CHAPTER 3

PUBLIC POLICE, PRIVATE SECURITY AND PRIVATE EYES

Nothing can be further from the spirit of the new technology than "a place for everything and everything in its place".

Marshall McLuhan and Quentin Fiore (1967:16)

George Orwell painted a dark and foreboding picture of the year 1984: an oppressive police state monitored and controlled the actions of citizens by watching and listening to them at all times through two-way telescreens placed at strategic locations in the city, in their homes, even in the public lavatories. Even when the main character, Winston, and his "girlfriend" Julia went for a rendezvous in the forest, they were worried that there may be surveillance equipment nearby. There was hardly any space in their life where the electronic eye was not present, a constant reminder of the power of the Inner Party. It is now almost a half century since the book was written and eleven years beyond 1984. An appraisal is due: Is Big Brother Watching?

The contemporary reality ranges from tiny cameras implanted in mannequin eyes taking vigil in department stores to powerful satellites in space following the movement of figures on the earth's surface (as portrayed in the movie Patriot Games 1992). CCTV sales are increasing as surveillance cameras become the "new necessity" for anyone with private property vulnerable to theft or vandalism. As the technology becomes cheaper and more versatile, consumer fascination for its unique powers multiplies, to the point of what has been called in broader contexts a "video explosion" or "video revolution". Indeed, it may be appropriate to suggest that, in the United States most obviously, the camera is now competing with or supplementing the rifle as the standard "weapon" in civil, commercial, and domestic warfare. This chapter documents the different spaces which are currently under the electronic eye, demonstrating that something quite different from the Big Brother scenario is developing. By examining trends of video camera use by the public police, and contrasting them with current video camera use by private security and private citizens, it will become evident that public privacy concerns would be misdirected if they focussed solely on the operations of the public police. In fact, as the academic literature also suggests, the structure of the modern city is changing in such a way that private security is taking precedence over public policing. "Little Brother" is much more unrestricted, invisible and unpredictable than the larger and less versatile Big Brother.

It is important to note that even if examples are drawn from a variety of countries, the technologies, or similar ones are available to all. Although the United States has more advanced technologies and less legal restrictions than other modern countries, their companies sell (for example) to the British government and diffuse to other countries by less lawful means. The purpose of this section is to give an idea to the reader of the incredible reality and potential of technology in modern society today, and thus provide a solid ground for theorizing about its impetus and direction.

In feudal society, serfs might live in close quarters around the estate of a lord who had a private army at his disposal. Surveillance was the responsibility of designated persons, as sentries stood watch from strategic positions. It is generally held that in the 18th and early 19th century social control became more arbitrary and decentralized; if there was any policing going on, it was mostly done by the hands of privately charged persons (Cohen 1985; Johnston 1992). In the towns and growing cities, the primary sources of strategic information were witnesses, informers and couriers.

Criminologist Marcus Felson (1987) suggests that the development of social control through the ages can best be understood by parallelling it with the growth of the metropolis, dividing its history into three stages: community, street and facility. Before the time of the automobile, living arrangements were generally arranged in the form of pedestrian communities, and social control was latent in the social bonds that formed and held that community together. People's routine activities centred around the neighbourhood, and people often took short-cuts across other's property to get where they wanted to go. Surveillance was informal and omnipresent.

The growth and spread of capitalism, along with technological advances in communications and transportation led to the birth of the modern industrial city, with its liberating, and yet confining streets. That is to say, people no longer walk in and around neighbourhoods, but with the mobility offered by the car, follow streets to seek community in a variety of spaces. Felson refers to this ecological pattern as the "metroreef", where roads diverge from a common centre outward, dotted by numerous private buildings. Social control is no longer latent in community, but localized in the street, and is the primary responsibility of what has been called the "new police," or the public police. And the street becomes the locus of social control following the arbitrary and decentralized forms of social control in the 18th and 19th centuries.

VIDEO SURVEILLANCE IN PUBLIC POLICING

At this point the video camera is introduced, as just one of the many technologies used by the police in an effort to "keep the peace". Like the car and the radio, the video camera puts distance between the police and the public, further obviating foot patrol. Although the story of the "evolution" of social control is not yet complete, we diverge from it to examine the different uses of the video surveillance camera in public policing.

The technologies developed by the military are often passed on to police, to be used for internal social control or for keeping "undesirables" out of the country. Although all levels of police in Canada and the United States have access to some basic optical surveillance devices, those with better funding and connections get better equipment. A few of the more startling technologies being considered include: the Los Angeles Police Department's consideration of an anti-crime "giant eye", a geosynchronous law enforcement satellite; the possibility of using computerized visual recognition systems for customs in Australia; and "The Pointer", a portable camera/plane which is being experimented with by the American boarder patrol to monitor illegal immigrant movements near Mexico (Lyon, 1994:199; Geake 1993:22). These examples, it must be emphasized, are currently only future possibilities; cameras are actually in use in less spectacular but nevertheless significant and strategic ways for "the safety of the public" and matters of "national security".

According to the survey of 35 federal agencies done by the Office of Technology Assessment, CCTV is the most popular and widely used surveillance device on a list of twenty electronic surveillance technologies. Night vision systems came second, and satellite-based visual surveillance systems were 17th, being used by only two agencies. The reason given for such use was "for monitoring the movement, activity, conversation, or information pertaining to individuals or agencies in which the agency has an investigative, law enforcement, and/or intelligence interest" (Taylor, 1987:46). We will now follow some of the concrete situations in which this is done and discuss the technologies used to do it.

