Mood:  don't ask

http://www.democracyinaction.org/dia/organizationsORG/oilchange/campaign.jsp?campaign_KEY=16174&t=wide.dwt

http://www.uscampaignforburma.org/action/action.html

Chevron's Pipeline

Is The Burmese Regimes Lifeline

October 3, 2007

Courtesy of Alternet

The barbarous military regime depends on revenue from the nation’s gas reserves and partners such as Chevron, a detail ignored by the Bush administration.

The image was stunning: tens of thousands of saffron-robed Buddhist monks marching through the streets of Rangoon [also known as Yangon], protesting the military dictatorship of Burma. The monks marched in front of the home of Nobel Peace Prize winner Aung San Suu Kyi, who was seen weeping and praying quietly as they passed. She hadn't been seen for years. The democratically elected leader of Burma, Suu Kyi has been under house arrest since 2003. She is considered the Nelson Mandela of Burma, the Southeast Asian nation renamed Myanmar by the regime.

After almost two weeks of protest, the monks have disappeared. The monasteries have been emptied. One report says thousands of monks are imprisoned in the north of the country.

No one believes that this is the end of the protests, dubbed "The Saffron Revolution." Nor do they believe the official body count of 10 dead. The trickle of video, photos and oral accounts of the violence that leaked out on Burma's cellular phone and Internet lines has been largely stifled by government censorship. Still, gruesome images of murdered monks and other activists and accounts of executions make it out to the global public. At the time of this writing, several unconfirmed accounts of prisoners being burned alive have been posted to Burma-solidarity Web sites.

The Bush administration is making headlines with its strong language against the Burmese regime. President Bush declared increased sanctions in his U.N. General Assembly speech. First lady Laura Bush has come out with perhaps the strongest statements. Explaining that she has a cousin who is a Burma activist, Laura Bush said, "The deplorable acts of violence being perpetrated against Buddhist monks and peaceful Burmese demonstrators shame the military regime."

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, at the meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, said, "The United States is determined to keep an international focus on the travesty that is taking place." Keeping an international focus is essential, but should not distract from one of the most powerful supporters of the junta, one that is much closer to home. Rice knows it well: Chevron.

Fueling the military junta that has ruled for decades are Burma's natural gas reserves, controlled by the Burmese regime in partnership with the U.S. multinational oil giant Chevron, the French oil company Total and a Thai oil firm. Offshore natural gas facilities deliver their extracted gas to Thailand through Burma's Yadana pipeline. The pipeline was built with slave labor, forced into servitude by the Burmese military.

The original pipeline partner, Unocal, was sued by EarthRights International for the use of slave labor. As soon as the suit was settled out of court, Chevron bought Unocal.

Chevron's role in propping up the brutal regime in Burma is clear. According to Marco Simons, U.S. legal director at EarthRights International: "Sanctions haven't worked because gas is the lifeline of the regime. Before Yadana went online, Burma's regime was facing severe shortages of currency. It's really Yadana and gas projects that kept the military regime afloat to buy arms and ammunition and pay its soldiers."

The U.S. government has had sanctions in place against Burma since 1997. A loophole exists, though, for companies grandfathered in. Unocal's exemption from the Burma sanctions has been passed on to its new owner, Chevron.

Rice served on the Chevron board of directors for a decade. She even had a Chevron oil tanker named after her. While she served on the board, Chevron was sued for involvement in the killing of nonviolent protesters in the Niger Delta region of Nigeria. Like the Burmese, Nigerians suffer political repression and pollution where oil and gas are extracted and they live in dire poverty. The protests in Burma were actually triggered by a government-imposed increase in fuel prices.

Human-rights groups around the world have called for a global day of action on Saturday, Oct. 6, in solidarity with the people of Burma. Like the brave activists and citizen journalists sending news and photos out of the country, the organizers of the Oct. 6 protest are using the Internet to pull together what will probably be the largest demonstration ever in support of Burma. Among the demands are calls for companies to stop doing business with Burma's brutal regime.

