Blackmoor Vituperative

I get irritated when I read someone who ought to know better defend universal surveillance. Larry Seltzer on eWeek makes the claim that there is no privacy interest in public places. He draws a comparison between having a camera on every corner and having a police officer on every corner, as if there is no difference. A camera on every streetcorner is vastly different from a police officer on every streetcorner.

1. Police officers can respond to a citizen in need — cameras can’t. Even if every camera is actively monitored by a human being (which is impossible), dispatching assistance to a camera’s location takes as long as responding to any other 911 call.
2. Police officers are not all networked to the same system which stores what each of them sees. Cameras are. There is a HUGE difference between having a single human being aware of what’s on this corner, today, and having that same human being watching this corner, and every corner, every day. No one can be trusted with that level of omniscience. No one.

Universal surveillance is a huge invasion of privacy: that is its sole purpose. “Privacy” does not simply apply to what is done behind closed doors (although there are cameras to record that, as well.). “Privacy” applies equally as much to not having one’s activities tracked and monitored on a continual basis.

Universal surveillance is not a “slippery slope” to Big Brother: it is a pit trap, and Big Brother is waiting at the bottom.