The book is a frightening sci-fi thriller that exhibits a world full of war, fear and doublespeak from the government. Sadly, after seven years of George Bush we have been becoming more and more like Orwell's fictional account. Now it turns out that one more piece of the novel has found it's way from the pages to reality of modern life.
From The Seattle Post-Intelligencer:
If a pair of Transportation Security Administration officers strolling by a Sea-Tac Airport ticket counter wish you happy holidays and ask where you're traveling, it might be more than just Christmas spirit.
Travelers at Sea-Tac and dozens of other major airports across America are being scrutinized by teams of TSA behavior-detection officers specially trained to discern the subtlest suspicious behaviors.
TSA officials will not reveal specific behaviors identified by the program -- called SPOT (Screening Passengers by Observation Technique) -- that are considered indicators of possible terrorist intent.
But a central task is to recognize microfacial expressions -- a flash of feelings that in a fraction of a second reflects emotions such as fear, anger, surprise or contempt, said Carl Maccario, who helped start the program for TSA.
If you have flown at all since the start of TSA, you know how terrible the outfit is, to actually think that they can pull this off with professionalism and dignity is laughable. Of course if I laugh at them in the airport they'll probably arrest me. If I cite the section of "1984" they'll probably haul me off to Guantanamo.
He did not know how long she had been looking at him, but perhaps for as much as five minutes, and it was possible that his features had not been perfectly under control. It was terribly dangerous to let your thoughts wander when you were in any public place or within range of a telescreen. The smallest thing could give you away. A nervous tic, an unconscious look of anxiety, a habit of muttering to yourself—anything that carried with it the suggestion of abnormality, of having something to hide. In any case, to wear an improper expression on your face (to look incredulous when a victory was announced, for example) was itself a punishable offence. There was even a word for it in Newspeak: facecrime, it was called.
Scare ya just a little bit?
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