SEND YOUR MESSAGE HERE 

http://www.peacemajority.us/BoycottChevron.htm

Posted by Joe Anybody at 8:26 PM PDT

Updated: Tuesday, 12 August 2008 8:30 PM PDT

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Mood:  hug me

Greetings! When we're out of alignment with our authentic self, we feel it. We might feel fatigued, or things might seem like a constant struggle. We're 'working it' constantly, pushing the boulder up the hill or trying to swim upstream, against the current.

We feel, in some way, at odds with key things in our lives, whether that's work, our business (if we're self-employed), a relationship, place, or even just stale patterns or routines that have become too small for us. Moving into greater integrity, aligning with our authentic nature and expressing ourselves from there, often has a greater sense of ease and joy.

We feel 'true', and that's fun, it's alive. It's not that challenge disappears, but our relationship to it is different because we're in alignment with ourselves - our true nature and purpose.

The shift from inauthentic to authentic can seem harrowing, as we're asked to move away from things and patterns that are true to us, that aren't aligned with our greatest joy and purposeful expression. That's always tough, letting go, even when we know it's for the best. What is familiar can be comforting even if it's not optimal. Yet we can navigate this journey to authenticity, summoning the courage and grace, inviting assistance from seen and unseen realms, and noticing the emergence of new possibilities and options that make the heart sing.

There are many bits of wisdom that tell us that each being is unique, truly. There is only one of you in all existence, and you will be guided, nudged, and sometimes pushed into expressing that unique you in the world.

Sometimes that which challenges us deeply, along with those soul-nudges that show up as deep heart-yearnings, are invitations to step into our fullness, our authentic selves.

Time to brave those waters and emerge, shining, and expressing 'true you' in your work, your business, your communication, and all areas of your 'one wild and precious life.' Joyful Blessings, Jamie

Walters, Author and Founder,

Ivy Sea

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:18 PM PDT

Updated: Thursday, 7 August 2008 12:24 PM PDT

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Mood:  party time!

HA  ha  ha

This just keeps getting better

Oh ...heck (dont forget to) catch the ....^{shhhhhh Terrorists}

Miami airport security cameras see through clothing

Posted by Joe Anybody at 7:00 PM PDT

Updated: Monday, 4 August 2008 7:01 PM PDT

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Mood:  irritated

News > August 4, 2008

Don’t Tase Me, GOP!

By Jacob Wheeler

The St. Paul Police Department is arming itself with Tasers.

Local activists and media say that the department ordered 230 stun guns in late February — adding to the 140 already in its possession — in preparation for protests at the upcoming Republican National Convention (RNC), which St. Paul will host from Sept. 1 to Sept. 4.

Police spokesman Tom Walsh denies any connection between the arrival of the Tasers and the upcoming RNC. “They are not related to the convention in any way,” says Walsh. “A patrol officer suggested months ago that we supply our force with Tasers.”

But some demonstrators are wary of such assurances.

“Our concern is that they’ll have them and that they’ll use them,” says Marie Braun, a member of Women Against Military Madness, which has received a permit to protest in a St. Paul park on Sept. 1. “These are dangerous weapons and people have died as a result of them being used.”

Four years ago at the RNC in New York, the New York Police Department (NYPD) arrested thousands of demonstrators, holding many of them in an asbestos-filled pier on the Hudson River until the convention’s conclusion.

And at an impromptu mass march toward Madison Square Ground where President Bush’s re-election fest was being held, an NYPD officer in civilian clothing reportedly provoked a fight by driving a scooter into the crowd.

St. Paul Assistant Police Chief Matt Bostrom told the online newspaper MinnPost.com in December that no St. Paul police officers would infiltrate protest organizations, and the force will dress in regular uniforms — not riot gear — during the convention.

And spokesman Walsh insists that the department will patrol the streets of St. Paul without help from contract cops or the Secret Service, who will operate only inside the Xcel Energy Center where the convention will take place.

