Surveillance Society - Coursework Example

Surveillance Society A surveillance society aims to keep check over its entire population or a fraction of it, but basically over the masses. A surveillance society, usually under the government influence, aims to closely monitor the behaviour, actions, activities, and personal information of the individuals with or without their consent. Surveillance is largely a product of modernisation. Due to the process of globalisation taking place, plus the advancements in technology and the internet broadcasting services, the world has now become a global village. Data and documents from all around the world are now available at fingertips, as a result, government and its affiliated authorities now have access to virtually every kind of private or public data of the population. Moreover, with high technology electronic appliances like the CCTV cameras, the invention of high quality data transfer softwares, and the establishments of various departmental programs under the branches of Homeland Security, and Defence and Security Departments, the government easefully access the data available and monitor the masses to a wider extent. Consequently, surveillance is now a much easier practice than what it was earlier (Raban, pp. 12, 2008). Surveillance has although become an essential feature of most of the modern societies, including United Kingdom, United States of America, Russia and other major powers of the world, it is nevertheless seen to be a controversial issue. The governments supporting the idea of surveillance; like the government of United Kingdom, believes it to be an apparatus of maintaining social control and ensuring social order in the society, and protecting its population from the threats of terrorist groups and criminal activities. Under the brackets of Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ), the UK government performs the basic function of monitoring, intercepting, and decrypting information from those who pose a threat to the country. These organisations aim to provide the residents of the UK a safer and a secure place to live in, and try to combat the effects of terror and criminal activities, plus makes the defense system of the UK much stronger to counter any terrorist threats that might occur in the future, and prevent them from happening in the present. Therefore, basic aim of such organisations is not to intervene in the personal matters of the population, but these state to be performing a much noble function of managing the country and its intuitions through the process of surveillance. Ever since the attacks of 11th September, 2001 on the twin towers in New York took place, the claws of terrorism and chaos took the whole world aback. The whole world was shocked to see the American security systems crippling down, and the terrorist activities being much triumphant in front of them. During the 9/11 attacks, the Al Qaeda Network was affiliated with 19 of the people involved. Al Qaeda had been involved in major terrorist in America. They had hijacked four commercial planes and deliberately crashed them at different locations. Two of them crashed on the Twin Towers, while the third one hit the Pentagon in Washington DC and the fourth one crashed in an empty field in Shanks Ville, Pennsylvania, it is believed it was aimed to target either the White House, the U.S. Capitol, or Camp David. These attacks threatened the entire security structure of America, and the population, depressed by the loss of their loved ones, started losing hope in the government of America (Bodden, pp. 11-22, 2007). Nevertheless, in response to the attacks and to ensure a safer place for its population, the government of America came up with certain policies, revolving around surveillance. One of the policies brought around by the government of America was issuing the USA Patriot Act. On 26th October 2001, President George W. Bush signed it into law. The title of the Act is an acronym which stands for “Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act of 2001.” “The law gives federal officials greater authority to track and intercept communications, both for law enforcement and foreign intelligence data gathering purposes” (Bodden, pp. 20-24, 2007). This law also works actively to provide security for those living in America, plus ensures that no such terrorist activities should take place in the future. It establishes new penalties, laws and punishments against any sort of threatening activities taking place from within or outside the States of America, in order to ensure a safe and a secure homeland for its residents. Strict security measures are essential to help fulfill the promise of safety in the lands of America. For this purpose, this Act dramatically reduces the restrictions on the law enforcing agencies to search the telephone, e-mail communications, medical, financial, and other records, in order to trace the terrorist activities and to trace back the involved criminals and catch, penalise and punish them for their crimes. Secondly, the government denies of any sort of financial resources to the terrorists through the anti-money laundering laws that aims to keep a strict check on the transactions taking place (Scheppler, pp.14-20, 2005). Another example of such laws