying to say.

BTW...I love Spices and try not to get too paranoid...but, you do have to wonder about what's being revealed if we aren't sort of "Too Comfortable" in our "I've nothing to HIDE...so WHY would they ever want to bother me!"

There are too many examples of this revealed for either of us to feel comfortable these days...Just saying.

[frazzled]

40. Yes

I protested the Iraq invasion in Boston, with 50,000 other people. (Hell, I was tear gassed protesting the war in Vietnam; I participated in the takeover of a building involved in military contracts.) I've signed a thousand petitions, put my name to letters, etc. I have been very active on the ground in retail politics and was a founding member of a progressive group. I've been in the room with Noam Chomsky.

I'm not in the least paranoid about any of those things. I was paranoid about the government after 2000 and maybe up through around 2004, but not really after that. I find being paranoid about these things irrational. Believe me, if ordinary political involvement and dissent were going to be retaliated against, it would have happened already. And I'm not talking about being asked to stop camping in a park or drumming. Please understand how quite a bit of dissent is tolerated ... indeed, is coopted, in the Marcusian sense.

Look, I come from the generation in which students at Kent State were murdered by the National Guard for protesting. I know everyone would love that kind of drama. But the 60s are over. Nobody really cares if you read websites that have writings by Chomsky or Zinn. That's laughable.

[KoKo]

41. I need to ask you a question:

If you've done what you say you participated in...then why would you say this? Do you look back on your past "Protest Life" and "Laugh At It?" Why is that?

:shrug

YOU SAY in reply:

I know everyone would love that kind of drama. But the 60s are over. Nobody really cares if you read websites that have writings by Chomsky or Zinn. That's laughable.[/bi]

[frazzled]

44. Experience

Last edited Sat Dec 21, 2013, 11:56 PM - Edit history (1)

I wasn't implying that reading Chomsky or Zinn (schoolchildren have been reading him for decades) is laughable. I was saying that to think the government is following you around thinking you are a terrorist for doing so is laughable.

It's okay: read whatever you like, and don't worry.

[sabrina 1]

49. Ordinary political dissent IS retaliated against.

But so long as you don't rock the boat, you have nothing to fear. Police states don't go after EVERYONE, they go after those they think are 'leaders' or who might be charismatic enough to influence a lot of people.

That is why they sent out their minions to keep demanding to know who 'are the leaders of OWS' mocking them for being 'leaderless'. The Corporate Media sent out their stenographers to rallies to ask people to direct them to the 'leaders'. OWS anticipate this and refused to have any leaders.

So they raided people's apartments, they beat up the protesters, elderly women, young people, IRaq Veterans, two of them put in the hospital near death.

And worse of all, the arrested and roughed up JOURNALISTS.


Occupy Wall Street November 17: Journalists Arrested, Beaten By Police

As thousands of Occupy Wall Street protesters took to the streets on Thursday, journalists once again found themselves a target of police violence and arrests.

Reporters took to Twitter and, in some cases, to television to spread the word of the heavy hand police were using against them. It appeared to be a repeat of a similar scene two days earlier, when journalists were roughed up and arrested as the NYPD forcibly cleared the Occupy Wall Street encampment in lower Manhattan.'

......

The Daily Caller also said that two of its reporters were "assaulted" with batons.

Josh Stearns, a member of media reform group Free Press who has been tracking the arrests of journalists at Occupy movements, estimates that 26 have been arrested in total since the protests began two months ago. On Thursday, that number looked set to grow substantially, as reports of arrests poured in. Baltimore reporter Ryan Harvey and In These Times writer J.A. Meyerson -- were reportedly arrested.

I remember when they began abusing reporters, all of whom were wearing press cards.

Not one of them were paranoid about being targeted when they began covering OWS activities. They THOUGHT they lived in a Democracy.

And not one of them will ever again feel that it is safe to report on any successful protests against the Corporate State.

It only takes once to realize first hand that you are no longer living in a democracy.

They had to be careful until they felt they didn't need to be anymore. They are becoming more arrogant, less concerned about violating the rights of the people.

Many people ARE frightened them after seeing first hand how unsafe it is anymore to protest the wrongdoing of the Government and especially of Wall St.

I don't know if it all can be reversed, to try to do it, as OWS did, means you WILL be falsely arrested, some were tortured they reported, beaten and jailed and few are willing to go through that.

Which is what they want, they WANT people to be afraid of them. That is how police states work. People stop speaking out openly.

'They Thought They Were Free'. It's worth reading that again. We are in exactly the stage the Germans were in when the subject of those writings, although 'not feeling comfortable' about some policies, still thought they were free.

