Comments on: UK police to deploy military UAV drones, snoop more effectively

By: Patrick H

Patrick H — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:16:41 +0000

I’m familiar with the term, but I don’t think they are different (I’m a the sort of grumpy old git that sees it as a neologism to stand in for “surveillance I approve of”).

I think David Brin’s right, but I’d gotten there myself before hand (perhaps via Rudy Rucker’s Postsingular, which has a few riffs on the issue). Furthermore, I think pervavsive sous/surveillance looks pretty much a forgone conclusion in the near future – too late to stop it now, we’re heading for the post-dignity culture!

By: Paul Raven

Paul Raven — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 12:03:08 +0000

You're coming close to highlighting the difference between surveillance and sousveillance there, Patrick; the latter is something I approve of thoroughly. Although I don't agree with all of it, David Brin's Transparent Society has been very influential on my attitudes to such matters.

By: Patrick H

Patrick H — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 10:48:12 +0000

I don’t think surveillance is automatically totalitarian. Citizen surveillance, after all, revealed the circumstances of Ian Tomlinson’s death, and has done a lot to reveal human rights abuses in Iran, eg.

It’s really more a matter of who controls the information. If these things streamed their coverage to the internet so that anyone could see it, then there’d be no problem. IMO, all state and quasi-state surveillance ought to be publicly available – we’ve paid for it, after all!

By: Nancy Jane Moore

Nancy Jane Moore — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:49:44 +0000

Keep it up, Paul. I find the British surveillance state pretty shocking. I like to think you all are more civilized than us folks in the States, but the inroads on your civil liberties is a wake up call. And I’ve found in watching British mystery shows that the reliance on ubiquitous cameras is so taken for granted that it’s incorporated into the most ordinary shows.

By: SMD

SMD — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 20:20:34 +0000

Oh, no, I’m not at all concerned about why you keep bringing this topic up. I was livid when I found out President Shrub had wiretapped Americans, so I fully understand the anger (or sheer shock) at seeing things like this being done in your own country. It’s kind of like when Adama said in the first season of Battlestar Galactica: the police are supposed to protect the people from enemies of the people; the military is supposed to protect against the enemies of the state. When the military becomes both, the people tend to become the enemies. Granted, the analogy isn’t perfectly applicable, but it’s still something that scares me in the U.S., and certainly should scare you or anyone elsewhere. Whenever you roll back freedom, even if it’s because you’re scared, it’s taking a step back. It’s easier to give up freedom than to get it back.

And my rant is now over.