The sophisticated surveillance technology of today is a far cry from the covered wagon with peep holes slit in the canvas, allegedly the first surveillance vehicle (Manwaring-White, 1983:104). Although the use of photographs for police purposes goes as far back as 1871, the first use of "television" related equipment began in Canada and Britain as early as 1973 (Jay, 1993:143; B.C. Police Commission, 1986:19). Now it is a common sight in almost every area of police work: policing, investigating, interrogating, and as evidence in the courtroom.

First of all, police can use surveillance covertly, meaning the objects of surveillance have no knowledge, or are intended to have no knowledge, that they are being observed (B.C. Police Commission, 1986:19). For example, the movements of a suspect can be recorded as "electronic notes" of suspect activity for the issuing of a warrant and possibly for use as evidence in court. Potentially riotous crowds, such as strikers or demonstrators, are filmed for potential later identification. Finally, surreptitious surveillance can be helpful for recording actual crimes and arrests, for the evidence can be brought to court to ascertain whether any misconduct or excessive use of force took place.

A more detailed investigation of the covert operations of police can be found in Marx's Undercover: Police Surveillance in America (1988). He suggests cameras can be used in three ways: to enhance security, as a management tool, and to provide evidence. The non-verbal communication gathered by a camera can be extra valuable: as one agent put it, "a wink can convict someone". He discusses the ethics of employing deceit in cases where officers solicit incriminating statements from subjects under the hidden camera or using doctored photographs (or now videos as well) to fool a suspect (1988:56). A general point made in the book is that techniques of control used in prisons are now diffusing into the larger society, leading us toward a "maximum security society," an analogy to be discussed here in later chapters.

Overt surveillance, which the B.C. Police Commission refers to as "an extremely effective law enforcement tool", is used to record arrests, make a record of persons entering financial institutions, and monitor crowds, prisons, and "dead spaces" such as parking garages (1986:21). They claim that "its presence can provide a significant deterrent effect" yet cite very little evidence for such (see Police Chief, November, 1981). What is less contentious is the claim that in the case of an incident, especially in places where there are large crowds of people, overt surveillance cameras can function to locate the trouble and increase the response time of security staff.

Visual surveillance technologies are used in apprehension and conviction procedures. MUGSHOTS is a software program that takes a video image, digitizes it, and stores it in computer memory along with a subject's physical description so that suspects can be identified on the spot (Parmegiani, 1994:18). Video recordings of suspect line-ups can be used in witness verification situations. In special cases such as sexual abuse or when the witness is not available at the time of the trial, the witness can give testimony from a separate room or even before the trial with the aid of CCTV and recording equipment. The Tulsa and Hudson County Courthouses in the United States recently installed an interactive CCTV system to allow prisoners to "appear" at pre-trial arraignments and hearings without being transported to the courthouse (CCTV, April, 1994:28). Electronic signals representing the accused may fly freely across the city, but the flesh-and-blood accused is locked so much tighter in the cell.

CCTV is used during police interrogations and for the accused's confession to prevent police brutality and accusations of such. Time-date generators are employed--or a clock is required in the background--to show the tape has not been edited. The Law Reform Commission of Canada conducted an investigation into these methods, a study known as the Halton Project. It concluded that the use of video cameras in interrogations and confessions reduces stress on police officers, evokes trust in the accused, and saves money in court time (B.C. Police Commission, 1986:29). Similarly, a study was done by the National Institute of Justice (March 1993) in the United States. It reports that 60 percent of law enforcement agencies would be using video to tape interrogations and confessions by 1993, although it is more often used by larger departments and limited to felony cases. It recognized videotaped statements to be more complete and accurate than written or audiotaped statements, and especially helpful in showing clearly whether the suspect confessed voluntarily. Though the taping can be done covertly ("to minimize distractions"), because of obvious ethical problems, overt recordings are more standard fare. Geller, the author of the study, concludes that videotaping of confessions and interrogations simultaneously serves three goals of the criminal justice system: "effectiveness, efficiency, and legitimacy" (1994:24). There are also a few studies on the use of video cameras in the courtroom (Grant 1986; McConville 1992; Surette 1992) and a number of social-psychological examinations of such use (Kassin and Garfield 1991; Lassiter, Slaw, Briggs and Scanlan 1992; Swim, Borgida and McCoy 1993).

Crime scenes are taped for use in investigation or in court, or to inform and request information from the public. Police have even used a video display in a shopping mall to air an appeal for witnesses to a murder (Manwaring-White, 1983:100). Late in 1994 the police in Vancouver set up kiosks in department stores and malls which played videotapes of a riot which followed last season's hockey play-off game and solicited information from the public which would lead to the identification of persons on the videotapes. Crime scenes can also be taped to confirm the line of sight of a alleged eyewitness. "Freeze-frame" capabilities allow for replay and discussion of specific scenes, and with macro lenses, even fingerprints can be clearly distinguished. In short, recording the crime scene before investigators disturb it preserves the scene and its general "atmosphere" as it was found for the court and the scrutiny of specialists.

Video cameras are used to re-enact the criminal event or an accident scene, in an effort to provide the court with a more reliable and more graphic, if not chilling, recounting. In 1980 Calgary police used a video camera to re-enact a murder scene, and it was accepted as evidence at the subsequent trial (R. v. Tookey and Stevenson). The same thing was done by the B.C. police in 1983 in R. v. Simpson (B.C. Police Commission, 1986:18).