[treestar]

60. This is nothing like what the people behind the Iron Curtain

would have experienced. Nothing like it at all. I don't see how people can keep saying this with a straight face! Here you are, saying whatever you want about the NSA and the government on a computer, and could do it out loud in the public square whenever you wanted to. No consequences.

[truedelphi]

7. Hmm You posted this at 12:29 Pm. And hopefully someone here

has heard from you Since then?

[grasswire]

8. too late to worry about it

even if they don't hold you responsible for what you say, they admit to making up stuff on people now.

[brooklynite]

9. Oh for pity' sake...

Unless you can't point to an instance where the NSA cracked down on someone making critical comments on a mainstream blog, this beyond silly to be worrying about.

[Number23]

21. Could you tell this guy that?

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1002&pid=4210530

I can't tell if this is a classic case of Internet tough guy meltdown, sarcasm or what.

[madinmaryland]

10. Dude! It's a public message board. Everyone can see it, even cboy4.

You should be more concerned about your emails and "private" conversations. I realize it is tough to put "fuck Hoover" in every email, just so that Agent Mike Hunt knows you're watching him.

[rhett o rick]

11. I dont know how they operate but if it was me, I would have a limited surveillance of everyone,

then have a criteria to catalog each individual. Maybe a 1 to 5, with 1 the most dangerous. Each level would be subjected to differing levels of surveillance. If you are a 5 I wouldnt bother to read everything you post. If you are a 1 I would have recording devices in your home.

[woo me with science]

13. I am not sure how the different branches of our police state coordinate (i.e., DHS vs. NSA),

but we knew even before the explosive NSA revelations that they had developed other extremely creepy and intrusive ways of classifying and ranking this "Nation of Suspects."

Post by Demeter from Sept. 2011
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=102x5011487

A Nation of "Suspects"
http://www.truth-out.org/nation-suspects/1314810046

In November 2006, the Federal Register disclosed the existence of the Automated Targeting System, which relies on a 5.3 billion-record government database to assign a numerical "terrorism risk rating" to each traveler who leaves and enters the US by air, train or land - the higher the score, the higher the risk. The risk assessment data mining is carried out by analysts at the National Targeting Center run by Customs and Border Protection, and the risk profiles of individuals will be retained for 15 years (reduced from 40). An individual cannot see or challenge his or her rating, but that data can be shared with state, local and foreign governments and used in hiring and contracting decisions. One traveler who did manage to see the records collected on him through a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request discovered in his file a note from a Border Patrol officer about the book he was carrying with him at the airport, "Drugs and Your Rights."

What is next for the right to freedom of movement? TSA head John Pistole, a former FBI agent, wants to expand from 25 to 37 the number of its Visible Intermodal Prevention Response (VIPR) task forces. These teams of TSA agents, federal air marshals, behavior detection and canine officers conducted some 8,000 searches of ports, ferries, subways, railway and bus stations, bridges, and private cars and trucks over the past year, including the warrantless search of all the passengers who were getting off an Amtrak train in Savannah, Georgia.

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is meanwhile testing Future Attribute Screening Technology (FAST), which purportedly would expose criminal intentions by using sensors to measure flicking eyes and rapid blinks and scan for elevated blood pressure. Detecting "malintent" to fight terrorism is the theme of many of the programs in which the DHS is pouring millions of dollars, from the Insider Threat Detection Project, which derives and validates "observable indicators of potential insider threats before the insider commits a hostile act," to the Violent Intent Modeling and Simulation project, which assists analysts in "determining whether radical groups are likely to engage in political violence."

It is not just the First Amendment rights to freedom of expression, assembly and religion and Fourth Amendment protections against unreasonable searches and seizures that are endangered by the emerging surveillance state. When algorithms detect "pre-crime" in a world in which we are all potential suspects, we have sacrificed such core values as the presumption of innocence and the right to privacy.<3>

The more the United States is transformed into a nation of citizen spies, the greater the risk to personal privacy - the "right to be let alone," in former Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis' words. This risk was well recognized in 2002, when a public outcry greeted then-attorney general John Ashcroft's Operation Terrorism Information and Prevention System (TIPS), which was intended to recruit workers with access to private homes to be the government's "eyes and ears" to gather information to be deposited in law- enforcement databases. The intensity of the opposition led Congress to explicitly cancel the program later that year, but, like the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency's (DARPA) Total Information Awareness program, it has lived on in subsequent operations involving various kinds of "terrorism liaison officers." For instance, firefighters in major cities have been trained by the DHS "to be alert for a person who is hostile, uncooperative or expressing hate or discontent with the United States" or to be on the lookout for people who have "little or no furniture other than a bed or mattress." It is not just the nation's police forces that have been trained to compile Suspicious Activity Reports (now the subject of FOIA litigation). School bus drivers are being enlisted in the fight against terrorism, and 20,000 mall security guards are being recruited to spot terrorists among shoppers, while the DHS' "If you see something, say something" campaign is being expanded from transport systems to Walmart stores, the Mall of America, hotels and the sports industry.

