More Mahotma Mania!!!

In New York City we already have cameras at traffic lights and police surveillance cameras all over the city. The benefit of surveillance as a tool of the government to record criminal activity is real. However, video surveillance does not lead to more equal justice. Police cameras are disproportionately placed in poor and minority neighborhoods just as police officers are disproportionately placed in poor and minority neighborhoods. Hence, security cameras will be used as “objective” proof that certain communities are more prone to violence and crime without considering the disproportional application of the technology (i.e.: more cameras in certain neighborhoods will almost certainly result in more crimes being recorded in those neighborhoods). Hence, cameras will serve as a tool of the establishment to further demarcate certain communities under the guise of neutral technology.
I find comical Taylor’s assertion that people will behave normally after accepting that they are being watched. I am aware that there is a psychological experiment that revealed that people will only temporarily change their behavior when they know they are being watched (with no long lasting change). However, that experiment did not intrude on the privacy of the subjects. Perpetual surveillance implies distrust of the people and will therefore engender under Newton’s Law (equal and opposite force) distrust of the government. Mechanical overseers disassociate officials from the people and will thus result in a disenfranchised population. Most of all, the proliferation of cameras will represent power and control by the government and not by the people, which will lead to resentment and radical political upheaval- either the people will get rid of the cameras or the cameras will enslave the people in a police state.