Most fitting to our discussion of the evolution of social control in the growing metropolis are the activities of public police on the streets of cities, and there are many examples of video camera use in this context. Golden Glades Interchange in Florida has video cameras set up to watch the traffic flow, and when an accident or congestion occurs, an operator can call the police or emergency crews and advise motorists through an electronic message sign above the highway. Photo radar is currently on trial in Ontario, as the provincial police use it to fine speeders by setting up a camera/radar machine on the side of the road in an unmarked van, which captures a photograph of the license plate of any vehicles transcending a designated speed limit. Such a device has already been used in Calgary (Alberta), Victoria (Australia), and countries such as the Netherlands in Europe. An Ontario Provincial Police official has forewarned, however, that the program will most likely continue--and expand. Although no formal studies have yet been done, photo-radar would make for an excellent case study demonstrating police dependence on technology, technological failures and public resistance/defiance.

A much cheaper camera is the Eye-Witness, an in-cruiser video camera that captures dangerous driving on tape for later use in court. It is also used for taping drunk drivers, drug deals, chases and arrests (Sechrest et al., 1990; Liquori and Perry 1988). Like many department store thefts, when perpetrators see themselves in action on video they more often than not admit guilt and accept their punishment (Kenzie, 1994). Geraldo, the talk show host, shamelessly featured a show where he interviewed the wife of a police officer who unwittingly videotaped his own murder with such a camera when he stopped to inspect a suspicious vehicle. Cameras always "catch" more than one reckons for.

One of the most startling uses of the camera by the police has been to comprehensively monitor a specific section of town. In King's Lynn, Norfolk (UK), a network of 45 cameras allows a leisure centre, 17 car parks, an industrial estate and the streets of a housing estate all to be monitored from one central control room equipped with a hot line to the police station (Geake, 1993:19). "It's the shape of the future," an engineer involved in the instalment apparently said, adding that he thinks in five years every town in Britain will have a similar system. Crimes like theft and vandalism have not only dropped dramatically, but police can make quicker arrests and even make the perpetrators rectify the disorder they have caused on the spot (Geake, 1993:20). It is now reported that 95 percent of cities and towns in Britain are considering the use of CCTV systems on their streets, and that seventy cities have already established centrally controlled systems (Davies 1994:6). The British Security Industry Association says the market for surveillance cameras doubled between 1989 and 1994. There are over 150,000 professionally installed cameras in Britain, and 500 more are added each week (Davies 1994:6).

Mount Vernon, New York was the first to use such a system in the USA, having set it up already in the late 1960's (Blair and Block 1973). It provided 24-hour surveillance, with cameras that could zoom up to half a mile and pan right into apartment windows. In 1974 a US Government department recommended several million dollars be used to install CCTV cameras to cover 60 miles of Brooklyn streets (Manwaring-White, 1983:90). Newark, New Jersey, previously the "auto theft capital" of the world, has a similar system, along with Hoboken (NJ), San Jose (CA), Times Square, (NY), Richardson and Garland (TX), and Drummondville, Sherbrooke, and Hull, Quebec. In London, it is suspected that the purpose of many video cameras in Hyde Park is more for surveillance of marches and demonstrations than for actual crimes. Ominously, this technology was developed in America for the Vietnam war (Manwaring-White, 1983:91). Even more ominously, this same sort of system was set up on the city streets of Romania during the Ceausescu regime, and of all camera uses, comes closest to the Big Brother society described by Orwell.

The electronic eye of the police is not limited to the street. Manwaring-White relates the Yolande McShane case, in which police installed a hidden camera and microphone in a nursing home wall to record Mrs. McShane "attempting to aid, abet, counsel and procure the suicide" of her mother. Five TV sets were installed in the courtroom and the judge and jury watched all 3½ hours of the visit. Mrs. McShane was jailed for two years (1983:94).

Similarly, police in Vancouver, B.C. bored holes through the wall of a room in a motel in order to surreptitiously videotape the activities of a suspected prostitute and her client (B.C. Police Commission, 1986:1). Cameras have been used by police to "capture" the activities of pickpockets in London (UK), to monitor suspected drug traffickers in a pub in Cleveland, and to stake-out a house in Hertfordshire (Manwaring-White, 1983:95). They have been used to record transactions involving narcotics or other contraband, bribes, and gambling bets. They are used to provide protection for undercover agents and informers, and in raids and arrests (Taylor, 1987:47). Finally, they are used to surreptitiously record the actions of "streetkids", youths at drinking parties, and Sikh protests at the Indian Ambassador's residence in Vancouver (B.C. Police Commission, 1986:42-43).

One can no longer even be assured of privacy while in public washrooms. Police have used video cameras to surreptitiously record sexual activities (the "tearoom trade") that takes place between strangers in public washrooms. Sociologists have actually used the same tapes to observe the "roles, rules and strategies" of such events (Desroches, 1990; Will, 1983:183). Similarly, in 1983 there was a scandal in the small Ontario town of Orillia when police used cameras to press charges of gross indecency against 32 men who had been meeting for casual sex in the basement of the town's Opera House. "To what extent did innocent excretion occupy police surveillance?" asked a Canadian Civil Liberties representative. The line between spying, peeping, and watching over becomes blurred.

Helicopters with CCTV fly over North Ireland as part of the constant army surveillance of the urban population, equipped with "Nightsun" which enables the pilot to see a person on the ground at night. Similarly, the Metropolitan police force of London bought a £750,000 helicopter called the Bell 222 which comes equipped with a special "heli-tele" able to identify small cars up to two kilometres away. Riots, demonstrations, and marches can all be watched and photographed from the sky, from "taxis" with non-paying detective passengers, and through the rust holes in vans (Manwaring-White, 1983:104).

