Public Opinion

On 10 January 2001, postings concerning the Surveillance Camera Players (SCP) began appearing on a web site that specializes in "technology and culture, from the trenches."

The discussion was premised on this introduction, which was offered by someone named Kyrrin:

A little paranoid about always being on surveillance cameras? Or did you even know that you were? There's a group called the Surveillance Camera Players that want to call attention to the fact that we are being monitored, by co-opting the cameras and putting on silent adaptations of classic works of literature such as 1984, The Raven, and Waiting for Godot.

It's becoming more and more common these days to have "security cameras" all over the place, watching and monitoring our every move. High schools, colleges, office buildings, ATMs, stores ... even public parks and street corners. When was the last time you really took note of the fact when you walked into a drugstore or a 7-11 that your image was being recorded and potentially monitored?

The justification so often given is that it's for the safety of residents/shoppers/citizens; that cameras are there to reduce crime and provide for the public safety. And in today's climate of "we must protect the children!", personal liberty often takes a backseat to perceived safety. (Yes, we've all heard that Benjamin Franklin quote.)

Perhaps people do realize that they are being recorded, though; perhaps it's just another manifestation of the same kind of quest-for-glory mentality that caused Survivor's ratings to skyrocket and have led to how many episodes of The Real World. It all really started with the FOX show COPS, where people who were caught in the middle of a crime still signed waivers to allow their images to be broadcast on television -- all, perhaps, in the quest for their fifteen minutes of fame.

A more paranoid individual might draw a parallel between the two facts -- condition people early that surveillance cameras can be a good thing, that they lead to attention and fame, and then the people won't protest their use. I'm not that paranoid; I don't think that anyone "in charge" is intelligent enough or resourceful enough to do it on purpose. It's happening subconsciously, though.

The Surveillance Camera Players group manifesto includes the reasoning:

It is important to remind oneself of the relationship between the eye of the media and that of the corporate police state -- for they are both the guardian of the commodity, however nebulous and ephemeral that commodity may become. As a tactic designed to point out the paradox of a system that turns the lens on a public that has been taught to place more importance on images recorded by cameras than images seen by their own eyes, we propose Guerilla Programming of Video Surveillance Equipment.

What a great idea! Do you think that if more people realized how much of our lives were monitored and recorded, it would lead to more of a backlash against such devices; or do you think that people are, for the most part, content or even eager to have their public activities recorded?

On 15 January 2001, kaivalya wrote that,

I used to live in a suburb on the east side of the San Francisco bay area that was refered to as "the most watched city in the world." It got this title because of the number of cameras per square mile was higher than any other city. I can't say I really minded, most of the cameras were there to catch people running red lights. The thing I never understood about the how camera argument is what makes you think that the "watchers" are watching you? Why would "they" care so much as to watch you? Managers of 7-11 watch you on the surveilance cameras to see if your shoplifting, not because they care about you. Corner street cameras are for watching the street, not to follow people around. A little egomaniacal don't you think?

Anyways, what I really wanted to say was that the corner street cameras helped me out. Because of a random corner camera in Berkeley, a man that commited a crime a against me was positively identified within a few days when he otherwise may not have been found. Another circumstance that was positively affected by cameras was again when I was living in the SF bayarea, the apartment complexes I lived in had horrorable car theft problems (which I know about too well). Lots of simple measures were tryed, neighbourhood watch, better lighting system under the carports, etc.. Someone in a neighbouring building bought a gutted security camera with their own money. It didn't work, but a little bit of cat5 stapled next to the camera on the third floor where is was mounted pointing toward the car port went a long ways. Last I heard that building didn't have one car theft in 6 months, which is pretty impressive considering the previous 6 months had 9 reported thefts.

Do not expect to have privacy in public places.

On 10 January 2001, Apuleius wrote:

Steve Mann, former Media Lab cyborg, current University of Toronto cyborg, investigated what happens when you turn people into camera-mounted cyborg and turn the tables on all of the establishments that have surveillance cameras. A lot of the time when he or his students tried to conduct normal transactions while in cyborg mode, proprietors did not like this and would ask them to leave. Something to think about.

On 10 January 2001, GreenCrackBaby reported that:

The office I worked in overlooked a normal intersection. However, at least once per week there would be a major crash at the intersection -- for no other reason except bad driving. To make light [sic] of this, I put up my camcorder and set it to continuous record. About an hour later I caught a car smashing into two young children riding their bikes. Those of you who live in Edmonton probably saw the clip on the news a few months ago. I didn't do this because I want to catch people changing in a locker room. I did this because I'm really sick of bad drivers and want to ensure that anyone who caused a collision at that intersection was held accountable. There's nothing worse than seeing those signs "Did you see an accident here on June 10th? ... " How people can view what I was doing as wrong I don't know.

On 10 January 2001, MrMikey stated:

so long as there are monitors nearby where I can watch them. "Who watches the watchers?" I say, if they can watch me, balance the power by letting me watch them. It's the ones who watch in enclosed little rooms that bother me.