was the ‘Communication Assistance for Law Enforcement Act’ (CALEA), passed by the USA government in 1994. This law allows the government to tap the internet and phone lines in order to keep a check over its population. The law aims to enhance the efficiency of the law enforcement agencies by allowing them to have access over the telephonic and internet conversations of the users. The law caused a general increase in the tapping of the all broadband and VoIP communications taking place from within and outside America. The surveys showed a wide increase in the tapping the modes of communications, and a general increase of 62% in the number of wiretaps under the influence of CALEA. Although, the CALEA permitted only to wiretap digital telephone networks, however in 2004, under the joint influence of “United States Department of Justice; Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives; Federal Bureau of Investigation”, a petition was signed that demanded permission to tap VoIP and broadband conversations. This act angered a range of higher education and library organisations who stated that this violated the privacy and the people within America, and therefore caused a lot of resentment amongst the government and these organisations. Nevertheless, the D.C. Circuit Court rejected the petition, and the angered revolutionary groups were appeased (Richard, pp 35, 2006). These surveillance acts aimed of protecting the people of America and the world as whole. In addition, they have ended making sweeping changes in the security and defense systems of America. These acts had made it legal for the CIA and the FBI agents to look into the matters and go through the personal data of the individuals in order to come up with the best of results. The main purpose of handling over the power of investigations to intelligence agencies like CIA and FBI is because they could look closely into the matters and join the dots of various events and conclude what and who might be behind such terrorist activities. This has bought successful results and has ended up in the break up of the terror cells in Buffalo, Detroit, Seattle and Portland. Also, it helped in indicating a college professor, Sami al-Arian to be involved in more than 50 terrorist activities and thus prevented terrorist activities from taking place in the future. Furthermore, it aims to erode the causes of terrorism from the roots so that no such activity should take place in the future. In order to make this happen, the CIA and FBI agencies use high technological equipment to make sure that quick and adequate information be collected about the terrorist activities and the involved terrorists could be traced back and penalised for the crimes that they have committed. The terror attacks on the Wall Street journalist, Daniel Perl, too used high technological equipment for the investigation, and consequently, charged the guilty terrorists. Also, this law makes a great attempt of evading terrorist activities of all kinds by including other smaller crimes too into the brackets of terror activities, like domestic violence etc (Trapp et al., pp 40-45, 2005). Despite the fact that the surveillance intends for the best for the masses, it still faces a number of criticisms. The acts of surveillances were widely criticised by American Civil Liberties Union. They believed that such acts of surveillances violate the privacy of the individuals around the world. They stated that surveillance showed nothing but lack of trust of the government on its citizens; furthermore, they stated that any law or practice of surveillance be eradicated from the constitution and should not be practiced by the government. Instead, government should adapt better defense and security measures in order to catch the culprits in terror activities. They stated that the acts of surveillance not only shows general distrust by government, but also devoid the entire population of their private space, which can result in intense paranoia and depression. Those who reject the idea of surveillance, mostly present the idea of the “Big Brother” in George Orwell’s novel, “1984”. The Big Brother is a totalitarian dictatorial rule of government, which keeps an eye on everyone and regulates the lives of the members of the society. As a result, they end up making false assumptions and accusations and giving unlawful punishments. They as a result, quote that if the government continues to implement its practices of surveillance, it can instead of benefiting the society, might have ugly results, which would end up in even higher levels of chaos and disorder. Moreover, the British Columbian citizens too believe that the surveillance is unfair as it allows the American intelligence agencies to access the personal documents of the residents of Canada too. This therefore rejected by them, even thought the British Columbian government has taken measures against the act of survelliance, however, they still fear that the widespread powers and sources of survelliance might overcome all barriers and would still be able to access the personal documents of the citizens of Canada that would threaten their privacy issues. As a result, the British Columbian government amended “the Freedom of Information and Protection Privacy Act” passed in October, 