Citizens are not the only state concern: it is also keeping its eye on industry. The Ministry of Environment and Energy in Hamilton, Ontario is on the verge of installing cameras to monitor the emissions of the large industrial smokestacks in town (The Spectator, Sept. 8, 1994). Although Stelco and Dofasco already have cameras monitoring their own emissions, the Ministry wants to have the ability to view the emissions of each at a moments notice. So each of their cameras is hooked up to a telephone line which connects to a computer in the Ministry office, where the software "IBM HyperScan Digital Picture Transmission System" coordinates the images. However, telephone lines do not allow for the best picture, and night time viewing may require more expensive equipment. Describing the wonders of technology is always easier than installing and maintaining them.

The video camera is a powerful and effective way of gathering evidence, evidence which will much more swiftly elicit confessions of guilt by those charged and much more easily convince a judge or jury of that guilt. In other words, it is extremely helpful in building a "quality case." In the words of one OPP officer: "A picture may be worth a thousand words, but a video is worth a million." What he is saying is that a videotape provides powerful testimony, if not "proof" of a person's innocence or guilt to the court. Qualifications to such a contention, of course, are necessary; but the point here is that cameras are perceived as a powerful means of gathering information that will lead to conviction. The contemporary criterion for truth, rather than the testimony of two or three witnesses, is the testimony of the electronic eye, the silent witness, the image-recorder.

LAW ENFORCEMENT AND THE LAW

Rather than simply state the different broad categories under which police use of surveillance cameras might fall, I have chosen to give a more detailed account which provides a clearer picture of the current social scene. These trends are cause for concern because use of such technologies increases the distance between police and citizens, further depersonalizing public policing. Furthermore, with such inconspicuous technologies, the potential for abuse is great. However, concern should by no means be limited to the use of the camera by the state. In fact, an examination of current related laws in Canada shows that the surveillance capabilities of the public police are limited in significant ways that do not apply to the operations of private persons or groups.

Part IV.1 of the Canadian Criminal Code ("Protection of Privacy Act"), while providing a detailed description of police powers in intercepting private communications, was intended for oral communications, not video surveillance. So when police officers covertly used video cameras in a hotel room to record a drug deal their evidence was ruled inadmissible because it was in violation of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms (section 8) which guarantees the right "to be secure against unreasonable search and seizure." The courts cannot permit "unrestricted video surveillance by agents of the state" because it would "seriously diminish the degree of privacy we can reasonably expect to enjoy in a free society" (R. vs Duarte, 1990).

The relevant section of the Criminal Code is section 443, which deals with illegal search and seizure, but up until August 1993 this did not deal with intangible objects, such as the light absorbed by a camera. With the inclusion of Bill C-109, interception of private communications may not occur by an agent of the state under any circumstances where a person has a "reasonable expectation of privacy" unless there is consent by one or more party in the encounter in question, there is the risk of bodily harm to the person who consented, or if the purpose of the interception is to prevent such bodily harm. The police officers in the Duartes case had permission from one of the parties in the exchange but the judge ruled that section 8 of the Charter negated that clause--unless special authorization is given by a judge to permit such surreptitious video surveillance. The requirement for a judge's authorization was finally included in the Criminal Code in August 1993. So now a police officer must demonstrate to a judge the circumstances involved require the use of video surveillance, and the judge can authorize such action and the terms and conditions under which it can be done to "ensure that the privacy of the person or of any other person is respected as much as possible."

There are still many loopholes, however. The B.C. Police Commission suggested that the nature and type of offenses for which intrusive video surveillance may be authorized should be limited. Unfortunately, such discretion rests solely on the shoulders of the judge, who must be satisfied by the information given by the "agent of the state" or "peace officer" that there are "reasonable grounds" to believe the anticipated act will occur and that the necessary evidence will be obtained by the camera, indicating that "it is in best interests of the administration of justice to issue the warrant" (Bill C-109 section 487.01).

Furthermore, the Commission's recommendation that would not allow surreptitious video surveillance if other methods were feasible was similarly ignored. The recommendation of the Police Commission was to establish discretionary powers as narrow as possible for the agents of the state. But it seems that many decisions are left up to the police officers themselves, and while different police organizations have their own internal guidelines, they are no guarantee.

A shadow of doubt is cast on "national security" rhetoric, for national intelligence agencies have been known to be over-enthusiastic in their scope of surveillance. In 1994 the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (established 1984) was involved in a scandal, known as the "Grant Bristow Affair", where they were accused of infiltrating the Reform Party and participating in the establishment of the white supremacist group, The Heritage Front. The RCMP Security Service (established in 1975) was accused in the MacDonald inquiry of 1977 of broadening the definition of "potential subversive" to include anyone with any tendency to the political left (Littleton 1986; Dion 1982). The British secret service, MI5, has been similarly accused (Davies and Black 1984). In the U.S., Taylor (1987) and David Wise in his book The American Police State report that the majority of the FBI's electronic surveillance has been illegal. Martin Luther King was under constant surveillance from the late 1950's until his death in 1968, not because he was a subversive, supported by communist agents, but because President Hoover had a "personal vendetta" against King (Taylor, 1987:88). In the 1960's and 1970's the FBI had electronic surveillance devices set up in college campuses, black neighbourhoods, and other "suspect" groups. The CIA has been similarly accused for keeping files on and spying on innocent citizens. They would even offer courses to local police in subjects such as covert photography, surveillance, and bugging. The IRS provides similar courses (Taylor, 1987:91,92). Relying merely on internal controls is obviously a grossly inadequate way of maintaining accountability.

