NYC Mayor Bloomberg reaffirms his disregard for privacy rights

NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I)

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg has long been renowned for sacrificing privacy rights and personal liberty on the altar of health and security, and now he’s gone and revealed just how many damns he doesn’t give about people’s concerns for his fantasized nanny/surveillance state:

Envisioning a future where privacy is a thing of the past, Mayor Bloomberg said Friday it will soon be impossible to escape the watchful eyes of surveillance cameras and even drones in the city.

He acknowledged privacy concerns, but said “you can’t keep the tides from coming in.”

“You wait, in five years, the technology is getting better, they’ll be cameras everyplace . . . whether you like it or not,” Bloomberg said.

The security measures have drawn scorn from some civil libertarians — but Bloomberg scoffed at privacy concerns on his Friday morning program on WOR-AM.

“The argument against using automation is just this craziness that 'Oh, it’s Big Brother,’” Bloomberg said. “Get used to it!”

It’s one thing to claim that the rise of automated surveillance technology is perhaps inevitable, but it’s quite another to so openly embrace and exacerbate it under the thin guise of public safety.

It continually disturbs me just how many people act like Orwellianism is an ideal rather than a cautionary tale.

(via @BuzzFeedAndrew)