Are you on Facebook? MySpace? Do you Tweet? Do you use a credit card? Shop online? Buy beer? Cigarettes? Us an ATM machine? The internet? (of course you do). Use a search engine? Text message? Send email? Go to a chain department store? Have cable or satellite TV? Ever get a speeding ticket? Been charged with a violation or a misdemeanor? Ever been finger printed or drug tested merely for a job application? Been to a big-city train station? Ever write something on a public forum... like this one?
Well, if you answered "yes" to almost any of these questions (and many more that I haven't the time to think about) then Big Brother has been watching you and knows a whole lot about you... and that information will live in zeros and ones long after you are but a fleeting memory in the minds of the few people left who knew you in the flesh.
George Orwell couldn't have imagined what Big Brother would become in the digital future... or what he will morph into later on. There is, for today and tomorrow, a whole new spin on the concept of immortality.
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