Possibly more significantly though, Bill C-109 is focussed on surreptitious video surveillance by "agents of the state", making no mention of private investigators, private security agents, or private citizens. But as will be demonstrated below, the proliferation of video cameras is most prevalent, and most unsupervised among businesses and private citizens. With the growing popularity of agencies such as "Spy-Tech," which specialize in selling James Bond-like equipment to the public, I wonder if concern for potential state "Gestapo" has distracted attention from surveillance that is "much closer to home." For instance, during the 1994 cigarette smuggling ventures in Eastern Ontario and Quebec, Canadian law enforcement authorities bitterly complained that the smugglers had better arms, boats, and surveillance equipment than they did (Vitone 1994:107). To use Orwellian imagery, Big Brother has been frustrated with red tape and legal restrictions, but Little Brother wanders freely in the shadows of the city and across borders, armed with a variety of surveillance devices.

A QUIET REVOLUTION INTO A NEW FEUDALISM

We now return to our discussion of the "evolution" of the metropolis. While the "metro-reef" analogy may be accurate for the city of the 1950's, Felson says the current metropolis is better described as in transition towards a "metro-quilt". That is to say, the city is becoming less centred on a downtown core and has been divided into different sectors or a variety of facilities. The word facility comes from the latin facil, meaning easy, and the facility makes it easy to work or live within its boundaries as matters of maintenance and security are the responsibility of a specialized staff. The category of facility include malls, condominiums, trailer or mobile home parks, college campuses, recreation centres, hospitals and industrial parks. Although similar institutions have existed in the past, one of the distinguishing features of the modern version is that the informal social control of a community is lacking as people live and work in "noncommunal symbiosis." The important point here is that while the public police are still in charge of the streets that run between facilities, private security is usually responsible for social control within these facilities.

The different urban designs of community, street, and facility co-exist and mix in today's city, according to Felson. But in a more general sense, he maintains we are currently in transition between street and the facility, as facilities seem to be more and more the preferred option to stand alone homes and businesses, and facilities that already exist continue to expand their boundaries, swallowing up nearby dwellings "like an amoeba digesting a food particle."

On a similar note, Shearing and Stenning say there has been an increase in "mass private property" which has actually brought with it a new, separate justice system centred on private security. The few sociologists who have examined private security have treated it as "little more than a private adjunct to the public criminal justice system"--in other words, a "junior partner" (1992:523). This is misleading, they explain, because while the two do certainly co-operate, private security have their own sophisticated security hardware and weapons, they handle much crime internally, and when they do operate together, the leading role is by no means assumed to belong to the public police. They insist that private security should be studied in its own context, that of what legal critics have called "private justice"; that is to say, there are many other "legal systems" developing beyond that of the state, a trend that has been dubbed "the Quiet Revolution" (Stenning and Shearing 1980). In other words, what North America may be experiencing is a "new feudalism", with an ethos of self-help and the sale of protection as a commodity not unlike that of feudal lords and their armies. What we are witnessing, is the "rebirth" of private policing (Johnston 1992).

Public perception also contributed to this transition. South states that "a police service that was seen by the sympathetic as suffering from poor pay and poor working conditions, with a declining establishment of officers, was also seen by critics and senior police spokespersons as 'losing the war against crime; . . .the constant reminder, both in the media and in the statistics, that crime was 'out of control', underpinned [an] atmosphere of crisis' (Scraton 1982 in South 1989:77). Although in the past liberal sensitivities had been inimical to the rise of private security forces, perceptions of crisis in the 1940's and 1950's allowed the development and spread of private policing to occur unhampered by public outcry (Shearing and Stenning 1989). The perceived growth of social problems, youthful unrest, racial tension, and trade union militancy all provided rationale for the "rebirth" of private policing. And because security guards and systems are not state employees, they are not seen as "oppressive" (South 1989:92).

What follows is a documentation of the use and abuse of video surveillance technologies in the private realm. Arguably, the influence of private security, like the camera itself, is more subtle but nevertheless perhaps more significant than other dimensions of social control. As well, it should become evident that public attention has been diverted from what is really the locus of surveillance technologies and techniques today, the private security industry.

KEEPING AN EYE ON THE CROWDS

Beyond the realm of the police, cameras are also used in different government departments and public agencies, some which contain highly confidential material and others which deal with rather volatile clientele, such as the worker's compensation office or the unemployment office. In fact, says Shearing and Stenning, "what is new about modern private security is its pervasiveness and the extent to which its activities have expanded into public, rather than purely private, places" (1992:522). Much of what might be called "mass private property" is essentially open to, if not dependent on, the continuous presence of the general public. What follows is a survey of video camera use in areas generally assumed to be part of the public domain, though they may be state sponsored.

Hospitals use them to record operations, to aid in microsurgery, to watch over patients and for general security reasons. With respect to operations, they protect the innocent (and convict the guilty) in malpractice suits. With regards to security, there are a number of scenarios that arouse interest in video surveillance. For example, in Toronto, a baby was kidnapped from the maternity ward; in Mississippi, a patient smuggled in a gun and shot some hospital personnel. Additionally, in many of these public institutions computers are now commonplace and prime targets for theft. Because of such vulnerability, the Fairview Riverside Medical Center in Minneapolis has over 108 fixed cameras and 16 monitors observing different vulnerable areas of the hospital, such as stairwells, parking lanes, the birthing centre and emergency.

Other new wonders include the "Ent-Videoscope", which provides video images of ears, eyes, and throat examinations. The numerous different kinds of images made from patients' bodies can now be sent across phone lines to solicit opinions from other specialists. Some suspect that house calls may return in popularity with the development of the videophone, saving the doctor unnecessary trips to the hospital as well (CCTV, July, 1994:19). While such developments may be considered one of the more positive developments in video technology, the decreasing distance between hospitals and houses may blur some necessary boundaries.

