A Surveillance State

"I’m just an average man with an average life. I work from nine to five, hey hell I pay the price. All I want is to be left alone in my average home. But why do I always feel like I’m in the Twilight Zone and I always feel that somebody’s watchin’ me, and I have no privacy."

Those were the lyrics on Rockwell’s smash-hit “Somebody’s Watchin’ Me” which featured Michael Jackson, a single that was released ironically enough in 1984, a year that shares its name with the notorious novel written by George Orwell, a book which depicted a totalitarian government intent on using pervasive surveillance to monitor the population. Who would have thought that a pop hit from the 80’s could best describe life in the year 2000 and above? I say this because those lyrics could have been pulled from the mind of any average citizen currently residing in Australia, a region that is now home to approximately 4.2 million surveillance cameras. As you can see, Orwell’s prediction has come to life over the last decade, and anybody who has taken the time to read ‘1984’ will understand why this situation is one of the most important and sensitive topics when discussing civil liberties.

The “Surveillance State” currently referred to as The Land Down Under is home to 1% of the world’s population, and 20% of its CCTV cameras, a figure that shockingly doesn’t seem to bother every Australian citizen. I can’t count the amount of times I have heard the phrase “If you’re not doing anything wrong, you have nothing to worry about” being thrown around in debates on the subject. I find this mentality to be full of ignorance and those who feel that statement is worthy of approval usually possess little knowledge on the subject. There is little evidence that CCTV deters criminal activity; in fact, there is considerable evidence that it does not. A report by Australian Police Chiefs concluded that only 3% of crimes were solved by CCTV, and in Melbourne, a Metropolitan Police report indicated that only 1 crime was solved per 1000 cameras. Despite that, some municipalities have gone as far as to install “Talking CCTV” which enables them to communicate with any offenders they spot. Imagine the whole street looking at you as a voice shouts at you through a speaker system, ordering you to relocate your litter to the appropriate bin, grown adults are made to feel as if their father is traveling with them on their way to work, that my friend, is unacceptable.

The odds of misuse are not “minimal” as some “experts” might suggest, in fact the odds of abuse when taking into account the government’s insatiable thirst for information are quite high. Take for instance a young woman who happens to be in a relationship with a man who monitors CCTV for a living. There may be circumstances in her life which she feels uncomfortable sharing with her partner, a stance I’m sure many of us would take in the early months of a relationship. Perhaps she still visits her ex-boyfriends mother whom she grew fond of during her previous relationship, but doesn’t feel it’s necessary to inform her partner just yet. Imagine her surprise at the dinner table when she discovers that the man sitting across the table is privy to this information due to his outstanding ability to watch his girlfriend’s actions from the minute she leaves work on her lunch break, all from the comfort of a desk. If he were to physically follow her he would, like the rest of us, be susceptible to harassment charges and a possible restraining order, but with CCTV monitoring this just isn’t applicable. A rational mind can see how intrusive and dangerous these cameras are, but thanks to the constant fear-mongering being conducted by the media, many people just don’t see what the big fuckin’ deal is. Well, in order to sound a tad more Australian, if statistics prove that these cameras play no role in deterring criminal activity, what the fuck are they there for you dumb twat?