2004. These amendments put more limitations in storing, accessing and reviewing public sector data; however, it only took care of the public sector data, the private sector data remained unmentioned in the amendment (Smith, C et al, 2010, pp. 152-164). Nevertheless, the governments of the surveillance societies stay firm with their decision of keeping an eye over the population they believe that whatever they are doing is for the benefits of the society as a whole. Nevertheless, the threat over the privacy of the population remains a controversial issue. The claims that the surveillance officials might violate the privacy issues of the members of the library by going through their personal data and documents thought the resources at library are falsified as the surveillance officials do not function to violate the privacy of the citizens, as it is repeatedly stated by the surveillance officials in their documents that the main purpose of their check is to curb the effects of terrorism, prevent them from happening in the future and promise a safer environment. The officials have no interests in peeking into the personal lives of the civilians. Therefore, the governments of the surveillance societies generally encourage the practice, and in order to get the best of results for the surveillance practices, the government ensure to use the best and the latest technologies. The latest and the modern technology allows the government to keep a close check over the population, paying attention to the details that can help detect hostile intentions before something bad can even happen. Ever since the 9/11 attacks and the world wide recession going around the globe, the world has now become a much more vulnerable place for criminal and terrorist activities to take place. As a result, technology issues have become crucial in this rapidly growing world, as it brings about uncertainty and threats over when and where would a criminal activity might occur. Without the proper use of the technological devices and appliances, it would have been quite difficult to locate, catch and penalise the criminals involved. In order to cope up with the demands of the rapidly changing and the rapidly increasing demands of the surveillance equipments, the surveillance technologies are coming up with various innovative designs of surveillance apparatuses. One of these appliances include the surveillance drones, the police first used these in 2008. The drones weight only around 1.5kg and are battery powered and carry a camera. These drones make relatively less noise and can fly over the places, operated by a remote control. They help in transmitting information through the camera images to the offers operating them, these drones can work throughout the day. They play crucial role in helping to locate firearms or missing persons, road traffic accidents and surveillance after a terrorist attack or a natural disaster (Monahan, pp. 78, 2006). Also, the close-circuit television or CCTV is widely used for the surveillance purposes. They have now become an essential feature of the urban landscaping. The aim of the development of the CCTVs was of guarding the premises, however, ever since 1980; the national and local government of the surveillance societies like USA and UK has used them widely. Constant checks kept over the activities taking place at the locations that have CCTV installed, this helps in keeping the record of the happenings in form of videos and movie tapes. The United Kingdom estimates to have installed 4.2 million cameras throughout the country. The CCTV cameras have been an instant hit ever since they hit the market. Nevertheless, there are a few issues pointed out towards the efficiency of the CCTV cameras. Firstly, the CCTV cameras merely acts as a passive wittiness of the criminal activities taking place, they just record the whole scene and transfer it over to the operators, this does not allow direct action to be taking place, and therefore they fail to stop the crime from happening. As a result of this flaw, the civilians are at no ease, they no not feel secure having the CCTV cameras around them, as they can hardly prevent the crime from happening. On the Contrary, the CCTV cameras can be really useful in locating and identifying of the criminals involved in the crime and can help in getting the guilty culprits with their deserved punishments (Harwood, pp. 47, 2007). Also, the automatic number plate recogniser or ANPR plays an important role in the security surveillance. With the intentions of combating terrorism, the device just recently is being utilised on large scales. ANPR cameras read vehicle registration plates, and then cross check them with police databases. If they spot a number plate written in the criminal records, the system sounds an alert to the operating police officials. The ANPR cameras help the police in locating and recognising the vehicles that were involved in any sort of criminal or terrorist activities and thus helps to locate the culprits too. The police can even tag the suspicious vehicles and then can help locate the vehicles. Moreover, the systems can also record the journeys of vehicles for as long as two years, and even longer if considered. Estimates state that the ANPR cameras read around 8 to 10 million vehicles