Democratic gaze

Link: AlterNet: Rights and Liberties: Big Brother Democracy: How Free Speech and Survelliance Are Now Intertwined. From Naomi Klein:

Next, the Boston Globe reported on plans to link thousands of CCTV cameras on streets, subways, apartment buildings and businesses into networks capable of tracking suspects in real time. And on August 15, confirmation came that the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency -- the arm of the US military that runs spy planes and satellites over enemy territory -- would be fully integrated into the infrastructure of domestic intelligence gathering and local policing, becoming what the agency calls the "eyes" to the NSA's "ears."

Add a few more high-tech tools -- biometric IDs, facial-recognition software, networked databases of "suspects," GPS bundled into ever more electronic devices -- and you have something like the world of total surveillance most recently portrayed in The Bourne Ultimatum.

Which brings us back to the Security and Prosperity Partnership. Who needs clumsy old border checks when the authorities are making sure we are seen and heard at all times -- in high definition, online and off-, on land and from the sky? Security is the new prosperity. Surveillance is the new democracy.

Comments

[Seb]

"Clumsy old border checks" - see, now they're going to be (actually, already are) more of a hassle because they sure as hell won't take you at your word; they've gotta check the data as well!

Forgive an argument from experience, but: pre-9/11, I (a Canadian) was living and working in the States illegally. I slipped in and out with nary a second glance, either from Them or over my shoulder.

In 2002, I got a Green Card. Suddenly, every time I came back to the US from, say, visiting my parents, my Yankee spouse & I could count on an extra 30-45 minutes as I got hauled aside and interrogated by various porcine coppers.

Now my citizenship, official residence, and actual geophysical location are in three different nations, and I forfeited my Green Card. It still takes an extra 45 minutes to get into the States, but only because the immigration officials get so stumped by whatever pops up on their screen I have to walk them through my past five years. I swear, it's like trying to show a dog a card trick.

I also wonder how many people have pointed out that the whole CCTV/"technomniscient" tact has basically failed in the UK. It didn't stop the misidentification & murder of an innocent Brazillian, rocketing gang crime, young bystanders beaten to death in "swarmings," etc. Not a promising precedent.