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Sorting for suspects: a culture of suspicion is spreading as sophisticated surveillance societies, in which everyone is monitored, are being created around the world.

Article Excerpt
In a classic one-liner, Jacques Ellul once suggested that: 'To be sure of apprehending criminals, it is necessary that everyone be supervised'. Substitute the word 'terrorists' for 'criminals' and we have an uncannily accurate description of the world since 9/11. Anti-'terrorist' measures, from securing airports to intercepting emails, are everywhere. The dramatic events of 2001 served to accelerate processes of general 'supervision' that had been underway since Ellul's prophetic words were written in the early 1960s. Especially in the United States, but also in countries around the world, we are creating sophisticated surveillance societies in which everyone is supervised, or watched over.

Let me clarify two things right away. First, in this world that we help to make, what I'm calling surveillance is partly a by-product of modern bureaucratic efficiency. More mobility means that many things are done at a distance. So some ways are needed of keeping track of transactions or keeping tabs on populations. Surveillance fills that gap--PINs, barcodes, video images and scans are tokens of trust that compensate for the fact that in a global village we can't all know everyone else. So surveillance is not necessarily sinister; but neither is it simply benign. It is deeply ambiguous and increasingly influential. In this piece, however, I focus on the risks.

Second, what follows is not just a paranoid whine about intensified intrusions, still less a plea for more privacy. In the context of today's rampant individualism the antidote to more surveillance is quickly seen in terms of personal space and personal solutions. Of course, some government departments or corporations have no business prying into our personal affairs and even traffic-light cameras can pick up passenger images that should never be recognisable. But while some aspects of privacy may be important--human dignity based on the imago dei would make self-communication a voluntary, limited activity within relations of trust--the language of privacy fails to touch many crucial issues. As well, privacy is also ambiguous. Or should domestic violence in a 'private' space be exempt from public scrutiny?

Suspect behaviour...

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