Some schools, such as three Winnipeg high schools, use cameras to keep unwanted visitors out, to patrol the halls from a distance, or to monitor "dead spaces" where minors might smoke (Bridge 1993). Violence in inner city schools is receiving more press, especially in large American cities, and there is no doubt that more cameras will be going to school in the future. Some school buses in New Brunswick and Ontario now have cameras installed to record child misbehaviour. Libraries and archives use them to prevent and apprehend theft. University campuses use cameras to survey the parking lots and garages, among other things. CCTV is used to guard entrances to labs where "sensitive" experiments are being done. Recently, when a food service workers' strike was taking place at Queen's University, university security staff were on hand with a video camera, recording the faces of those present. Again, not to be forgotten are some of the non-security uses of CCTV in education itself--for training, self-observation, and closed-circuit television channels. The Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute uses cameras to investigate the ocean floor from the surface, using a remotely operated vehicle (ROV), and allows visitors to watch the exploration live.

Even recreation centres are not free from electronic security. Football matches in England employ cameras to "deter hooligans" as security zoom up on offending persons and retain the image for future identification. Security companies competed to be the electronic security supplier and sponsor for the Olympics in Atlanta in 1996; CCTV is among many other technologies important for the safety of the athletes and spectators in what has been said to be "one of the largest installations of electronic security equipment in the world" (CCTV, April, 1994:11). Camp Snoopy, an indoor amusement centre in Minnesota, has cameras set up by rides to "discourage unsafe guest behaviour", and also at places where employees handle cash, in order to discourage pilferage.

Transit commissions, and TV stations have cameras installed at key locations on highways to monitor traffic congestion and relay the information to drivers through signs or radio. In the UK, London's CITRAC, installed in 1968 with its 145 cameras which survey 200 square miles for 14 hours a day, six days a week, is used for such purposes and is operated from Scotland Yard's Area Traffic Control room in conjunction with the Metropolitan and City police (Manwaring-White, 1983:91). Some transit buses (like some airplanes) even have a camera on the top rear of the bus to aid the driver when travelling in reverse (Mass Transit, May 1989:38). Even cameras that are not primarily used for surveillance or social control may easily become agents of discipline and punishment.

The range of spaces now under the electronic eye is increasingly wide. After two murders in city parking garages, Minneapolis city council decreed that all existing parking decks must have audio and video monitoring systems by 1995. In East Anglia, CCTV was used to detect dogs fouling the pavement (Will, 1983:185). To summarize this section, cameras guard spaces meant for transportation, recreation, education, and rehabilitation--there are few limits, few exceptions. Even farmers use CCTV to monitor the barn from the house or keep an eye on pregnant cows. One can see that some framework is needed to assess the legitimacy of surveillance, and that is the subject matter of the fifth chapter of this thesis.

KEEPING AN EYE ON CONSUMERS

As stated previously, cameras are less regulated and less resisted in the private sector. Booming electronics multinational corporations sell their products to security companies which in turn promote and install the technologies for industrial, commercial and residential uses. In a different vein, "Spytech" companies sell equipment to any consumer desiring the technology--for spying, peeping, or watching over. The friendly camcorder itself has become a powerful social disrupter.

In this section the proliferation and use of video cameras in business will be examined. It must be emphasized that the quintessential site of the surveillance camera in postmodern consumerist society is not the Panopticon prison but the Panopticon mall. Mike Davis (1990) provides Martin Luther King Jr. Center in Watts as the prime example. He quotes from Jane Buckwalter (1987):

The King Center site is surrounded by an eight-foot-high, wrought-iron fence comparable to security fences found at the perimeters of private estates and exclusive residential communities. Video cameras equipped with motion detectors are positioned near entrances and throughout the shopping center. The entire center, including parking lots, can be bathed in bright four-foot candle lighting at the flip of the switch.

There are six entrances to the center: three entry points for autos, two service gates, and one pedestrian walkway. The pedestrian and auto entries have gates that are opened at 6:30 a.m. and closed at 10:30 p.m. The service area located at the rear of the property is enclosed with a six-foot-high concrete block wall; both service gates remain closed and are under closed-circuit video surveillance, equipped for two-way voice communications, and operated for deliveries by remote control from a security 'observatory'. Infra-red beams at the bases of light fixtures detect intruders who might circumvent video cameras by climbing over the wall." (243)

Discipline is no longer intended for moral instruction, but for instrumental control, to maintain optimal consumption.

Within the separate compartments of this modern sanctuary there are even more surveillance cameras. Many banks have cameras covering every inch of their public area, prominently positioned along their bare walls, not to mention the corresponding monitors at the entrances. This is not only to record any robbery, but fraud as well; moreover, it is used to make records of all financial interactions, and to check up on employee productivity and employee-customer interactions. Automatic tellers also have cameras to record/prevent fraud; a man was even recorded stealing the surveillance camera itself (CCTV, April, 1994:15). In Vancouver 1995, a photograph of the abductor of a young woman was obtained for the police and media by an ATM as he withdrew money from her account.

Some grocery stores have a camera in each aisle for which the installation and monitoring of can be contracted out to a company that has monitors set up at a separate location. CCTV cameras are put above the cashiers to record point-of-sale activity, where the largest portion of internal theft occurs (CCTV, April 1994:26). These cameras not only record the cash transaction, but the register printout is superimposed on-screen simultaneously. If time-lapse VCR's are used, recordings can be activated by the pressing of the "no sale" or "void" buttons on the cash register (possibly indicating a "sweetheart deal") or by the removal of the last bill (possibly indicating a robbery).

