This is encouraging:
Now a countervailing storyline is starting to get some traction in real life: the increasing citizen use of technology to “watch from below.” The practice has been called “sousveillance,” a word that comes the French word “sous” (from below) with the word “viller” (to watch). Instead of Big Brother using a panopticon of surveillance to exercise total, unquestioned control, the commoners are using cheap, portable technologies to monitor and publicize the behavior of Power. The commons is sprouting its own eyes – and its own means of self-defense, political organizing and reclamation of democracy.
In contrast to the usual abuses of government authority and surveillance I usually write about here, this is like a breath of fresh air - and something I think is very good. If a government can monitor its people, the people aught to be able to monitor the government.
This great article goes into great detail how the current surveillance society came to be, and looks at the historical origins of the entire process - and the debate that continues to this day. It is as enlightening as it is well-written.
No one should believe that real-time government surveillance of the communications network is an idea born of the 9/11 attacks or that it results solely from the Bush administration’s aggrandizing of executive power. The legal arguments that the government has asserted to support increased surveillance of digital space were first put forth in 1994, under a Democratic president, and they had little to do with the threat of Islamic extremism.
All the more reason to continue to fight for our own privacy rights at every turn - because by its very nature, Government (with a capital G) will scoop up every last bit of privacy you have if you don’t defend them. And before you know it, you’ll feel… well, a picture speaks louder than words:
“1984 was NOT supposed to be an instruction manual.”
No, it was not - but it seems like we’re following it as if it were.
This story comes to us from London, UK - apparently a graffiti artist had something to say about the ubiquitous use of surveillance cameras.
He (or she) set up scaffolding and everything to paint this picture, and (this is the best part) all within sight of… a surveillance camera!
Be sure to take a look at the pictures - at first glance you might mistake the person on the ladder as being real - but it’s not, it’s all part of the picture.
Truly, the work of an unappreciated genius.
Surveillance is power.
When surveillance become ubiquitous, we place utmost faith and trust in those performing surveillance to use that power justly.
And as we all know… power corrupts.
If we wish to become a surveillance society, we must have checks and balances on surveillance, just as we do with other forms of government power - if not more so.
To do otherwise is to give utmost power to those performing surveillance - the ultimate result of which will be the collapse of a free, democratic society.
It is important for everyone to understand these issues if only because this is still our government. If we remain ignorant of the issues, our government will remain ignorant of the issues, and they will slip through the cracks and we will wake up to a police state without even knowing it. And you can kiss your civil liberties, your privacy, your old way of life goodbye.
And I seriously doubt anyone really wants that.
Keithius | July 25, 2008