every day and almost 2% of the vehicles come up as a special interest to the police (Caputo, pp 173, 2009). Also, one of the strongest inventions of locating the criminals and terrorist is through the biometric surveillance. The biometric surveillances account to be one of the strongest privacy advocates. They by no means intervene in the private spheres of the individuals. The biometric surveillance scans crowds for their facial characteristics and matches them with the biometric data available of the criminals. As the biometrics surveillance only looks for the physical appearances of the individuals that are already parts of the public sphere, and they are visible as they come in public, most of the population has no issues with the biometric surveillances. However, the people see biometric stalking as an issue, and do not appreciate the idea of the government using their biometric data for crime investigations. This instills a feeling of fear among even the innocent people, which can result in paranoia and other psychiatric problems. Therefore, it is suggested that the law enforcement agencies should dispose off the biometric data collected by them once an individual is proven to be guilty, instead of collecting them for future records. Biometric surveillance includes a number of practices such as, fingerprints scan, iris scan, facial topography, hand scans and voice recognition. All these techniques of biometric surveillance help in recognising the criminals or the suspected terrorists involved in a particular crime. Every person has a unique fingerprint, iris print, facial topographies and voices. These could come up as the best way of recognising and arresting the involved culprits. Facial recognition helps to configure the unique facial features of individuals and help accurately identify them. This is a very popular form of biometric surveillance, and the ‘Homeland Security Department of USA’ and the ‘Defense Advanced Research Projects Agencies’ are heavily funding to develop the facial recognition biometrics section. “The Information Procession Technology Office ran a program known as Human Identification at a Distance which developed technologies that helped in identifying a person at the distance of up till 500 ft by their facial features” (Ozeren et al., pp 200-211, 2007). Fingerprint surveillance aim to analyse the fingerprints of different individuals and compare them with the data available of the criminals, in order to detect them with the culprits. This is a very conventional way of investigation; however, the modernisation of fingerprint surveillance has taken place too, owing to the advancement in technology. The modern day fingerprint surveillance records the fingerprint data on the web, that makes it easy to transfer through borders and therefore, it makes the whole process much more effective. The voice or speech recognition surveillance aims to recognise the speaking styles and the quality of voices of different individuals; analyse them and match with the voice data available of the culprits. These surveillances record the voices of the suspected criminals through video recordings or telephonic conversations, and match them with the voices of the suspects. This kind of surveillance is likely to have high objectivity as the voice quality of every individual differs from the others. Therefore, this kind of surveillance can end up getting accurate results for the authorities. The surveillance societies could be intended to be built with the best intentions, to ensure better security of its residents. However, this fact could not be ignored that the act of surveillance does badly violate the rights of the freedom and disregards the privacy of the individuals. Keeping a strict check on all the personal and private documents, transactions and reports of the individuals strip them off their privacy and basic rights. It would not be wrong if we state that such a government that demands complete control over the individuals might lead to fascism and dictatorship, even though the false consciousness of democracy might linger above us, but what the government would actually be providing us is likely to be on the contrary. Therefore, it would not be wrong to reject the acts of surveillance, as although fighting terrorism could be stated to be its main aim; it is actually working on the opposite terms (Ozeren et al., pp 221-222, 2007). References Bodden, Valerie. 2007. The 9/11 Terror Attacks. The Creative Company. Caputo, Anthony. 2009. Digital Video Surveillance and Security. Butterworth-Heinemann. Ericsson, Richard. 2006. The new politics of surveillance and visibility. University of Toronto Press. Harwood, Emily. 2007. Digital CCTV: A Security Professional’s Guide. Butterworth-Heinemann. Monahan, Torin. 2006. Surveillance and Security: technological politics and power in everyday life. Routledge. Ozeren, Suleyman et al. 2007. Understanding terrorism: analysis of sociological and psychological aspects. IOS Press. Raban, Jonathan. 2008. Surveillance. Vintage Books. Scheppler, Bill. 2005. The USA Patriot Act: Anti-terror Legislation in Response to 9/11. The Rosen Publishing Group. Trapp, Robert et al. 2005. Discovering the world through debate: a practical guide for debaters, coaches and judges. IDEA. Read More