Nevertheless, an underground anarchist group that calls itself the “RNC Welcoming Committee” states on its website that “the RNC, local police and federal agents are likely to get violent.”

The group and other activists cite a Critical Mass bike ride last August in neighboring Minneapolis that led to police using Tasers and pepper spray to break up the event and arrest 19 protesters. The gathering coincided with what the Welcoming Committee calls the “pReNC, a weekend of radical organizing in preparation for the RNC.”

During the subsequent trial of one cyclist, Minneapolis police Sgt. David Stichter reportedly testified that the department had created a task force to monitor Critical Mass because it knew RNC protesters would participate in the ride.

“[They have been] taking every opportunity to try and intimidate the people who live here,” says an activist using the name “Diablo Bush,” referring to the local police.

On March 13, the Welcoming Committee’s website began requesting Taser donations. So far it has received none, according to an e-mail message to In These Times from Diablo Bush.

“Any Tasers we do receive would be simply for day-to-day maintenance of public safety,” jokes Diablo, “and are not at all related to the RNC — just like the St. Paul Police Department’s order [of Tasers].”

In May, the Twin Cities’ alternative-weekly, City Pages, reported that University of Minnesota police were working with an FBI special agent to recruit “moles” to attend vegan potlucks, gain the trust of RNC protesters and report back to the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force, a partnership between federal agencies and local police.

Last summer, the Minneapolis Star Tribune reported that the nearby Ramsey County Sheriff’s office was preparing to construct pens to hold 5,000 arrested protesters — a report Bostrom of the St. Paul police claimed was news to him.

Says Braun of Women Against Military Madness: “We have as much concern about the police as anyone, because when we look at political conventions in the past, it’s often the police that have a history of overreacting.”

Posted by Joe Anybody at 6:39 PM PDT

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Mood:  bright

How to Get Past Filters:

A Guide for Students

Posted by Joe Anybody at 6:13 PM PDT

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Mood:  sad

 Z3 Readers will not be surprised to read this unscrupulous attack on our personal liberties and privacy when crossing the border. Yes my fellow faithful readers ..we are getting screwed. If you ever thought America had freedom and liberty ...those days are over! Yes now days "freedom and liberty" only means Attacking other countries". Now days expected privacy, personal non-illegal papers, letters, and files all belong to the Homeland Security. Hitler is smiling! The real terrorists are stealing "in the name of the law" Our lives now..... BELONG TO THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

First we took our shoes off, dumped our baby bottles and chap stick in the trash, background checks, sniffing machines smell us a s we walk by, disrobing, frisking, and now your lap top and cell phone is theirs for life

How does it feel to be "fucked" ...heheh! Good Ole American Freedom at its best .....

Homeland Security:

We can seize laptops for an indefinite period

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security has concocted a remarkable new policy: It reserves the right to seize for an indefinite period of time laptops taken across the border.

A pair of DHS policies from last month say that customs agents can routinely--as a matter of course--seize, make copies of, and "analyze the information transported by any individual attempting to enter, re-enter, depart, pass through, or reside in the United States." (See policy No. 1 and No. 2.)

DHS claims the border search of electronic information is useful to detect terrorists, drug smugglers, and people violating "copyright or trademark laws." (Readers: Are you sure your iPod and laptop have absolutely no illicitly downloaded songs? You might be guilty of a felony.)

This is a disturbing new policy, and should convince anyone taking a laptop across a border to use encryption to thwart DHS snoops. Encrypt your laptop, with full disk encryption if possible, and power it down before you go through customs.

Here's a guide to customs-proofing your laptop that we published in March.

It's true that any reasonable person would probably agree that Customs agents should be able to inspect travelers' bags for contraband. But seizing a laptop and copying its hard drive is uniquely invasive--and should only be done if there's a good reason.

Sen. Russell Feingold, a Wisconsin Democrat, called the DHS policies "truly alarming" and told the Washington Post that he plans to introduce a bill that would require reasonable suspicion for border searches.

