Surveillance

When I go on and on (and on) about surveillance, tracking, and other forms of privacy invasion here in Britain, it seems as if -- to many people, especially the British -- I come across as paranoid. People point out all the benefits of the technology, and virtually suggest that I give up my tinfoil hat.

I guess sometimes I don't do a good job of explaining my philosophical problem with all this 'benign' surveillance. Maybe I don't do myself any favours when I phrase my argument too stridently, too emotionally, by calling it the "infrastructure of tyranny". (I do believe that's the case, but I should be a little bit more conscious of using the "soft sell" when I care passionately about a topic).

So, here's a short article about the creep of surveillance technology. One quote:

Professor Jeffrey Rosen wrote an article in The New York Times in 2001 showing that surveillance cameras in London, which were put up to combat the threat of terrorism from the Irish Republican Army, are actually used to intimidate vagrants and punks -- and, predictably, to ogle women.

It's not the ogling or harassment of today that worries me so much: It's the mission creep. It's what might come next. I worry about the future. Every time we voluntarily give up some little piece of our privacy or freedom to secure some benefit, we lose it forever. We lose it to leaders of the future whom we haven't yet met, who will use it to further agendas that we can't yet know. Should we be so trusting?