In commerce and retail, cameras are said to be used to prevent and detect theft. But the tiny plaque on one of the "Photo-Scan" cameras in a grocery store speaks more truthfully: "For the prevention of pilferage and management control"--and pilferage prevention refers to employees as well as customers. Cameras (disclosed and hidden, monitored or just recorded) are used in any store, from discount stores to jewellery stores, from convenience stores to department stores, and from an automated bank machines to entire malls, to watch and control customers as well as employees. Gambling casinos have powerful cameras that can zoom in on player's hands (allegedly to detect cheating). In fact, by federal law, all gaming sites in the U.S. where the game "twenty-one" is played must have a video surveillance system installed (CCTV, February, 1994).

An area of surveillance often left out of the discussion is that of industrial or corporate espionage, the "necessity" of keeping an eye on the competition. The public is naturally concerned about consumer and employee surveillance as it is directed towards them, but it seems they feel the hidden battles of corporate wars is best left to the movies. In the fiercely competitive business world, and especially in booming areas like Silicon Valley, electronic snooping devices are "common weapons" (Taylor, 1987:95). Some are willing to go to "any means" to find out what their competitor is up to, such that industrial espionage has been compared in intensity to that which occurs during war (Taylor, 1987:96). As far back as 1962, the trade magazine Industrial Research conducted a survey of companies on corporate spying. Half reported they were involved in some sort of snooping. One third said they use electronic surveillance devices and one third refused to answer. Clearly this is a significant development in the role of surveillance technologies in modern societies, but unfortunately little research is available on the topic, and security technology dealers are hesitant to discuss the subject as it involves much highly illegal activity.

Security cameras are a powerful tool in market research. They record buying habits, customer types, and customer attitudes (CCTV, February, 1994:12). One company, VideOcart Inc., uses infrared sensors in the ceiling of grocery stores to follow the movement of shoppers' carts through the store. Another method, now in use at Pearson International Airport, is to place interactive video kiosks in areas where people loiter. These particular kiosks, among other entertaining things, allow a curious person to see and talk with a mutual funds representative, using video compression technology over the phone lines. It prevents mischief, gives opportunity for inadvertent surveillance, and operates as a vehicle of consumption at the same time.

On a different note, advertisers always want to know how many people are watching their commercials on TV, and can find out through cable services special "people metering" techniques. But these traditional methods can be misleading, as viewers can sleep or talk through the electronic record. At one point, as the Globe and Mail reports (July 8, 1986), such "researchers" installed cameras into four foot television sets to covertly monitor audience attentiveness. Instead of networks having to resort to such means, or just guess at consumer preferences, with the aid of two-way systems it may be that in the future consumers may be able, through active communication of their preferences, manipulate the networks to give them want they want. As one writer put it, "it will be the people in front who shape the soul of the new machine" (Economist, February 13, 1994:18).

Thus the suggestion by Shearing and Stenning that although the 19th century is best characterized by a prison Panopticon, the 20th century is best characterized with a Disney World Panopticon. The contemporary reality is best exemplified not by a prison, where people are confined to cells and disciplined according to moral standards, but by an amusement park (or mall) where people are disciplined to properly consume various objects of pleasure. We are not coerced into conformity, but seduced into compliance. In other words, our concern should not be for the state discipline of Big Brother but for the "soma" of A Brave New World, the consumer discipline of "Mickey Mouse."

This clarification provides a helpful context for understanding visual surveillance. Although cameras could be used to record and study buying patterns, their primary stated purpose seems to be to prevent theft or vandalism and apprehend shoplifters (or "shopthieves" as they are now called). What is being said here is that visual surveillance takes place in harmony with consumer data surveillance, that security cameras need to be understood within the context of broader surveillance trends and a post-modern consumerist ethos. The "new feudalism" mentioned earlier develops within the confines of, and in the form of Disney World; the coveting and hoarding of souvenirs necessarily precedes their guarding and protecting.

It should be made clear that the motivations and goals of private security are significantly different from those of the public police. Private security is geared towards prevention, and more specifically, loss prevention, rather than crime intervention, reactive social control, or suspect apprehension and conviction, which more accurately describes the operations of the public police. Furthermore, while the public police are charged in the public interest, the operating principle of private security systems is private interest (profit), and because they can function autonomously from the criminal justice system, have fewer checks and balances. A common method of dealing with employee theft is to install hidden cameras which obtain evidence of the theft, inform the employee that there is irrefutable evidence of their misdemeanour, and then suggest they find employment elsewhere. Rarely do guilty employees challenge this ultimatum, although the presence of a union may make the situation more delicate. This saves the employer time and money which would have had to be spent in the courts, at the same time taking some burden of social control off the courts. Unfortunately, such employees may simply move to another workplace to repeat the scenario since there are no formal records of their crime.

As mentioned earlier, the Criminal Code only distinguishes between "peace officers" and "anyone", revealing an inadequacy to address the reality of private security. The laws that are most relevant to the private justice system are found in property, employment, and contract law. But since an employee is bound by the terms of the contract, and property law states (Semayne's Case 1604) that "the house of everyone is to him as his castle and fortress. . .and while he is quiet, he is as well guarded as a prince in his castle," the owner of a business where there is no agent of accountability basically functions as a sovereign; they are "authorities with the resources and power to rival the influence of the state and with jurisdiction over substantial territories and communities" (Shearing and Stenning 1987:14). Property law is not suited to the reality of "mass private property" as the "laws which were originally designed to protect individual privacy have become the means whereby those who own and control private property can, through private security, systematically invade privacy" (Shearing and Stenning 1983:42). Employers, via "consent" of their workers, may have private security watching their workers, but the employer remains unmonitored, which means private security are hired to be selective in their choice of suspects and in the type of crime they investigate (i.e. white collar crime is probably not part of their mandate).