Along with human eyes, the nation's inhabitants are increasingly likely to be watched by high-tech surveillance camera networks erected through lavish DHS grants. Lower Manhattan has 3,000 in place as part of its "Ring of Steel" - which includes radiation detectors and automatic license plate readers to track cars.

Modern cameras are not just extremely powerful. They have the potential to be fitted with facial recognition software, eye scans, X-ray vision, radio frequency identification tags and 3-D tracking devices. The digital information they record can be immediately fed to fusion center and law enforcement databases to enhance a target's personal profile. And they are ripe for abuse: in April 2009, two FBI workers in an FBI satellite control room used surveillance cameras to spy on teenage girls as they were trying on prom gowns in a West Virginia mall.

As evidence grows of the harmful impact of surveillance technologies on personal lives and our notion of ourselves as a people, will communities organize to roll back the surveillance state? Or are "we the people" destined to become "unwitting victims of the darkness"? In our final post, we will turn to the potential for resistance.


1. September 10, 1976.

2. There is speculation that the Obama administration is using Section 215 of the USA Patriot Act for a "classified-collection program" under which it collects phone location data. See Time Magazine, June 24, 2011.

3. We have entered the territory of the 2002 film "Minority Report," which features a specialized "Department of Pre-Crime'" where psychic "precogs" discern which "criminals" to pursue before they commit crimes.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/10022730456#post13
woo me with science
13. Ah, that's the question, isn't it. That magic word, "terrorism,"

that allows indefinite war, first abroad and now, increasingly, it seems, right here, against any of us. That word is all that's needed to end up on a "Kill List" now, it seems, or to be imprisoned indefinitely. Or to have any of your rights against search and seizure violated. The criteria must be *at least* as stringent as for after-the-fact labeling of any young male as a "military combatant" after he has been slaughtered by a drone...

Surely only a real terrorist could ever be smeared with such an assumption. Surely a person would have to do something EGREGIOUS and TERRORISTIC before the government would EVER consider him worthy of any sort of scrutiny along those lines...




The NSA is building a massive data center in Utah to read every email you'll ever send.
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002656593

Ridiculous FBI list: You might be a domestic terrorist if...
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1790765

Doctors asked to identify potential terrorists under government plans
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1261120&mesg_id=1261120

Homeland Security Kept Tabs on Occupy Wall Street
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002466099

Do You Like Online Privacy? You May Be a Terrorist
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002257966

Top US counterterrorism official: drone critics are Al Qaeda enablers
http://www.democraticunderground.com/1002279862

"Arrogant complaining about airport security is one indicator Transportation Security Administration officers consider when looking for possible criminals and terrorists"
http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/04/15/tsa.screeners.complain/

etc., etc., etc...

[rhett o rick]

34. This is scary shit. nm

[SheilaT]

12. One of the ways I know that

our surveillance state is less than competently surveilling everyone, is that as of the last time I flew on an airplane I not only was able to board, but only once was ever pulled over for slightly extra screening. It was pretty clear I was chosen at genuine randomness. But if, back in the Bush years, anyone was paying attention to my frequent anti-Bush statements, they didn't seem to care. To be sure, I have never advocated any harm to or violence against any of our elected officials.

[DeSwiss]

14. That's the whole point.

- To get you to enslave yourself.

K&R

"The ideal tyranny is that which is ignorantly self-administered by its victims. The most perfect slaves are, therefore, those which blissfully and unawaredly enslave themselves." ~Dresden James

[hootinholler]

15. Fuck the NSA!

Come pick me up now motherfucker!

I am coming after your asses! Nice and legally, but make no mistake, I'm coming and I'm bringing as many friends as who will muster.

And a gratuitous fuck you to the CIA and especially the DHS!

[libodem]

37. Jumps in

Grabs. Hoot, and hides behind him.... looks around him and says...Yeah, what he said. Flips the bird.

[politichew]

16. I'm more frightened of remaining in poverty.

I'm glad that other people have the funds to sit around and fear black helicopters and mind-reading brainwaves, but I'm more worried about paying for my next meal.

