Recent Thoughts |
EquiveillanceIt started with George Holliday. He pointed his video camera towards the police officers using unreasonable force against Rodney King, started a riot and handed us a tool that is more useful today than Mr. Holliday could ever have known. On 1st January 2009, in California, Oscar Grant was shot by a transport police officer that believed he had discharged a taser rather than his firearm. Passengers with mobile phone cameras recorded the entire incident, uploaded the content, and reports suggested that certain sites were getting viewing figures of thousands per hour. Ian Tomlinson is now a name that is sure to haunt the Metropolitan Police as deeply as Jean Charles De Menezes. Although the case is being investigated as we speak and this writer has no desire to attract legal attention, no one can avoid a shudder when viewing the conduct of those officers. The fact we can view it is thanks, not to CCTV, but to a passing fund manager with a camera and the Guardian website. In 1991, when the King beating lit the flames beneath Los Angeles, 3 towns in the UK had public area CCTV surveillance systems. Today, estimates are between 350 and 800 such schemes. Strangely, exact figures are somewhat difficult to obtain. The ubiquity of surveillance and the various arguments for and against them have consumed column inches and air time since the first cameras were switched on, and to pull this debate out into the spotlight again would be redundant. What is now becoming apparent is that our revulsion and indignation at being continually observed and recorded is now being tempered by the technologically-aided swing of power in our direction. We are watching the watchers ourselves. Tip for the day: Is your neighbourhood hot or not?
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OpinionUser login |
I think you're right. A lot
I think you're right.
A lot of people in the UK complain about speed cameras. I've never been able to understand this. The same people accept their punishment if they are caught by a flesh-and-blood police officer, but are up in arms if they are caught by a camera. They rationalise their view by claiming that speed cameras only exist to generate revenue for the police forces. Even if this were the case, it wouldn't alter the fact that they were breaking the law and also in what universe is it better for our police forces to have LESS money?
I suspect there's something similar going on with CCTV. We all break the law in minor ways from time to time and we know we might get caught. Perhaps we like to think we can control the risks: probably because if we think we're in control, we are less likely to think we'll get caught. And we feel less in control if we can't actually see the people watching us.
None of this is true. I'm not in favour of surveillance for its own sake and I'm aware of the dangers, but I'd rather think than react. I'd rather try to understand the net costs and benefits than to knee-jerk.
Our knee-jerk reactions are probably - for the most part - evolved and they might not make sense in today's society. I'd like to think we can consider them rationally, preseve what makes sense and leave what doesn't behind.