The National Security Surveillance State: What, Me Worry?

(Updated below)

There you go, folks - read it and weep (emphasis added):

Surveillance-camera use ‘mushrooming’: study
Practice is accepted, watchdog notes

The use of surveillance cameras in Ottawa and other Canadian cities is “mushrooming,” but so far the public appears unconcerned, according to a new report by the Surveillance Camera Awareness Network (SCAN).

Among other things, the OPP are acquiring surveillance cameras with automated licence-plate-recognition technology, and the RCMP have installed cameras at Vancouver Olympic venues and tourist sites.

As well, Montreal, Toronto and Vancouver have deployed thousands of surveillance cameras on their transit systems, and half a dozen Canadian cities, including Ottawa, have adopted taxi cameras.

Surveillance cameras “generally seem to be accepted without demur,” the report says. Indeed, “public opinion is generally very favourable to their installation.”

A nine-nation survey found “the overwhelming majority” of those polled believe camera surveillance is effective at reducing crime. In Canada, nearly three in four hold that view.

What’s lacking, says the report, is evidence to support that belief. “Plenty of rhetoric and promotional hype is available, but very little by way of serious and solid study.”

SCAN, whose report is to be presented at a workshop at Queen’s University today, is a group of academics operating under the banner of Queen’s Surveillance Studies Centre. The new information builds on research in a report released a year ago.

One section examines the introduction of security cameras in more than 1,100 Ottawa taxis in 2008. Drivers vigorously protested the plan. They accepted the cameras only after the city agreed to pick up part of the cost and abandon a contentious technology drivers believed could be used to spy on them.

(...) The report also looks at the growing practice of posting surveillance video to Crime Stoppers sites, including on YouTube.

The transfer of camera surveillance footage to police, Crime Stoppers and other sites “poses privacy and ethical concerns,” the report says.

(...) The report also says the 2010 Olympics are likely to bequeath a “surveillance legacy” to the host city, Vancouver.

Following the Sydney, Athens and Torino Olympic Games, the study says, camera surveillance systems installed for the events were “repurposed” toward general law-enforcement or traffic-management uses.

David Lyon, director of the Surveillance Studies Centre and the report’s co-ordinator, said there’s no indication the spread of camera surveillance is slowing.

“In fact,” he said, “there’s a kind of spiralling-up process. It is growing at a rapid rate.”

So, why exactly all of this is happening? Why we are heading straight in the direction of the UK (especially when considering the fact that CCTV's overall impact on crime over there is quite less than impressive - and then some)?

First - politicians continually prey on our fears of crime and terrorism (especially conservative politicos).

Second, law enforcement and security agencies continually demand better, greater tools/powers to "monitor" crime activity in order to be more efficient at catching criminals (and of course, terrorists) - remember their ever convenient rationale?

And third, security corporations prey on the fears of politicos, the wet-dreams of law enforcement and security agencies, and the (already stoked) fears of the populace, in order to not only create a market of surveillance technology but furthermore ever expand said market. Case in point (emphasis added):

Camera surveillance has become big business, the report says, and “utopian promises” made by those who sell the technology partly explain its proliferation.

“The camera surveillance industry exploits our fears in order to market their products, suggesting that state-of-the-art technology is capable of creating a ‘crime-free’ or ‘worry-free’ society.”

And there you have it - with perfection now being "demanded" as the norm.

As mentioned above, the UK's CCTV ubiquitous system does little to solve crime, let alone prevent crime - which are the very raison d'être (i.e. justifications) for implementing such a far-ranging, indiscriminate, widespread surveillance system. No, instead CCTV is typically being used to monitor and spy on the citizens (and even future citizens) - as well as pooping dogs.

Because it is inevitable that abuse of such indiscriminate means of surveillance will occur:

It is a given, demonstrated fact that governmental security agencies are not seekers of truth, but seekers of guilt. Whenever they are given any powers to spy on their own citizens, they will do so - for reasons frivolous, paranoid or (apparently very rarely as shown so far) actually justified.

Anything and nothing can - and will - be held against you.

Because in the mindset of governmental security agencies, everyone is suspect, everyone is guilty. Period.

Indeed.

One more case in point. And another. And another. And another. And so on, and so forth.

With this yet other example of abuse of power, thus I reiterate:

I remain staunchly opposed to the ludicrous and very dangerous wrong-headed idea that police and security agencies can get any information on us without a court-approved warrant, regardless of whatever reason they want to invoke to justify such blatant violation of civil rights - because police and security agencies will inevitably abuse such vast, indiscriminate powers of domestic spying (examples here and here). It is in their nature to do so.

Then again - I told you so, bis repetita, eh?

Abuse of power comes in many forms. That is why our democracies were built upon constitutions which define and protect our rights of persons and privacy. Case in point - take for instance this other case of abuse of power:

Peeping tom CCTV workers jailed
Two council CCTV camera operators have been jailed for spying on a naked woman in her own home.

Mark Summerton and Kevin Judge, from Sefton Council, Merseyside, trained a street camera into the woman's flat.

At Liverpool Crown Court, Summerton, 37, of Kirkdale, Liverpool, admitted voyeurism and attempted voyeurism. He was sentenced to four months in prison.

Judge, 42, from Waterloo, admitted misconduct in public office and was jailed for two months.

He was cleared of voyeurism last month.

Summerton was also ordered to sign the Sex Offenders' Register.

Team leader Vincent Broderick, 52, of Bootle, Merseyside, admitted misconduct in public office on the grounds that he did not see the woman when she was naked, but knew the cameras were being misused and failed to report it.

He was sentenced to 200 hours' community service.

The images from the camera, including the woman without her clothes on, were shown on a large plasma screen in the council's CCTV control room in November 2004, Liverpool Crown Court heard.