[JDPriestly]

28. There is a link. The more our government wastes money on all these complex and expensive

electronic systems, the less goes into other aspects of our economy. Where do you think they get the money to pay all the Homeland Security folks? From taxes that could be used to employ people to do more useful things.

[jtuck004]

29. +1 n/t

[deurbano]

32. People with fewer resources have MORE to fear from an over-reaching surveillance state

than those with greater resources, and it is possible to be concerned about more than one thing at a time. (No additional personal funds are required.... and it is not necessary to "sit around" to do it.) The OP didn't mention black helicopters or mind-reading brainwaves.

[sagat]

48. Pretty much. +1.

#firstworld(imaginary)problems

[Divernan]

17. Add a signature line: "Don't drone me, bro!"

That's what I've thought about doing.

[Coyotl]

19. I brought this post up onmy computer and the phone rang.

I didn't answer because i knew the phone was already tapped

[LittleBlue]

20. K&R. nt

[silverweb]

22. I've felt it before.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]When the Patriot Act was passed and during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, when our warlords were telling us how we needed to "watch what you say, watch what you do."

[agent46]

23. Elizibethan England was similar to today

We can't yield to fear. That's how dissent is squelched - one person at a time. If everyone defied the illegal surveillance state, they'd have far less to fall back on as their edifice is dismantled by the people.

Interesting note. Elizabethan England was similar to today. Nearly half the population hired by the aristocracy to spy on the other half.

At least they had Shakespeare.



Solidarity, people.

[silverweb]

24. Yes.

[font color="navy" face="Verdana"]"We can't yield to fear. ... If everyone defied the illegal surveillance state, they'd have far less to fall back on as their edifice is dismantled by the people."

Solidarity!

[zeemike]

25. Paranoia runs deep.

Into your life it will creep
It starts when your always afraid
Step out of line and they come and take you away.

The fear is the remote control

[Enthusiast]

27. This one.

[gulliver]

30. That feeling is the true root of Snowden worship.

It is a kind of narcissism...the idea that others might actually care enough about what you think to monitor you. The idea that there are those who would persecute you for what you think. Paranoia can be a protective shield from the idea that most of the time no one is thinking about you at all. They are thinking about themselves and their loved ones.

The same paranoia that fuels your dualistic pantheon (Snowden/NSA) is what fuels the NSA.

[KoKo]

36. Maybe you are too young...and they don't teach History about WWII anymore...

Maybe you've had no interest and have had a Good Life with no Travail, Sorrow or Relatives who gave you a sense of what their past lives here in the USA were from when they were a child.

Maybe you are "Super Confident" that you are immune from what goes on and therefore you can't understand what other people go through and are able to have empathy or sympathy through reading of history.

I guess that's possible.

But, giving you a pass for the above...that you could still question what Edward Snowden has revealed is quite ASTOUNDING.

Unless, as I queried above...You have not read history, are very young and are only here on DU because you think those who post here are "Out to Lunch.'

I have no idea! But...only listing possibilities...so that I can try to understand your post reply. Surely there is a reason you believe that Snowden didn't reveal TRUTHS that needed to be revealed for the Health of Our Democracy and the Citizens who are supposed to hold Politicians and those we Support with our Taxpayer DOLLARS.. Responsible for their actions...

There's a Constitution and a Bill of Rights that gives American People a FRAMEWORK to protect their rights. Most of us here...(certainly not all) but most (still here after all these Fucking Years) DO BELIEVE that Power MUST respond to the PEOPLE!

It's the LAWS OF THE LAND...and we must SEIZE THEM BACK!

[GoneFishin]

42. +1.

[sabrina 1]

51. Thank you. I HAVE read history, and I have met people who went through it. There will always and

always have been, the willfully blind, the mockers, the SUPPORTERS of the police state who think they are immune and often are, for a while, until something happens that even THEY find too scary.

The elderly lady who was pepper sprayed and rescued by other protesters at an OWS rally, was a Nazi Survivor.

I will take her word that we ARE at a very dangerous juncture in our history, she sees the same signs she said, that were present in her country before it all went beyond their control..

I also met another survivor, she said the same thing. She has found herself feeling frightened by what she is seeing here, because 'it is all very familiar.

I will take their warnings, since they know these things work and progress, sadly, over the word of a random, anonymous internet poster.

Anyone who is not shocked at what we are learning is either ignorant of history, as you said, or willfully blind.

[Demo_Chris]

31. Well said. nt

[ailsagirl]

35. "Paranoia strikes deep..."

