Greetings, my friends. I hear that there is a surveillance camera for every fourteen people in the country, and that well-intentioned people have expressed serious concerns about threats to liberty. Personally, I have always found appeals to liberty unhelpful and contradictory, since all government, all law consists in nothing else but the restriction of liberty, while it is to government and to law that we owe everything that makes our lives valuable, or indeed recognizably human. If you would be prepared to break a lance with me using the terminology of security, that is immunities, permissions and entitlements created and supported by law, you might benefit from making sense, and I might benefit from making you see sense.
First as to surveillance cameras: sempiterne floreant say I—Why do I think thus? It seems to me that the argument is so straightforward as almost to fall within the category of self-evident propositions, but permit me to rehearse it once more. I really do believe that the more strictly we are watched, the better we behave. All of us, you and I included, are liable to the temptation to make the sinister sacrifice, that is, to elevate our own interests, and the interests of those for whom we care most, above those of other people affected by our behaviour. It is for this reason that the penal law exists, and attaches sanctions, that is pains, to the commission of harmful acts, to the end that the costs of such commission might outweigh the anticipated benefits to the criminal. Of course, if I do not anticipate detection of an offence, the putative quantity of pain contained in a sanction is utterly beside the point. If I am confident that my crime will not be witnessed, or that the evidence of my crime will be insufficient to lead to prosecution, or that any prosecution will be unlikely to result in conviction, or that the execution of any sentence consequent upon conviction is improbable—if, that is, in my judgement, the balance of probability indicates that I can get away with it—even rendering of an offence capital—I, of course, deprecated capital punishment as uneconomical and irremissible—would be a merely idle gesture. It is for this reason that indirect legislation, that is a body of law consisting of measures to prevent crimes, by, for instance, weakening the seductive motives which excite to evil, is so important, and it is in this regard that I would have enthusiastically embraced CCTV. In a nutshell, CCTV preserves evidence and delivers us from reliance on the chance presence of witnesses to facilitate the effective punishment of crimes, and thereby their future deterrence. Indeed, cameras have many advantages in comparison of human witnesses, which all centre upon their greater objectivity: they don’t forget, they don’t lie, and they do not possess interests and emotions and past histories to be exploited by artful lawyers!
What, after all, is the objection to observation? I would have been entirely happy to appear on camera during my daily circumgyrations of the park, confident in the knowledge that, however foolish I might appear, I was doing nothing of which I should be ashamed. The demand for secrecy is prima facie evidence of a desire to inflict harm on others. Why should I object to appearing on my neighbourhood camera?—because I am up to no good? because I am supposed to be ill in bed and I am worried that my employer will see me up and about? because I have a romantic tryst involving the betrayal of a partner? Of course some things need privacy: military secrets, mercantile inventions, and sex, to name but three—but few have suggested that affairs of this nature should be conducted on the public highway. In essence, the more transparent the behaviour, the less chance is there that it will be directed to anti-social ends. Public security demands a presumption in favour of transparency and publicity.
But, I hear you protest, there are myriad practical difficulties in the operation of CCTV. You are right, but practical difficulties demand practical solutions, and only in the absence of such solutions do they impugn the principle. First, if the quality of the images is too poor to enable reliable identification, the whole conception is in danger of falling apart. What should be our response? Simple: improve the quality of the images. Second, if only some parts of a town are covered by CCTV, might there not be a danger of merely relocating all the footpads to the areas which lack coverage? Quite so. Answer: cover all parts of the town! Third, will not the disreputable classes take steps to disguise themselves before committing their outrages on personal property? Quite probably. The greater number of offences would not be committed, if the delinquents did not hope to remain unknown. Answer: Take ulterior steps to facilitate the recognition and finding of individuals.
Behave yourselves now,
J.B.
Sorry, Mr. Bentham, but I find such ubiquitous surveillance to be intrusive, and I have no intention of committing any serious (or even minor) crimes. I don’t run red lights or stop signs, cut other drivers off on the freeway, or shoplift. I don’t steal food out of hallway refrigerators at work, and if someone did abscond with my lunch, I wouldn’t want to prosecute such a petty theft. Likely the person needs the food more than I do that day. If the lunch disappears repeatedly, then I should keep it in an insulated bag in my filing cabinet, or something like that.
In the US, much of the increased concern about surveillance is focused on our southern border, with Mexico. As a resident of this region, I’ll say that although the border is geographic and political, it is not necessarily cultural. I think this border fence, and the surveillance cameras mounted upon it, will affect the culture of this region (which I happen to love) in a negative manner. Also, if the impetus for such measures is “anti-terrorism”, then the expensive exercise resembles closing the garage door after the horses have escaped from the barn.
All of us, you and I included, are liable to the temptation to make the sinister sacrifice, that is, to elevate our own interests, and the interests of those for whom we care most, above those of other people affected by our behaviour
Author bell hooks might argue that if everyone had enough resources to meet basic needs, such temptations for crime would diminish significantly. Perhaps in the UK, all people have the basics of food, shelter, and healthcare; but this is not true in the US. I think intrusive surveillance fuels the flames of ugly class-based hatred and segregation, and it affects both the rich and the poor. From bell hooks’ book Where We Stand: Class Matters:
“In some [poor] neighborhoods, residents must wear name tags to gain entrance to housing projects, gated camps that are the property of the nation-state.”
“The rich, along with their upper-class neighbors, also live in gated communities where they zealously protect their class interests — their way of life — by surveillance, by security fences, by direct links to the police, so that all danger can be kept at bay.”
I’m a theiving, and coniving, little git, enjoying nothing more than my own pleasure at other’s expense. however, I do like Kristi’s argument, so I’m torn right now on moral and personal levels…
Of course some things need privacy: military secrets, mercantile inventions, and sex, to name but three—but few have suggested that affairs of this nature should be conducted on the public highway
I ask: why don’t we do it in the road,
As Lennon said? The reason’s clear to see.
Passers-by would re-direct their eyes.
Except those wags who’d comment on our art
And say that no, the girl should be on top
Or make suggestions trying to our frame.
But if the question’s more about the frame
Than the picture it contains, the road
To freedom, surely, isn’t one of top-
-Down regulation? One can plainly see
That prosecution of much love, employment, art
Must happen far away from human eyes.
If one’s acts should so offend your eyes
One might remark the fault is in your frame
Especially, and not the search for art.
For innovation must pursue a road
Not taken, one that others cannot see.
To generate success, come out on top.
I own that this concern’s not top
Of your agenda, rather that one’s eyes
Should, like Argus, be allowed to see
All human actions, in and out the frame,
On by-way, alley, motorway and road
To separate the felon from his art.
There is a loophole in your vaunted art
to survey all man’s doings, and so top
The criminal, the footpad on the road:
And it is this: that crimes will go where eyes
Cannot find them; cameras cannot frame
Their prosecution; where no eyes can see.
You might respond, that cameras then should see
To penetrate such privacy, the art
Of people-watching should embrace a frame
Of total compass, going to the top
Of government: Big Brother’s all-seeing eyes.
I shudder should we seek to take that road
A road to slavery, surely you can see?
That eyes should turn away from every art.
And can you top my fine sestina’s frame?