But unless Congress changes the law, DHS may be able to get away with its new rules. A U.S. federal appeals court has ruled that an in-depth analysis of a laptop's hard drive using the EnCase forensics software "was permissible without probable cause or a warrant under the border search doctrine."

At a Senate hearing in June, Larry Cunningham, a New York prosecutor who is now a law professor, defended laptop searches--but not necessarily seizures--as perfectly permissible. Preventing customs agents from searching laptops "would open a vulnerability in our border by providing criminals and terrorists with a means to smuggle child pornography or other dangerous and illegal computer files into the country," Cunningham said.

The new DHS policies say that customs agents can, "absent individualized suspicion," seize electronic gear: "Documents and electronic media, or copies thereof, may be detained for further review, either on-site at the place of detention or at an off-site location, including a location associated with a demand for assistance from an outside agency or entity."

Outside entity presumably refers to government contractors, the FBI, and National Security Agency, which can also be asked to provide "decryption assistance." Seized information will supposedly be destroyed unless customs claims there's a good reason to keep it.

An electronic device is defined as "any device capable of storing information in digital or analog form" including hard drives, compact discs, DVDs, flash drives, portable music players, cell phones, pagers, beepers, and videotapes.

Posted by Joe Anybody at 12:16 PM PDT

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Mood:  surprised

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A congresswoman said Thursday that her "jaw dropped" when military doctors told her that four in 10 women at a veterans hospital reported being sexually assaulted while in the military.

A government report indicates that the numbers could be even higher.

Rep. Jane Harman, D-California, spoke before a House panel investigating the way the military handles reports of sexual assault.

She said she recently visited a Veterans Affairs hospital in the Los Angeles area, where women told her horror stories of being raped in the military.

"My jaw dropped when the doctors told me that 41 percent of the female veterans seen there say they were victims of sexual assault while serving in the military," said Harman, who has long sought better protection of women in the military.

"Twenty-nine percent say they were raped during their military service. They spoke of their continued terror, feelings of helplessness and downward spirals many of their lives have taken since.

"We have an epidemic here," she said. "Women serving in the U.S. military today are more likely to be raped by a fellow soldier than killed by enemy fire in Iraq."

As of July 24, 100 women had died in Iraq, according to the Pentagon.

In 2007, Harman said, only 181 out of 2,212 reports of military sexual assaults, or 8 percent, were referred to courts martial. By comparison, she said, 40 percent of those arrested in the civilian world on such charges are prosecuted.

Defense statistics show that military commanders took unspecified action, which can include anything from punishment to dismissal, in an additional 419 cases.

But when it came time for the military to defend itself, the panel was told that the Pentagon's top official on sexual abuse, Dr. Kaye Whitley, was ordered not to show up despite a subpoena.

"I don't know what you're trying to cover up here, but we're not going to allow it," Rep. Henry Waxman, D-California, said to the Defense official who relayed the news of Whitley's no-show. "This is unacceptable."

Rep. John Tierney, the panel's chairman and a Democrat from Massachusetts, angrily responded, "these actions by the Defense Department are inexplicable."

"The Defense Department appears to be willfully and blatantly advising Dr. Whitley not to comply with a duly authorized congressional subpoena," Tierney said.

An Army official who did testify said the Army takes allegations of sexual abuse extremely seriously.

"Even one sexual assault violates the very essence of what it means to be a soldier, and it's a betrayal of the Army's core values," Lt. Gen. Michael Rochelle said.

The committee also heard from Mary Lauterbach, the mother of Lance Cpl. Maria Lauterbach, a 20-year-old pregnant Marine who was killed in December, allegedly by a fellow Marine.

Mary Lauterbach said her daughter filed a rape claim with the military against Marine Cpl. Cesar Laurean seven months before he was accused of killing her. Watch dead Marine's mom demand change »

"I believe that Maria would be alive today if the Marines had provided a more effective system to protect the victims of sexual assault," she said.

In the months after her daughter filed the rape claim, she said, the military didn't seem to take her seriously, and the onus was on "Maria to connect the dots."