Oh, and if you're one of those people who doesn't think this is a big deal, imagine mixing ubiquitous monitoring with directional microphones and face recognition software: surveillance of every public space, with tracking and monitoring of "troublemakers"... which in our country could quickly become anyone who dares to be other than a complacent sheep. No thanks. Freedom matters, damnit!

On 10 January 2001, lucas stated:

Plato once spoke of Socrates asking what would happen if men had a ring which would allow them to turn invisible and do whatever they wished without being seen by anyone. Since most men would use it (albeit perhaps not initially) for bad or selfish purposes, he reasoned, it must mean that men, in general, are inherently or naturally bad. If they had the ability to have sex with whomever they wanted, steal as much gold as they wanted, etc. without getting caught this urge would supercede the morality imposed by civil society.

The removal of cameras is a similar principle. If you remove the constant view of something, people will tend to return to negative or selfish behaviors. Since the people doing these things may neglect their belief that some sort of deity (e.g., God) is perceiving them, there must be some sort of tangible symbol that someone is watching you and that you will be punished.

Before they had cameras in the mirrors of dressing rooms, for instance, people used them to steal merchandise and, in some circumstances, worse things such as rape. The flipside is that now you have someone watching you while you change. My view is that, if you are (or try to be) good-natured, what have you to hide? If you're not a thief, rapist, or a drug-dealer, they're not interested in you.

Cameras are an invasion of privacy, though fighting for absolute privacy seems to be futile today. Rather, it seems our efforts would be best focused on erosion of privacy and personal sovereignty as pertains to activities that harm none or very few.

On 10 January 2001, Armaphine wrote:

"I already have the best anti-snooping protection available: I am unbelievably boring."

My apologies to Scott Adams and the quote that I butchered, but that's my view on it. Look at your life. Is there really anything in your life that is so interesting that someone would want to watch you do it? While I don't agree with placing video cameras everywhere (unless I get the stuff from Enemy of the State with it), I really doubt that most people have anything to fear.

On 10 January 2001, 0x00 wrote:

Whenever I see the "You may be photographed while using this ATM" sticker, I always imagine a photographer tapping me on the shoulder and asking me to smile.

On 10 January 2001, streetlawyer wrote:

I've never been able to take this one seriously (despite having been, in my younger days, an occasional urinator against walls). A public space is public. A CCTV camera just changes the topology of the public space in the sense of creating a new line of sight into it. If they started putting cameras into private spaces, I'd be worried, but I can only really see CCTV in public spaces as a benefit; it's certainly made the centre of the town I live in a safer place to be.

I've written elsewhere about the tradeoff between liberty and security, but this isn't one of those cases. There is no meaningful reduction in liberty from having CCTV cameras in public places. Or to put it another way, the freedom to urinate against public buildings is a freedom, and in some cases a damn useful one, but it is not a liberty that is really worth fighting for.

On 10 January 2001, hugorune wrote:

I don't know if any UK readers saw Monday night's episode of the Mark Thomas show, but he highlighted the fact that surveillance cameras in the UK are subject to the Data Protection act. This means that if you are filmed on a surveillance camera (whether police operated or privately operated) then you can request a copy of whatever they have recorded of you for a small fee (about ten quid). He's currently running a competition for the best surveillance camera movie.

On 10 January 2001, tftp wrote:

do you think that people are, for the most part, content or even eager to have their public activities recorded?

Every society has people who are in control of their own lives (or at least feel that way.) Those people are often called "rebels". They do what they think is right (despite of public opinion). Some of such people may think that cameras are unnecessary (because these people can defend themselves) and even evil because cameras spy upon them. But majority of people are conformists who accept the fate with little or no struggle. They are easy to control and brainwash. They don't mind being recorded, traced on Internet, their personal info sold etc. They don't want to realize that the reality is that bad. It is much more pleasant to submit to songs of sirens. Stanislaw Lem described that quite well :-)

In my opinion, it is difficult (to say the least) to convert a rebel into a conformist, or vice versa. Even when that happens (well, maybe a brick fell on his head) this is statistically insignificant. The proportion of rebels vs. conformists is determined as early as in school - and maybe even earlier. Maybe it's in genes, I don't know.

On 10 January 2001, dennis wrote:

I don't want to offend you, a lot of people make this argument, but it's a very self-centered and shortsighted viewpoint. The problem I have with surveillance is not that I'm doing anything that I think people would be interested in, or that I have anything to hide. And it's not that I think the people promoting surveillance have nefarious motives. For the most part I think they have legitimate law-enforcement objectives in mind.

The problem is that once the capability is there, you've made it easy for people down the road whose motives are not so pure. You've made it easy for someone to outlaw certain political opinions, and enforce that law. You've made it almost impossible for the government to be overthrown even if the majority of the population desire it--which is fine if the government stays democratic, but not so fine if the people behind the surveillance decide to change things. And if you think this is paranoid crap, you should bone up on the history of the 20th century.

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