Yesterday in class we squabbled over the nature of the panoptical surveillance, a way for authorities to use the potential for being watched to control the citizenry. This type of big brotherism is meant to multiply control and use the fear of the potentially watched to promote appropriate behavior. We brought up the nature of surveillance cameras, both dummy and real to garner a panoptical environment. This exact environment exists in London. In the 1980’s, the city of London installed a universal surveillance system with cameras on virtually every street corner meant to reduce crime and bring criminals to justice. This system has done neither according to this NPR debate from last year: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4748483

The reason I know this is because I did a documentary about the installation of domed cameras into my high school, Highland Park High School, when I was a senior. We interviewed the dean, the superintendent, and the president of the Chicago branch of the ACLU. Both the dean and the super cited safety as the number one reason for installation, but the ACLU president refuted the point citing the London system, and furthered the argument by saying that a leering sense of big brotherism is damaging for the overall morale of the students. He claimed that people would still break the rules; the cameras would simply tell them where not to do so.

According to defensetech.org, there is "very little substantive research evidence to suggest that CCTV works," the U.K.’s National Association for the Care and Resettlement of Offenders reports. CCTV stands for close circuit television.
http://www.defensetech.org/archives/001665.html

However, the article brings up the idea of “smart cameras,” something we talked about in class when discussing Negropante. The cameras would use algorithms to decipher human behavior and alert authorities when something suspicious occurs. Then the responsibility lies with the law enforcement. Have we such little faith in the notion of good police work that we have to invent technology to prevent all crime? After all, it was police work, not “intelligence” that foiled the plotting of a terrorist attack in London.