The United Kingdom has over a million public surveillance cameras trained on its society, and the United States, while far behind in terms of density, is racing to catch up. The purpose of the cameras is straightforward: surveillance helps to prevent crimes from occurring in the first place and helps to prosecute them when it does. To accomplish this, the cameras are fed into a centralized criminal bureau that monitors the activity, basically TV bobbies gazing at our lives.
Imagine now for a moment that these camera feeds were public available. There is no reason why the feeds shouldn't be viewable by the general public since they are of the general public. Anything on the film would be observable by anyone who happened to be on site in a public space; it isn't as though these cameras are violating privacy at all.
What would be the pros and cons of this situation? I immediately see lots of pros: parents able to keep track of kids, lovers keeping track of each other, the obvious voyeuristic thrill associated with so-called reality TV, and most importantly it helps to keep the authorities honest. Beyond keeping films of the public accessible to the public, this kind of system could presumably help the authorities monitor what is going on. Imagine how many cops you need to have on shift 24/7 to watch a million video feeds! If the public was browsing these lines, there would be more eyeballs watching what would happen at the other end.
Okay, fine, some of you say, those are nice ideas, but come on! Do I really think its a good idea to turn us into spies on each other? I don't think that it would be pathological in the least. Remember, these aren't hidden cameras but just video feeds from public spaces. Millions of people see the activities being recorded when they are in the same physical vicinity, so there is no violation there.
I think it would be cool. In the end though, given that the cameras exist, the choice is basically would you prefer the authorities to have exclusive access to monitor the public or would you prefer that the public have access to it as well? I don't see how permitting the public to view this stuff would in any way limit police efforts to prevent and prosecute crimes. I suppose there are perhaps some abuses possible by the general populace, but they couldn't be any worse than potential abuses by the authorities could they?
We pay for it, we should at least get to watch it, eh?
Posted by Nutrimentia at May 31, 2003 10:25 PM | TrackBack