Who is watching who?

After reading Steve Mann's articles I began to think about surveillance systems that I encounter everyday. It is perfectly 'okay' and legal for a store to install cameras that track your every move, but when you try and turn the camera on them, it is not okay. I experienced this myself, while I was making a documentary for a high school media class. Some friends and I were filming at a large mall by our house, where we normally hangout. We were just filming ourselves doing what we regularly do at the mall; eat, buy a CD and goof around. Then, two mall security guards stopped me and asked me to stop recording. I told them that it was perfectly legal for me to record a video in the mall, but then they pointed to the bank down the hall and said that I was a possible threat to the bank because I could be staking out the scene. I explained to them that if I was trying to rob a bank, I wouldn't walk around in front of it with a large camera that everyone can see. But regardless, they made me feel like a criminal and that what I was doing was wrong, when what I was doing was perfectly legal. They can record us, but we can't record them...doesn't seem fair to me. I wondering if I had used Mann's 'maybe camera' could they still have made their case? Because, I wasn't sure and they weren't sure that I was recording. There is no way for them to prove that I had a camera, and even if they did prove it, there is no way they could prove that I was recording. Mann says that "existential technology serves to empower the individual by disempowering the individual of responsibility" (19). Knowing this now, If I were to do this documentary again, I would tell the security guard that this camera is here for my own protection, so that I cannot be wrongfully accuses of any criminal acts. I wonder what they would say? If they still told me take the camera off, then I would tell them to take their camera's off. By this time, I think they would have escorted me out, but I would still have proven a valid case.


I ran into a good example of what Mann calls 'sousveillance', while I was watching an episode of MTV Cribs featuring Busta Rhymes, a hip hop superstar (I looked everywhere for clip of this episode and nobody had it, not even YouTube). There is a section where he shows off all of his vehicles and he comes to this one truck that has cameras in the front and the back that record while he drives around. Busta says these cameras are to insure that when he is stopped by police, that they follow proper protocol and that he is not wrongfully accused and/or a victim of police brutality. I thought this was genius, and have being a victim of police brutality (although it was not severe) and seeing others mistreated by police, I wish I had some sort of sousveillance system on me or my car. That way, my complaint to the police department would be taken seriously, as I would posses video proof. Once Steve Mann's sousveillance systems become more practical, I think they will become more accepted in society. What better way for a celebrity to get even with the paparazzi, then to take pictures and videos of them. The surveillance society of corporations and governments, currently have us surrounded by cameras and the only way we can fight back is with Mann's sousveillance.

Privacy?

What is privacy? What are our individual rights to privacy? Is eavesdropping on a conversation in the mall a violation of privacy? Or is watching someone on the bus? In a broad view of privacy, anytime someone looks at or listens to someone else, that person's privacy is being violated. But, as Judith Thomson discusses the rights to privacy in her article, she mentions that "There are many, many things we ought not to do to people, things such that if we do them to a person, we act badly, but which are not such that to do them is to violate a right of his" (297). Therefore, even though we shouldn't eavesdrop and stare at people, it is not a violation of their privacy. The line between what is a violation and what is not is very cloudy. Thomson presents an idea of privacy; that we do not use any extra technology to enhance our own abilities or to gain access to a something that we otherwise wouldn't have access too. An example Thomson discusses is that if you are walking by a house and here someone talking through their window, you are not violating their privacy, but if the windows are closed and you use a sound amplifier to hear what the person is saying, you are violating their right to privacy. Placing a camera in your window and pointing it into your neighbour's window is creepy and morally wrong, but it is not a violation of privacy because we have the right to look out our window and into another persons window. But, if we place a camera in our neighbour's home, two inches to the right of the window, we are violating their privacy.

