Edward Snowden: state surveillance in Britain has no limits | Surveillance. The UK authorities are operating a surveillance system where “anything goes” and their interceptions are more intrusive to people’s privacy than has been seen in the US, Edward Snowden said. Speaking via Skype at the Observer Ideas festival, held in central London, the whistleblower and former National Security Agency specialist, said there were “really no limits” to the GCHQ’s surveillance capabilities.
He said: “In the UK … is the system of regulation where anything goes. They collect everything that might be interesting. It’s up to the government to justify why it needs this. It’s not up to you to justify why it doesn’t … This is where the danger is, when we think about … evidence being gathered against us but we don’t have the opportunity to challenge that in courts. It undermines the entire system of justice.” He also said he thought that the lack of coverage by the UK papers of the story, or the hostile coverage of it, other than by the Guardian, “did a disservice to the public”. Hero or Villain? Guy Fawkes – Manchester Historian. He wasn’t an anarchist. He didn’t manage to blow up parliament. He wasn’t even the mastermind behind the Gunpowder plot. Why then do we remember Guy Fawkes in the way we do? Why has his very image become synonymous with resistance to authority and promotion of anarchy? Guido Fawkes was born Guy Fawkes on the 13th April 1570 in York. Huxley vs. Orwell: The Webcomic.
Stuart McMillen’s webcomic adapts (and updates) Postman’s famous book-length essay, Amusing Ourselves to Death, which argues that Aldous Huxley’s vision of the future in Brave New World was ultimately more accurate than the one proposed by George Orwell in 1984. (Via). Like this: Like Loading... Related Huxley vs. Stuart McMillen's webcomic does a marvelous job of adapting (and updating!) December 14, 2010 In "Books" We live in Philip K.
"Philip K. January 17, 2018 In "Sci-Fi" Selections from One-Star Amazon Reviews of Orwell’s 1984 [Ed. note: The following citations come from one-star Amazon reviews of George Orwell's novel 1984. April 3, 2013. A Clockwork Orange and the history of very British dystopias. It’s apt that A Clockwork Orange (1971), perhaps the most infamous dystopian film Britain has ever produced, will return to the nation’s cinema screens in 2019. Amid fraught Brexit negotiations, the threat of a no-deal scenario and social divisions that continue to grow wider by the day, our present is beginning to look uncomfortably like a dystopian future that we once could only have imagined. The predictions of Stanley Kubrick’s film, in which Britain has become a brutalist wasteland of class conflict, wanton violence and governmental corruption, seem as relevant now as they did upon release – and, of course, it’s just one example of Britain’s long-standing tradition of dystopian cinema.
As Britain’s exit from the European Union looms large on the horizon, it’s an apt moment to survey our visions of the future and consider what they can tell us about our history, our hopes and our fears. Get the latest from the BFI Sign up for BFI news, features, videos and podcasts. Early futures. Brexit Literature: A Quiet Form of Dystopian Fiction. Alex Mellon / © Culture Trip In an aim to narrativise the turbulent fallout of the 2016 referendum, a new genre of Brexit literature is emerging, reminiscent of classical 20th-century dystopian fiction. In the introduction to Brave New Worlds (2012),an anthology of dystopian stories collated and introduced by John Joseph Adams, he writes: ‘Whether or not a society is perceived as a dystopia is usually determined by one’s point of view; what one person may consider to be a horrible dystopia, another may find completely acceptable or even nigh-utopian.’ The Brexit vote in 2016 was one of the most divisive moments in Britain’s political history, with the result triggering despair and elation in equal measure, depending on who you asked.
In this way, the Brexit exercise occupies both a utopian and dystopian space in the collective consciousness. ‘All across the country, people felt it was the wrong thing,’ writes Smith. In light of this polarity, how are we to narrativise the turmoil?