State Surveillance

In 1949, George Orwell coined the term “Big Brother” in his (unfortunately) timeless novel 1984. The fear then — and now — was that mass surveillance would give totalitarian states even greater control over its people.

As prescient as Orwell was, here’s something he missed: surveillance works both ways. Bodycams have proven a nuisance for belligerent cops. Hot mics get politicians in hot water. And there’s a reason ICE agents are masking up.

But where Orwell thought the battle would be waged between people and state, the reality is that widespread surveillance mostly pits people against people. A cheating CEO and HR head on a Coldplay jumbotron brought the mirth and wrath of millions. A home-run-ball-crazed Phillies fan went from scowling at a kid to scanning the want ads in no time flat.

The power of the camera is that it can freeze a moment in time. And it might not be your best moment. A temporary lapse in judgement becomes a permanent stain on your reputation. Or (and this is more likely, in my opinion), a camera can capture and reveal truths about human nature that we try to conceal from others.

The CEO and HR head didn’t cheat for a second, and suddenly their lives fell apart. There were thousands of small and large dishonesties that led up to that moment. The Phillies fan didn’t lose her temper and become unreasonable for the first time in her life (she would go on to yell at another fan in his face and flip off the crowd after). Rather, the camera revealed with certainty something that she probably does a fair job of keeping under wraps.

The rise of the digital camera coincides with the fall of religious beliefs, and while there might not be anything causal in this, there might be a much-needed solution to a widening problem. For much of human history, there was a feeling that someone was watching us even in our most private moments and with our inner thoughts. I was raised in a very Christian household, and for the first twelve years of my life, I assumed God, Jesus, and all my dead relatives were watching everything I did. I like to think that even as I lost my religion, I retained some strengthened conscience from those years.

While religion has been on the decline, measures of conscientiousness have also been dropping. People are generally caring less and less for other people. And really, can you blame them? Have you met people?!

One of the studies covered in the fantastic book Why We Lie details grade-school kids cheating on a pop quiz. The findings are interesting because — when presented with a low-stakes situation with no one watching — every single kid elected to cheat. (It turns out, someone was watching: the folks doing the study). The pattern that emerged was this: no matter the gender or age, when a teacher left a solitary student alone in a classroom with a quiz, and the kid knew the answers were on the wall behind them, the ease with which they could turn their heads and ace the exam overrode their sense of right and wrong. They all looked.

But with a teacher in the room? None of them looked. The teacher is the ultimate conscience. It doesn’t require faith to believe in them. There they are.

Most people fear a surveillance state. Me? I fear the people who fear the surveillance state. I wish there were cameras everywhere watching everything and that we all had access to them. Because we are beginning to lose the behavioral feedback loop that kept us in line.

That feedback loop goes back to the tribal societies in which we were meant to live. You are adapted for a reality in which you would almost never encounter a stranger. The people you were born around would be the people you lived around and died around. If something went missing in a small band of people, the culprit would likely get caught. If a child misbehaved, the nearest adult would correct the behavior. If an adult misbehaved, ditto.

These days, we cut people off in a merging situation because we know we’ll never see them again and there will be no repercussions. Anonymity brings out the worst in us. Things are said behind online accounts that bring shame when we are doxxed and those same public outbursts are shown to employers, family, friends. We act like the surveillance and doxxing are the problem, rather than the behaviors. And that’s fucked up.

My wife and I just drove four hours each way on a road trip in France, and we didn’t see a single car pulled over by a cop. What we saw instead were the white flashes of light as speed cameras logged who was going too fast. Tickets show up in the mail with mugshots, license plates, amount due, and accepted forms of payment. It’s not only a more effective means of raising money and employing people’s time, it’s a great deterrent. During these speed traps, all the cars slow down and do the limit. Afterwards, they all go racing off like it’s the Autobahn. (Some places get around this by logging license plates between two zones, figuring out the average speed between those zones, and mailing a ticket).

An interesting experiment I’d love to see (and would gladly participate in) is to put a group of people under constant surveillance and see how they report their behavioral changes with and without the cameras. Give half the people dummy cameras. Maybe tell a third group about this experiment and give them no cameras, but have them log their own behavioral changes (to control for the effect of logging your behavior in a journal). For a fourth group, tell them that the cameras aren’t being watched by the researches, but rather that their friends and family have been given full access. Study the results.

This thought experiment led to an idea, which led to this blog post: what if we turned Big Brother’s cameras directly around and left them on 24/7? Imagine this scenario: Every elected official is made to wear a bodycam. Their offices are cammed up. Their homes. At any time you like, you can log in and watch them sleep, eat, poop, have a meeting, browse the web. You can watch them trade stocks. You can listen to them hash out deals. Everything. Zero privacy. No exceptions.

Will this make waging war more difficult? I hope so. Would 99% of today’s politicians opt out of this program? I hope so.

Who would opt in, you might ask? The very people you’d want in charge of things. The exact opposite of what we are stuck with today. Today, we have grifters and attention-seekers who profit from their private deals and inside knowledge. They have both anonymity and immunity. They should have neither.

The system we have today selects for people with no conscience. We should select for those with max conscience. There’s an easy way to do this. And hey, sell ads for the most-watched accounts and pay down some of our debt while you’re at it. Corporations would suddenly have a lot more to spend on advertising once the bribes are no longer viable.

Basically, we should turn the Surveillance State into State Surveillance. Watch what government is doing at all times. If anyone doesn’t like that, get a different job. See who is okay with their masks off.