By Christopher Ross Harrison, 2011-03-2
Where the debate over privacy rights is concerned, there exists a perpetual danger of being drawn into one of two extreme camps: One that would dismantle all security entirely, leaving us open to those very real threats that exist at home and abroad, and the other that would submerge our basic rights and freedoms beneath an Orwellian surveillance state, all in the name of our collective safety. Of course; freedom isn’t free, it just seems that way because we have been blessed to live in an oversaturated freedom market. On the other hand, although the price of freedom is still eternal vigilance, it seems there are those who would impose an artificial price hike; having us pay eternal vigilance, plus groping and manhandling fees, plus a whopping one hundred and fifty percent interest. These folks don’t necessarily hate freedom, they’d just prefer that you visit it in a museum under a glass cover.
If this sounds like a paranoid fantasy, let us reflect upon the following evidence for the recent and undue ascension of Big Brother in our Western Democracies.
1) Britain’s CCTV Panopticon: Closed Circuit Television Security Cameras have only increased in the last several decades and are perhaps most prevalent in the United Kingdom.1
Though earlier statistics that placed the U.K’s security camera count at a whopping 4.2 million have since been challenged, even conservative estimates still lean towards the shockingly high approximation of 1.85 million cameras.2 That’s one video camera for every 32 British citizens.
Despite the rapid spread of cameras throughout the U.K, many have argued that there is little evidence to show that the increase of surveillance technology has lowered the crime rate in any significant way.3
Though earlier statistics that placed the U.K’s security camera count at a whopping 4.2 million have since been challenged, even conservative estimates still lean towards the shockingly high approximation of 1.85 million cameras.2 That’s one video camera for every 32 British citizens.
Despite the rapid spread of cameras throughout the U.K, many have argued that there is little evidence to show that the increase of surveillance technology has lowered the crime rate in any significant way.3