the more things change, the more they stay the same


Bill Brown's appearance in an edition of Science Times (broadcast on The National Geographic Channel sometime in January 2002) came almost two years after his appearance on Anatomy of Crime (broadcast on Court-TV in May 2000). During the intervening time, September 11th took place. And yet the two programmes were virtually identical: the emerging National Security State (American fascism) is inevitable. This is (in part) what Bill said about the Court TV thing:

What sensitive soul could watch 45 minutes of this gruesome shit without being appalled and revolted? What inquisitive mind could watch these images and still manage to remain "open" to alternate, marginal or radical viewpoints on the subject? What whole-hearted opponent of surveillance cameras could tolerate three-quarters of an hour [...] so that he or she could see a two-minute-long subsegment on the SCP, which appears at the close of the episode? The answer to all three questions is the same -- no one.

And so it really doesn't matter what Anatomy of Crime: Crimes Caught on Tape says or doesn't say about the lone "citizen" (Bill Brown of the Surveillance Camera Players, identified as a "street theater group") and the lone "civil libertarian" (Norm Siegal, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union) who are said to be "concerned" about the effect of surveillance cameras on our constitutionally protected rights. Anyone with a sensitive soul, an open mind or a courageous heart has already turned the channel or turned the TV off. Conversely, anyone who has watched all the way through will already be convinced that people such as Bill Brown and Norm Siegal -- no matter how clever or eloquent -- are just plain wrong. Everything that preceded their segment in the show proves it.

To give our "review" of the horrible crap that was aired on The National Geographic Channel, all we need do is replace Anatomy of Crime with Science Times, and replace "Norm Siegal, Executive Director of the New York Civil Liberties Union" with "Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center." Any commentary beyond that is a waste of our precious time.




Contact the New York Surveillance Camera Players

By e-mail SCP@notbored.org

By snail mail: SCP c/o NOT BORED! POB 1115, Stuyvesant Station, New York City 10009-9998




NOT BORED!