Surveillance Essay ⋆ Political Science Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

In its simplest form, surveillance refers to gathering information through watching people. This is counter to forensics, which consists of gathering information by examining clues left in a given location. In practice, surveillance is significantly more complicated. Historically, surveillance has been a direct process of watching people, as exemplified by a police stakeout. As technology and science has increased, the concept of surveillance has expanded to include activities that were never previously part of surveillance. In addition to traditional surveillance there is now citizen surveillance, military surveillance, “unofficial” surveillance, and Internet surveillance. In addition to these new areas of surveillance, computer technologies are being developed to aid in the surveillance process as well.

Citizen surveillance is simply surveillance by citizens rather than by agents of a government. This can take a number of forms, ranging from individuals coming together to employ surveillance to gain something to citizens within a society working against each other. An example of individual citizens working together is the typical neighborhood crime watch. In a crime watch, the citizens of an area receive special training and organization techniques to guard their neighborhood against criminals. This is generally considered a positive form of citizen surveillance. At the other end of the spectrum are totalitarian governments. One technique that totalitarian governments employ for maintaining power is to encourage each citizen to watch other citizens and to report any suspicious activities. This technique often is accomplished using fear of an enemy and uses the citizens against each other.

Military surveillance is undertaken by combat forces. This often occurs in countries considered hostile by the military. However, it also can be used against the citizens of the country itself. Military surveillance often incorporates formal military intelligence services, spy agencies, and newer technologies. The newer technologies included in military surveillance include special aircraft and boats, satellites, and custom-made camera technologies.

In the course of normal operations, many businesses and institutions in the United States and other countries gather information about their customers. The surveillance conducted in these situations employs similar methods to those used by government and law enforcement agencies but not similar to military surveillance methods. All of these records are available to government agencies under the right conditions. In some countries, prerequisite legal processes are required, and in other countries the government simply asks for the information.

Finally, there is the newest form of surveillance, Internet surveillance. All of the unofficial surveillance that exists outside of the Internet also exists on the Internet. However, the surveillance on the Internet can be easier to obtain because of the ease of observation and of acquisition of observation conducted by others. Also, anything in electronic format is retained for a much longer period than paper records. Information posted to the World Wide Web or transmitted as e-mail tends to remain even longer. There is at least one project that is attempting to archive the entire Web, meaning that anything posted would exist indefinitely. One big difference between the other forms of surveillance and Internet surveillance is that it is often possible for individual citizens to acquire this surveillance legally, with some exceptions.

Computers have not only changed surveillance by increasing the length of time that records are retained and by enabling the Internet, they also have transformed the process through their ability to analyze data. The U.S. government is currently working on developing face recognition software to assist in antiterrorism activities. This software would enable public security cameras to recognize known terrorists and criminals and alert police to the current local of that individual. Computers are also capable of looking for patterns in data, and that has been used by government agencies.

It is possible to reduce the amount of surveillance being gathered on an individual. For example, using cash instead of a credit or debit card reduces the surveillance because there is now no electronic record of the money transfer, just of the purchase itself. The link between the purchase and the purchaser has disappeared. Several organizations advocate a reduction in surveillance both inside and outside the United States, including political parties. Currently counter surveillance activism ranges from companies selling products designed to block traffic cameras to public calls to reduce security cameras installations across Great Britain.

Bibliography:

ACM IV Security Services. Surveillance Countermeasures: A Serious Guide to Detecting, Evading, and Eluding Threats to Personal Privacy. Boulder, Colo.: Paladin, 1994.
Andrejevic, Mark. iSpy: Surveillance and Power in the Interactive Era. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 2007.
Haggerty, Kevin D., and Richard V. Ericson. The New Politics of Surveillance and Visibility. Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2006.
Lombardo, Joseph S., and David L. Buckeridge. Disease Surveillance: A Public Health Informatics Approach. New York: Wiley, 2007.
Marx, Gary T. Undercover: Police Surveillance in America. San Francisco: University of California Press, 1989.
Norris, Pat. Spies in the Sky: Surveillance Satellites in War and Peace. New York: Springer Praxis, 2007.
Peterson, Julie K. Understanding Surveillance Technologies: Spy Devices, Privacy, History, and Applications. Rev. and exp. 2nd ed. London: Auerbach/Taylor and Francis, 2007.

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