"The victim should not have the burden to generate evidence for the command," Lauterbach told the Subcommittee on National Security and Foreign Affairs. "Maria is dead, but there will be many more victims in the future, I promise you. I'm here to ask you to do what you can to help change how the military treats victims of crime and to ensure the victims receive the support and protection they need and they deserve."

Another woman, Ingrid Torres, described being raped on a U.S. base in Korea when she worked with the American Red Cross.

"I was raped while I slept," she said.

The man who assaulted her, she said, was a flight director who was found guilty and dismissed from the Air Force.

Fighting back tears, Torres added, "he still comes after me in my dreams."

The Government Accountability Office released preliminary results from an investigation into sexual assaults in the military and the Coast Guard. The GAO found that the "occurrences of sexual assault may be exceeding the rates being reported."

"At the 14 installations where GAO administered its survey, 103 service members indicated that they had been sexually assaulted within the preceding 12 months. Of these, 52 service members indicated that they did not report the sexual assault," the GAO said.

The office found that the military and Coast Guard have established policies to address sexual assault but that the implementation of the programs is hampered by an array of factors, including that "most, but not all, commanders support the programs."

"Left unchecked, these challenges can discourage or prevent some service members from using the programs when needed," the GAO said.

Tierney said, "what's at stake here goes to the very core of the values of the military and the nation itself.

"When our sons and daughters put their lives on the line to defend the rest of us, the last thing they should fear is being attacked by one of our own."

All AboutU.S. Department of Defense • Sexual Offenses • Criminal Sentencing and Punishment

Posted by Joe Anybody at 7:08 PM PDT

Updated: Monday, 4 August 2008 6:43 PM PDT

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Mood:  incredulous

Torture Hearings

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07252008/watch.html

http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/07252008/watch2.html

Z3 Readers check this out

there is a few videos

text transscripts

interviews

all on recent information about the USA using Torture

Please Check This Out

Posted by Joe Anybody at 8:29 PM PDT

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Mood:  irritated

Panopticon

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It has been suggested that Panopticon (Internet culture) be merged into this article or section. (Discuss)

Panopticon blueprint by Jeremy Bentham, 1791

The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the "sentiment of an invisible omniscience."^[1]

Bentham himself described the Panopticon as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example."^[2]

[edit] Conceptual history

Bentham derived the idea from the plan of a military school in Paris designed for easy supervision, itself conceived by his brother Samuel who arrived at it as a solution to the complexities involved in the handling of large numbers of men. Bentham supplemented this principle with the idea of contract management; that is, an administration by contract as opposed to trust, where the director would have a pecuniary interest in lowering the average rate of mortality. The Panopticon was intended to be cheaper than the prisons of his time, as it required fewer staff; "Allow me to construct a prison on this model," Bentham requested to a Committee for the Reform of Criminal Law, "I will be the gaoler. You will see ... that the gaoler will have no salary — will cost nothing to the nation." As the watchmen cannot be seen, they need not be on duty at all times, effectively leaving the watching to the watched. According to Bentham's design, the prisoners would also be used as menial labour walking on wheels to spin looms or run a water wheel. This would decrease the cost of the prison and give a possible source of income.^[4]

Bentham devoted a large part of his time and almost his whole fortune to promote the construction of a prison based on his scheme. After many years and innumerable political and financial difficulties, he eventually obtained a favourable sanction from Parliament for the purchase of a place to erect the prison, but in 1811 after Prime Minister Spencer Perceval (1809-1812)^[5] refused to authorise the purchase of the land, the project was finally abandoned. In 1813, he was awarded a sum of £23,000 in compensation for his monetary loss which did little to alleviate Bentham's ensuing unhappiness.

While the design did not come to fruition during Bentham's time, it has been seen as an important development. For instance, the design was invoked by Michel Foucault (in Discipline and Punish) as metaphor for modern "disciplinary" societies and its pervasive inclination to observe and normalise. Foucault proposes that not only prisons but all hierarchical structures like the army, the school, the hospital and the factory have evolved through history to resemble Bentham's Panopticon. The notoriety of the design today (although not its lasting influence in architectural realities) stems from Foucault's famous analysis of it.

