Surveilence

Two events today, both concerning surveillance cameras, have filled me with feelings of disillusionment. What a sad and depressing place this world is!

First, I walked the few hundred meters from my home to my local supermarket. I noticed that I was observed by at least 6 surveillance cameras (in UK called CCTV), and I know not how many more.

Secondly, according to this Danmarks Radio article, there is now a majority in the Danish Parliament in favour of increased TV surveillance of public spaces.

Until now it has been illegal, according to 'Lov om forbud mod tv-overvågning' (Law on the ban against TV-surveillance), for either private or public enterprises to "engage in TV-surveillance of streets, roads, public squares or the like that are used for public traffic." Exceptions to this rule has been limited to “petrol stations, industrial areas, covered shopping centres and similar areas with economic activity as long as the surveillance is carried out by the legal owner of the area.”

The new bill will allow shops and businesses to install cameras monitoring its premises facade, as well as street in front of it. According to Justiceminister Lene Espersen the TV surveillance will make it easier for police to solve crime.

The problems with surveillance cameras:.
While the effectiveness of surveillance camera's are subject to much debate among sociologists and criminologists, the important question is not, in my opinion, the effectiveness surveillance, but the effect it has on society.

Constant TV surveillance is, in my opinion, a serious violation the right to privacy. A right that should be recognised as an essential element of a free society. The argument that law abiding individuals have nothing to fear from being watched is therefore missing the point. Surveillance is sanction without transgression of the law.

Worse, surveillance has a devastating effect on society. George Orwell understood this and used his novel 1984, to illustrate how surveillance is the essence of totalitarianism. Similarly Jeremy Benthem invented the Panopticon, a prison in which inmates can always be observed, as "a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example"(see Bentham "Panopticon"). Foucoult, in 'Punishment and Discipline' (New York, Random House, 1975), used Bentham's Panopticon as a metaphor for the control society. For Foucoult control is exercised by an individual knowing that they at all times may be observed, not in the act itself.

In short, surveillance is the death of freedom.

Surveilance cameras are, however, extremely popular. This is true in Denmark, in Britain, in Germany, almost everywhere. My heart aches. I cannot take it anymore.