What about pictures in public? There are several internet sites devoted to shots from under a girl's skirt, so is this a violation of privacy? Thomson goes on to state that anyone who appears in public waives their right to not be photographed, but at the same time, you have the right not to be bothered in public. So, again, the line is blurred. If you are walking up a flight of stairs and someone sees your underwear, is that a violation of privacy? What if that person takes a picture of it, is that a violation? Although it is very perverted and morally wrong, it is not a violation of privacy, because the person is appearing in public and they have no right to tell someone where to look and where not to look. They chose to wear a skirt, knowing that at some angles, people can see their underwear. Celebrities have it the worst when it comes to privacy. They always have to make sure they are wearing clothes that are not too revealing and in some cases, make sure they are wearing underwear. Britney Spears' every move out in public is captured by paparazzi. So, when she steps out of a vehicle and the underneath of her skirt is exposed, only to yield that she is not wearing any underwear, is that a violation of privacy? Again, although it is morally wrong and perverted, it is not a violation of privacy. Britney Spears herself even apologized for the photo, saying she should have been wearing underwear. Therefore, I think people, especially celebrities, are getting used to always being watched or heard, so they just have to be careful what they do. It has come to the point where, if someone takes a naked picture of us while we are swimming in the lake at our secluded cottage and plasters it all over the tabloids, it is our fault for not wearing any clothes. But what is more morally wrong, our decision to swim naked in a secluded area, where no one but our friends and family are around, or a photographers decision to take a picture of us naked? We are living in a modern day panopticon and we never know when someone is listening to or watching us.

Power of Surveillance

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I am not against surveillance and the fact that it is everywhere, from cameras CCTV cameras to data collection. I think surveillance, especially data collection, makes our lives easier. Stalder, shares this view, as he states, "Complete absence from databanks is neither practical nor desireable" (122). He also points out that surveillance is not the problem, but the fact that surveillance powers and control are concentrated into the hands of few. Even though this is not the same as Foucault's idea of a panopticon, it is still a panopticon none the less because any one company that compiles these data banks can see thousands of people's activities, but we can not see them, nor do we know what they have access too. As Deleuze notes, we have moved out of the disciplinary society and into the society of control; we no longer exist as a signature, rather we exist as information. Data banks can not see what we look like or what we are doing (in the physical sense), but they can see where we have been, what we have bought, who we called, what we are looking at on the internet, what our literary or movie preferences are, and so on. This is a complete invasion of privacy and I think there is a breaking point for everybody, but there is not much we can do about it. The main surveillance is coming from much higher powers, such as governments, and until new drastic laws are created (but it is hard to imagine the government saying okay to laws that will inhibit their ability to monitor people in order to prevent crime and terrorism plots) there is no way to stop this force of rising surveillance.

Through massive data banks, the electronic world makes life so much easier for people, but at the same time, it allows us and our activities to be continually watched, monitored and recorded. Every technological change has created more opportunity and allowed humans to do more, but at the same time, it also has just as many negative effects. But, because we love or 'need' the new opportunities of new technologies, we put up with the negatives and get used to them. In order to stop this and take back our privacy, there would have to be a total reworking of the electronic world, which would require a lot of new laws that will change the way we live entirely. The question is, is our privacy worth all of that? We can't have the best of both worlds, so the question is, are we willing to give up the new freedoms and perks that new technology has created in order to maintain our privacy, or what is left of it? Stalder notes that we have barely any privacy left, but again that is not the problem as he states, "Rather than continuing on the defensive, by trying to maintain an ever-weakening illusion of privacy, we have to shift to the offensive and start demanding accountability of those whose power is enhanced by the new connections" (123). So, rather than complaining that we have no privacy, we have to focus our efforts on the people who have access to our personal information and insure that it is not being misused. Laws should be and hopefully will be implemented to control the distribution of our personal information, but even then, there are still higher powers, such as the government, who will have a green light to access of the information. But, as all surveillance programs state, they are only here for our safety and if we haven't done anything wrong than we have nothing to worry about. Therefore, it is an information panopticon and we must constantly be aware because we never know what information they are collecting and why.