[edit] Panoptic prison design

Prison Presidio Modelo, December 2005

Prison Presidio Modelo, Inside one of the buildings, December 2005

The architecture

incorporates a tower central to a circular building that is divided into cells, each cell extending the entire thickness of the building to allow inner and outer windows. The occupants of the cells are thus backlit, isolated from one another by walls, and subject to scrutiny both collectively and individually by an observer in the tower who remains unseen. Toward this end, Bentham envisioned not only venetian blinds on the tower observation ports but also maze-like connections among tower rooms to avoid glints of light or noise that might betray the presence of an observer

—Ben and Marthalee Barton ^[6]

The Panopticon is widely, but erroneously, believed to have influenced the design of Pentonville Prison in North London, Armagh Gaol in Northern Ireland, and Eastern State Penitentiary in Philadelphia. These, however, were Victorian examples of the Separate system, which was more about prisoner isolation than prisoner surveillance; in fact, the separate system makes surveillance quite difficult. No true panopticons were built in Britain during Bentham's lifetime, and very few anywhere in the British Empire.

Many modern prisons built today are built in a "podular" design influenced by the Panopticon design, in intent and basic organization if not in exact form. As compared to traditional "cellblock" designs, in which rectangular buildings contain tiers of cells one atop the other in front of a walkway along which correctional officers patrol, modern prisons are often constructed with triangular or trapezoidal-shaped buildings known as "pods" or "modules". In these designs, cells are laid out in three or fewer tiers arrayed around an elevated central control station which affords a single correctional officer full view of all cells within either a 270° or 180° field of view (180° is usually considered a closer level of supervision). Control of cell doors, CCTV monitors, and communications are all conducted from the control station. The correctional officer, depending on the level of security, may be armed with nonlethal and lethal weapons to cover the pod as well. Increasingly, meals, laundry, commissary items and other goods and services are dispatched directly to the pods or individual cells. These design points, whatever their deliberate or incidental psychological and social effects, serve to maximize the number of prisoners that can be controlled and monitored by one individual, reducing staffing; as well as restricting prisoner movement as tightly as possible.

[edit] Panopticon-inspired prisons

• Carabanchel Prison — Madrid, Spain
• Caseros Prison — Buenos Aires, Argentina
• Chi Hoa — Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
• Huron Historic Gaol — Goderich, Ontario, Canada
• Kilmainham Gaol — Dublin, Ireland
• Koepelgevangenis (Arnhem) — Arnhem, The Netherlands
• Koepelgevangenis (Breda) — Breda, The Netherlands
• Koepelgevangenis (Haarlem) — Haarlem, The Netherlands
• Millbank Prison — London, United Kingdom
• Modelo Prison — Barcelona, Spain
• Mount Eden Prisons — Auckland, New Zealand
• Old Provost — Grahamstown, South Africa
• Panóptico — Bogotá Prison (today the National Museum of Colombia)
• Pelican Bay State Prison — Del Norte County, California, USA.
• Port Arthur, Tasmania Prison Colony — Port Arthur, Tasmania, Australia
• Presidio Modelo — Isla de la Juventud‎, Cuba
• Round House — Fremantle, Western Australia, Australia
• Stateville Correctional Center — Crest Hill, Illinois, USA.
• Twin Towers Correctional Facility — Los Angeles, California, USA
• Insein Prison — Insein, Burma

[edit] Other panoptic structures

The Panopticon has been suggested as an "open" hospital architecture: "Hospitals required knowledge of contacts, contagions, proximity and crowding... at the same time to divide space and keep it open, assuring a surveillance which is both global and individualising", 1977 interview (preface to French edition of Jeremy Bentham's "Panopticon").^{[citation needed]}

The Worcester State Hospital, constructed in the late 19th century, extensively employed panoptic structures to allow more efficient observation of the inmates. It was considered a model facility at the time.

