This lecture was not the first time I have heard this term, and I have been hearing it with incresing frequency for some time. I know that it will only get worse. I am surveyed by higher bodies before I have even left the block where i live - as I get in the lift, I am faced by a camera. If I go down the stairs, another camera. As I walk through the foyer, another camera, along with a real security guard, who is as much there to protect others from me as he is to protect me from others. As I walk to my car I am caught by another 2 cameras - 1 in the door to my block and another on the roof. They can also monitor when I am entering and leaving the building by the information stored on my fob key, notably this only contains my name and flat number, but it is enough information for any would be criminal to get credit in my name or such like. Before I have even got into my car to start my day, I have been caught on 8 cameras. The cameras in and around the block work well enough in recording my actions, but when vandals are damaging my car on a repeated basis, they do not work.... thats justice for you...
The fear of being caught doing something wrong has turned me into a nervous wreck - although I am never doing anything wrong, or rarely anyway ;) all the cameras make me feel like I am, although they are there for my protection... supposedly anyway. At speed cameras, I slow down to 25mph to avoid a speeding fine. If a policeman drives past me, I ease off the accelerator and position my hands at 10 and 2 on the steering wheel to avoid being locked up for dangerous driving. On a recent shopping trip to Asda for some batteries and wrapping paper, the alarms went off as I walked out. After muttering to myself that the stupid checkout operator had not removed the tags from my items, I handed them over and it was confirmed that they had in fact been detagged, and it must have been someone else who had set off the alarms. I attempted again to walk out, and again the alarms went off. After four attempts at walking through, I was met with an uncontrollable urge to strip, empty my bags and scream at them to check the security tapes to prove I had not been shoplifting. Under the scrutiny of the employees, other shoppers and of course the omnipotent security cameras, I began to feel like a criminal and wondered whether I was in fact a kleptomaniac. I'm not of course, but pressure makes you do funny things.
In my gap year, I worked for Orange, and on my wing there was a tiny little man who sat in front of a huge computer screen wearing giant headphones, without a mouthpiece. He never talked, just sat and listened. After a few enquiries, I found out that he was monitoring calls randomly throughout the company. There was also the added pressure that my line manager would be listening to at least 5 of my calls each week. The pressure was enough for me to become a perfect customer services representative with impeccable manners and sales technique, as sales were soemthing else which was monitored, with a different system. Looking back, I don't know why I strived for perfection, as I hated my job, but then again, I did not want to lose it either.
The idea that our lives are controlled by everything from security cameras, to the documenting of our spending, emails and telephone conversations to being monitored in our jobs, and also the ways in which public spaces are now designed in order to give higher powers maximum control in times of disorder brings about an uneasiness in me. I cannot believe that any of this is for my own protection, but it is for the protection of those at the top of the social hierarchy - the rich and powerful, not ordinary working class folk minding there own business and doing nothing wrong. A need for protection is measured in the amount of power and capital a person possesses. I, possessing neither, would probably be last in line for any sort of defence should I need it.
Being part of a surveillance society has also resulted in increasing uneasiness towards certain races and groups. Its a case of tarring everyone with the same brush. In the case of the 2 muslim men who were asked to leave a holiday jet, I beleive that society has gone mad, and needs to find someone to blame in order to help them relax. It doesn't matter to the holiday makers on that plane that 2 ordinary men were victimised because of the colour of their skin, as long as their straw donkeys got home.