Apparently this is the UK’s first “spy drone” according to news articles across the web. A remote control helicopter, developed by the military for reconnaissance missions in hostile territory and now heading out to the streets of Merseyside (northern England) to track this country’s growing infestation of young anti-socialites.

Alot of people are calling this one step closer to the Orwellian vision, combined with the imminent biometric ID cards set to be introduced across the country under the new Brown governement and you have one of Europe’s most paranoid countries.

Surveillance is problematic for many reasons, but personally it’s the culture of secrcecy that surveillance breeds which I find most difficult to accept. We are constantly being filmed, in shops, in the street, in airports etc etc but you never know whether someone is watching; and it is this psychological state, the liminal position between knowing and not knowing that keeps society lodged in the vice-grip of uncertainty. In the utopian world there would be complete transparency from top to bottom, no secret bank accounts, no secret phone calls, and if we were to survey then we would all have access to the images — but this is not without problems either.

Secrecy contributes to maintainting positions of power. It can act as a cover to hide wrongdoing but it can also be a thing of awe that nurtures myth and reverence.  It works particularly well for governments. The fact that Whitehall is heavily guarded and surveyed contributes to the idea of its importance and untouchable status, but at the same time it suggests that there is information inside or people with knowledge that not everyone should be privy to.

When I hear complaints about surveillance breaching civil liberties at the street level in the UK, I usually hear an equal numbe of opponents that promote surveillance technologies for the crime prevention capabilities they give to the police. The problem is that once you begin surveillance you cannot stop it, there is no decrease in crime there is only an increase in exposition of crime which warrants the development of new and wider reaching surveillance technology such as the “spy drone” pictured above. The reason why there is no going back is because citizens have come to rely on the camera more than their fellow humans, to the extent that we trust the seemingly neutral position of the machine to the heavily biased and potentially ‘dangerous’ opinion of our fellow humans.

Little by little I believe we will reach a panopticonic state where all corners of society will be under watch. The last straw will be surveillance in the home. If we ever reach that level then I certainly hope I’m no longer around to see it. 

This entry was posted on Tuesday, May 22nd, 2007 at 3:17 am and is filed under Uncategorized. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.

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