25TH AUGUST 2010: On Monday we reported on the new EU initiative to gather and store data on political activists. That in itself is an alarming development, but it's just one of a number taking place as we are seeing the Birth of the European Surveillance State.

This is how Big Euro-Brother is Watching You . . . 

• Project Indect: a system of automated surveillance monitors that identifies “abnormal behaviour”.

• Data Compilation Instrument: a systematic data collection tool for identifying and monitoring political activists and suspected “radicals”. 

• European Data Collection Supervisor: a laboratory for cross border exchange of DNA, fingerprint and vehicle data information between member states.

• EU Data Retention Directive: requires telephone operators and internet service providers to store and make available to government authorities, data regarding every phone call, text message, email and website that their users access.

• Biometric passports: includes data on fingerprints, the iris of eye, and other facial features.

• EU Inspire Directive: requires authorities to make information about citizens’ personal health available to authorities in other member states.

• SWIFT Agreement: allows United States officials to access private banking data contained in a database operated in Europe by SWIFT.

• EU Committee on Internal Security: involves operational co-ordination across national borders on police, border, immigration and criminal justice matters. Covers the exchange of intelligence and public order management. 

An oligarchical collectivist society of pervasive government surveillance and incessant public mind control as depicted in George Orwell's 1984 appears to be what the Eurocrats in Brussels and Strasbourg are striving for.