Amen

[KoKo]

39. We already see our "Open Internet" change from everything hawking to Pay

or Watch Ads. Remind anyone of Cable TV? Our promise that gouges us?

Look at the changes of websites just this December where there are "Revision" ...(maybe folks getting off XP and going to Win:8?

I see "Pay Walls" in Newspaper sites....I'm having Mega Problems with my ISP...I'm being told to use ATT or Time Warner for my Internet...yet Time-Warner is now Up for Sale. I've heard from neighbors and around the NET that both are now requiring "upgrade fees" if you are Online Too Much... I'm seeing my Netflix/Amazon Movie Sites now doing "Time Out's" where I have to keep clicking my Roku Box to try to get the interruption stopped.

I've had problems here on DU and other sites since December 1 trying to access...and getting time outs and have been in discussion with ISP about WHY this is happening. They are from India or Pakistan and they put us through Codes and have us hook our HDMI power cord over to our Router and Modem and it hurts our business doing this over and over for the time lost and time spent dealing with them. We don't hear anything better from our Business Sources using Time-Warner or ATT... (we don't have Verizon where I'm located.)

We are Surveilled/Spied Upon. We can work around it ...but we are DEFINITELY being monitored and if you have a Small Business and have to deal with this Crap ...it does make one wonder what's going on.

[Drew Richards]

38. I felt the same way for 5 years back in 70-74 im sure others remember the feeling

[KoKo]

43. Trumad...this was an interesting post from you.

also the replies...for and against what you said.

[BlueCheese]

45. Someone I know reacted to the NSA revelations by wanting to donate to the ACLU.

... but then wondered if that would get him put on a list somewhere.

[CFLDem]

46. That happens to me as well.

Just another day in the soft tyranny that is the USA due to the NSA who watches what we say in every way.

[joshcryer]

47. Have you appropriately adjusted your behavior?

[MannyGoldstein]

50. I think the NSA does a great public service.

Tirelessly fighting to protect America from the enemies who hate our freedoms. The NSA are also brilliant and very good looking.

[trumad]

57. forgot to tag your 3rd way Manny...

[snot]

52. Best defense: let's ALL post about the NSA.

United we stand; divided we fall.

[hobbit709]

55. Old Soviet Bloc joke

"How do you play Russian roulette?"

"You have six people in a room telling antistate jokes and you don't know who the informer is"

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

58. ‘We are the dead.’

‘We are the dead,’ Winston said.

‘We are the dead,’ echoed Julia dutifully.

‘You are the dead,’ said an iron voice behind them.

They sprang apart. Winston’s entrails seemed to have turned into ice. He could see the white all round the irises of Julia’s eyes. Her face had turned a milky yellow. The smear of rouge that was still on each cheekbone stood out sharply, almost as though unconnected with the skin beneath.

‘You are the dead,’ repeated the iron voice.

‘It was behind the picture,’ breathed Julia.

‘It was behind the picture,’ said the voice. ‘Remain exactly where you are. Make no movement until you are ordered.’

It was starting, it was starting at last! They could do nothing except stand gazing into one another’s eyes. To run for life, to get out of the house before it was too late—no such thought occurred to them. Unthinkable to disobey the iron voice from the wall.

There was a snap as though a catch had been turned back, and a crash of breaking glass. The picture had fallen to the floor uncovering the telescreen behind it.

‘Now they can see us,’ said Julia.

‘Now we can see you,’ said the voice. ‘ Stand out in the middle of the room. Stand back to back. Clasp your hands behind your heads. Do not touch one another.’

They were not touching, but it seemed to him that he could feel Julia’s body shaking. Or perhaps it was merely the shaking of his own. He could just stop his teeth from chattering, but his knees were beyond his control. There was a sound of trampling boots below, inside the house and outside. The yard seemed to be full of men. Something was being dragged across the stones. The woman’s singing had stopped abruptly. There was a long, rolling clang, as though the washtub had been flung across the yard, and then a confusion of angry shouts which ended in a yell of pain.

‘The house is surrounded,’ said Winston.

‘The house is surrounded,’ said the voice.

He heard Julia snap her teeth together. ‘I suppose we may as well say good-bye,’ she said.

‘You may as well say good-bye,’ said the voice. And then another quite different voice, a thin, cultivated voice which Winston had the impression of having heard before, struck in; ‘And by the way, while we are on the subject, “Here comes a candle to light you to bed, here comes a chopper to chop off your head”!’

-George Orwell's '1984'

[woo me with science]

59. kick