Smile for Big Brother!

I recently read an interesting statistic: there are 32 security cameras within two blocks of the London house once owned by George Orwell, the author of 1984.

Now, I don't know if that statistic is valid or not, since no source for the information was given, but I don't doubt it could be true. Numerous recent news reports have discussed the vast number of security cameras in use in Great Britain, and the role they played in tracking down and identifying terrorism suspects. Security cameras are a fact of life here in America as well.

On any given day, my picture is taken dozens of times: when I conduct a transaction at an ATM, when I wait on the platform for my train, when I enter and leave my place of work, when I check out at the supermarket, when I conduct business at my bank, and when I walk down many ordinary streets. We went through a wrenching public debate a few years ago when the state of Virginia installed numerous cameras at selected intersections to identify the cars which run red lights with impunity. Those cameras were viewed by many as nothing more than a money-making enterprise for the state...the fact that they actually drove down the rates of accidents caused by red light-runners notwithstanding.

So what about all these security cameras? Are they a good thing or a bad thing?

On the whole, I don't mind them. Other than having filmed documentation of the occasional social faux pas (like absent-mindedly scratching one's crotch or picking one's nose in public), I don't have a problem with the cameras. For one thing, anyone who believes that there are armies of drones monitoring every one of those cameras 24/7 is smoking something illegal...there aren't enough workers in the world to watch all those cameras all the time. And if the stored tapes are able to assist in the capture of a common criminal or a terrorist (who's a criminal, too, after all), then I think they're well worth it. Granted, the development of sophisticated face-recognition software and other data mining tools make it possible for the large-scale review of millions of hours of stored images...but to what end? Even the Bush administration at its security-paranoid worst would be hard-pressed to make use of all those images. My personal opinion is that many civil libertarians are growing overly hysterical about the potential abuses of security cameras at the expense of their proven advantages.

And now you have my picture of the issue.

Have a good day. More thoughts tomorrow.

Bilbo