Over several hours, she was filmed cuddling her boyfriend before undressing, using the toilet, having a bath and watching television dressed only in a towel.

Which reminds me of what I wrote previously:

Maybe you remain unfazed by all of this, your smug reasoning reassuring you that nothing like that could ever happen to you, that it is inconceivable that some "tracker" has been listening (or may yet still) to your most private conversations on the phone, or parsing through your emails, or credit card/bank statements, and so on.

Or maybe you remain approving of indiscriminate domestic spying, confident that such setting aside of constitutional rights serves the ultimate purpose of catching them evul ter'rists (which, as it turns out, is a false premise), while also being of the mind that such "accidental" abuses happen to others - never to you. In other words, you are one who would gladly proclaim "Security - Hallowed Be Thy Name" with much gratitude, patriotic fervor and conviction.

But regardless, how would you know whether or not you have been caught in the "wide-net" approach to electronic surveillance already adopted by Police and Security Agencies?

How would you possibly become aware that some faceless "tracker" is sharing all that was caught of your most private, intimate conversations - all the while sharing laughs with colleagues in so doing? That complete strangers have become quite familiar with your private life?

That faceless, shadowy men and women have been endowed with the power to act as nothing more than peeping toms, all-too-eager to watch and listen into every and all facets of your privacy, of your intimacy?

And how would you know whether or not you will be branded a security threat just because you went on strike, or because someone "out there" has decided that some of the books/newspapers/magazines that you read may be suspicious, or simply because you were overheard complaining about the government?

That is the question, isn't it?

And of course, let us not forget that corporations themselves adore CCTV and all means of electronic surveillance - not just for profits (see also above), but also as a means of control over their employees.

You think I'm being paranoid? That I'm exagerating? Then read the following (edited for effect):

National databases designed to hold personal information on nearly every citizen are being set up across the board on all levels of government services and law enforcement, security agencies to increase information data sharing.

Meanwhile businesses and banks are gathering data on the public from CCTV, Web browsing behavior, CRM systems and tracking the use of loyalty cards, with the government and law enforcement, security agencies also wanting access to this data.

"Every time we make a telephone call, send an email, browse the internet, or even walk down our local high street, our actions may be monitored and recorded," the report said.

"There can be no justification for this gradual but incessant creep towards every detail about us being recorded and pored over by the state."

Sounds awfully familiar, eh?

One would think that the mentioned report above came from a dystopic science-fiction novel or movie.

Actually, it was a report from the UK House of Lords Constitution Committee.

Yet - it eerily echoes what we in Canada and the USA are experiencing as well, no?

Consequently, here we are again in a "perfect storm" to end our civil liberty-driven democracies and replacing them by authoritarian, corporatocracy-driven, security and surveillance states:

As I said before, no one is safe from the convenient rationale of security agencies to spy indiscriminately on their own citizens - when we allow them to do so, that is.

Of course, and as I discussed previously at length in numerous posts here at APOV (such as here, here or here, as a few exanples), a confluence of attitudes is required for a democracy to arrive at a stage whereby pervasive domestic spying comes to be not only instituted, but furthermore ratified as legal after the fact - despite its illegal nature to begin with.

First, you need prevalent incompetence in the executive branch of government, since abuse of power, slavery to expediency and deficiency of ethics and morals constitute three landmarks of incompetents.

Second, you need a populace generally afflicted with intellectual sloth-driven ignorance (or their righs, of their constitution, of facts) in order to keep it afraid of the "bad guys", therefore allowing the incompetent decision-makers to justify their abuse of power in the name of Security - a mendacious justification that is in turn all-too-eagerly accepted by the said largely ignorant and fearful populace.

Third, you need the legislative and judicial branches of government to be largely intellectual sloth-driven incompetent as well - therefore facilitating not only the acceptance of abuse of power from the executive branch, but furthermore echoing the ignorance-based fear of the populace, consequently exhibiting an eagerness of compliance by legally ratifying said abuse of power after the fact.

And fourth - you need an equally intellectual sloth-driven MSM to spread the foul propaganda of the executive branch, or conveniently turning a blind eye to said abuse, or even outright excusing said abuse, consequently solidifying its lies and mendacious justifications for abuse of power as "evident truth".

Then voilà - you have abuse of power made legal throughout the land.

Now, simply add the aforementioned profit- and control-driven self-interest of corporations in widespread electronic surveillance, along with their control of mass media, and ... well, you should get the point now.

Then again - perhaps you just won't.

So, folks - as you remain willing to do away with your perky, annoying, troublesome civil liberties in order to feel safe and secure, you should at least keep in mind the two following questions:

Who is watching you?

Who is watching the watchers?

And never forget: no one is safe.

But don't worry, be happy - and feel "secure" ... as the terrorists keep on winning.

And in between, you might end up not even being able to peruse this little blog of mine in a soon-to-come future near you.

Just because of National Security reasons, dontcha know?

Nonetheless, if only to remain the bearer of a clear conscience, I will conclude with this parting verity:

Let it be known ad nauseam: living in a democracy is a right and a responsibility.

Granted, this responsibility requires effort. But which is better: having your back bent by the effort required to keep on living in a democratic society, or letting leave for complacency and find yourself one day with a back bent under a totalitarian regime (however benevolent it may be)?

It is high time to remember that it is indeed we who guard all the doors and hold all the keys of our democratic values and institutions.

It is, in the end, up to us to act as the Guardians and Caretakers of our constitutions, our civil rights and our civil liberties.

It has always been up to us.

Quondam iterum vos teneo.


Update 01/21/2010: Just two more notes added in proof ...

FBI broke law for years in phone record searches;

NYPD routinely arrests students for non-crimes.

What, me worry?

Indeed.