‘We allow them to track us’: John Curley questions when constant security becomes surveillance

Following reports of Dallas having a robot dog for security during the FIFA World Cup, U.S. Senator Rand Paul warned everyone that the government is spying on all Americans, stating that everyone is a suspect.

Paul warned that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) is watching everything that people do and collecting all the data.

While Seattle won’t roll out one of the robot dogs, John Curley, host of “The John Curley Show” on KIRO Newsradio, questioned how close America is to becoming a dystopian society and when heightened security becomes a breach in people’s privacy.

“We do allow them to track us because we carry our phones,” Curley said. “We have them track our cars, look at our internet, anything they want, they can find it. The question is always either security or freedom, right? Are you willing to give up a little bit of something for something else? People eventually are alright with the fact that they’re tracing this and that until finally they come knocking at your door, or are able to look at everything you do.

“Then you begin to get the pressure and end up like China, where there’s social credit,” Curley continued. “They’re able to see you, they know what you do, and they give you a certain amount of points, and every time you do something that would be outside the bounds of just good society. Either you’re not talking, or not giving the seat to an elderly person on the train. Well, that’ll cost you a couple of points; you’re not paying your bills on time? That costs you a couple of points.”

How long until overblown surveillance takes over? KIRO team weighs in

Curley raised the question of how long it might take to see a world in which nearly everything a person does is monitored.

“How long until we reach the dystopian world where everything we say and everything we do is being monitored?” Curley asked. “You’re gonna say it already is, okay? Right, but at what point does the action then move to the next step, which is now you cannot move, you cannot travel, you cannot say something? At what point does that come? Five, 10, 15, or 20 years from now?”

“You’re going to think I’m crazy, but I think it’s more like six months,” KIRO producer Joe Wallace said.

“Crazy. Now you know what? Now I’m both feeling sorry for you, and I’m kind of scared of you,” Curley responded.

“I want to commit him,” KIRO traffic reporter Nate Connors said.

“Hey, Nate, he can hear you,” Curley said.

“Oh man, sorry,” Connors said.

Wallace backed up his claims with what has been seen recently on pandemic-related shutdowns, where millions were locked down in their homes for years.

“It would not surprise me if something like a global conflict brewed up to a state of emergency,” Wallace said. “Who knows, it’s just for our safety. We get another disease, like hantavirus or Ebola, something like that, they could put the clamps down at any point, and if there’s a big enough emergency or there’s a big enough truth that needs to be, you know, kept uncovered or kept covered.”

Listen to John Curley weekday afternoons from 3 – 7 p.m. on KIRO Newsradio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.

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