The only industrial building ever to be built on the Panopticon principle was the Round Mill in Belper, Derbyshire, England. Constructed in 1811 it fell into disuse by the beginning of the twentieth century and was demolished in 1959. ^[7]

Contemporary social critics often assert that technology has allowed for the deployment of panoptic structures invisibly throughout society. Surveillance by closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras in public spaces is an example of a technology that brings the gaze of a superior into the daily lives of the populace. Further, Middlesbrough, a town in the North of England, has put loudspeakers to the CCTV cameras. They can transmit the voice of a camera supervisor.^[8][9]

[edit] In popular culture

• Closed-circuit television is similar to the methods used in George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four by the thought police to control the citizenry. At any moment, a person may or may not be being observed via a telescreen, though whether one is being watched at any given moment is unknown to that person.
• The popular film Gilda (1946) features a panoticon-style headquarters in the casino of Nazist crimelord Ballin Mundson (George Macready). This menacing office and control base allows Mundson to oversee his gambling empire, and also provides Johnny Farrell (Glenn Ford) with a means to keep a check on the activities of the film's eponymous femme fatale (Rita Hayworth).
• In the British TV science fiction series Doctor Who, the main room of the Capitol on Gallifrey (the Time Lords' home planet) was called the Panopticon, although it apparently did not have a panoptic design. (It may have been called that because events there were televised to the whole planet.)
• The 1993 science fiction film Fortress features a heavily panoptic multi-level structure, albeit wholly underground. Most of the control over the structure and the inmates is given to the prison's central computer in similar vein to above literature, with ultimate leverage still exercized by the half-cyborg prison director.
• In Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novella, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, the Vicario brothers spend three years in the "panopticon of Riohacha" awaiting trial for the murder of Santiago Nasar.
• The 2004 sci-fi adventure The Chronicles of Riddick employs a similar underground structure, which is set deep within the recesses of a planetoid enduring extreme ground temperatures day and night.
• The 1998 video game Sanitarium features a mental asylum designed as Panopticon.
• In the 2004 video game Silent Hill 4: The Room, there is a prison that is seemingly based on the Panopticon design.
• Post-metal band Isis's 2004 album Panopticon takes both its title and its central lyrical theme from the Panopticon design.
• In the video game Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas there is a desolate area of countryside named 'The Panopticon'.
• In the television show LOST much of how the Others watched Jack Shepherd, James "Sawyer" Ford, and Kate Austen was very similar to the Panopticon. The character John Locke even takes the name of Jeremy Bentham in Season 4.

• In the book "The disreputable history of Frankie Landau-Banks" by Lockhart, E. panopticon is referenced many times and acts as a subplot for the book.
• John Twelve Hawks writes about panopticon as a model for society in his book The Traveler

[edit] Criticism

The growth of panoptic monitoring technologies has provoked backlashes by privacy advocates. However, some observers argue that these technologies don't always favor the hierarchical structure outlined by Orwell, Bentham, and Foucault, but can also enable individuals, through inverse surveillance or sousveillance, to appropriate technological tools for individual or public purposes. Still others predict a balanced state of a universal "participatory panopticon" in which there is an equiveillance, or equilibrium of monitoring and control structures between parties.

[edit] References

[edit] See also

• Discipline and Punish by Michel Foucault
• Big Brother, a character from the novel Nineteen Eighty-Four
• Big Brother, the popular reality television series
• London's "ring of steel"
• Governmentality, and the Foucaultian idea of Biopower
• Information Awareness Office
• Mass surveillance
• Omniscience
• Right to privacy
• Totalitarianism
• The Transparent Society by David Brin also Kiln People
• The Traveler by John Twelve Hawks
• video surveillance
• Panopticon (album) by Isis (band)
• Panopticon (Internet culture)
• Total institution

[edit] External links

• Panopticon — by Jeremy Bentham (online version)
• Special Issue on the Panopticon — Surveillance and Society
• Scare tactics: embedded reporting and the Panopticon effect

Posted by Joe Anybody at 10:49 AM PDT

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