While licensing requirements, unions, employee organizations, customers, lawsuits, and regulatory agencies provide some accountability, it is generally "ad hoc, sporadic and uneven" and "informal, negotiated and private in nature" (Shearing and Stenning 1983:51-52). The rights and needs of employers and employees must be somehow balanced more equitably, and Shearing and Stenning suggest that this is best done through adjustments in general laws (contract, property, labour relations, privacy and vicarious liability) rather than further attempts at direct governmental regulation. Such awareness can only be achieved if private security is no longer viewed as the "junior partner" to public police. Making reference to Thomas Kuhn, Shearing and Stenning suggest that social analysis much switch to a new paradigm, one that recognizes the relative autonomy and power of private security systems as well as the policing operations of the state. Perhaps it is a matter of an incident revealing the despotic potential of private security coming to national attention, as Ericson says: "limits are crystallized and changes made when security institutions themselves become too threatening, when the fear of loss of liberty at the hands of security institutions surpasses fear of loss of liberty at the hands of some other source" (1994:171).

Another question is the function of private security as a what Davies (1974) calls a "deluxe service". He suggests that while the masthead of public police may be the people, the masthead of private security is money (cited in South 1989:93). Private security, and the cameras they sell, are only for those who can pay the service and products. Who will protect those who cannot afford security cameras?

There has been pressure on the criminal justice system by the public for more community oriented, victim conscious, preventative and cost-effective social control mechanisms, and private security meets all these requirements. It is locally concentrated (often with foot patrols even), is run by and for the "institutional victim", is geared toward prevention rather than intervention, and saves the public purse a considerable amount of money that would otherwise be spent on larger staffs, longer hours, and more court cases. Shearing and Stenning (1983) conclude that private security is not only here to stay as a pervasive, international social institution, it is going to expand in size and influence. It is therefore best that its expansion be consciously directed by public interests rather than just private interests and market forces. As Cohen warns:

At first sight, what could be better: autonomy from state control, decentralization, no positivist notion of disciplinary measures aimed at the individual soul, control embedded in a structure which appears consensual. But put this into practice, under the sole force of commercialism, and we have all the horrors that Shearing and Stenning describe in their nice analysis of Disneyworld: social control which is ". . .embedded, preventative, subtle, co-operative, and apparently non-coercive and consensual" (Cohen 1987:376, cited in Shearing 1992).

To imagine the extreme, Shearing suggests that what we might be seeing is "the earliest stages of a very different conception of social space in which the public realm may come to be equated with the corporate realm" (1992:429).

"NEIGHBOURHOOD WATCH"

Although the emphasis on the operations of private security mentioned above is appropriate, an area of modern social control that is often left out of the broader picture is that of citizen surveillance, as self-protection and vigilantism. Beyond in-house provisions for private businesses as well as contracts with the larger security companies and their mounting competition is the private citizen, armed with an incredible variety of cameras and other gadgets. Larger institutions such as the state and private businesses are not the only ones defending themselves with cameras--"ordinary" individuals are empowered and mobilizing as well. While many qualifications need to be made concerning the agency of the modern camera-wielding vigilante, by documenting some of the activities of what has been called "Little Brother" I hope to provide a glimpse of the response-ability of individual persons. That is to say, citizens are not only being watched, they are also the watchers in many instances. Such an analysis functions not only as a window of hope in the midst of the encroaching surveillance capacities of big business and the state, but also as a warning against placing a naive faith in the benevolence of individual empowerment. Ambivalence toward institutionalized surveillance should be carried over to the surveillance activities of private persons.

To begin, persons not yet a part of a facility are nevertheless implicated in the "new feudalism" as they are securing their estates against intrusions from expected visitors. This "fortress mentality" manifests itself in a number of ways. In residential settings, surveillance cameras are usually found in apartment buildings or condominium estates, but also on expensive property, or in houses with extremely valuable objects to secure, "high-tech castles" borrowing designs from overseas embassies and military command posts, "hardening their palaces like missile silos" (Davis 1990:248). The image capturing device can itself be an image: a symbol of power, privilege, and prestige, a manifestation of conspicuous consumption. This is the charge brought against the Hampstead Garden Suburb Residents Association, who are proposing a $250,000 30-camera system be installed in their neighbourhood to discourage burglaries and car thefts, making it "the first closed-circuit television neighbourhood watch operation in Britain" (CCTV, June, 1994:21). In Los Angeles, Imperial Courts Housing Project is fortified with fencing, requires identity passes, and is connected to a substation of the LA Police Department. There is a curfew, and visitors are stopped and frisked by security personnel.

Indeed, the future for home protection might be in visual surveillance devices, for "the days of leaving one's door open are gone," as one security guard said to me, and have been replaced by the use of padlocks, peepholes, alarms, dogs, reinforced hinges, and intercoms. The role of the media in enforcing a defensive mentality must not be discounted either, as every citizen is informed daily of the numerous crimes that happen locally and worldwide. As the Vancouver Sun reported, every 10 seconds--about 9,000 times a day--a private home somewhere in North America is being burglarized with an average loss being the value of a camcorder (January 16, 1993). The expression "A man's home is his castle" conjures up images closer to a fortress than a palace in a Panopticon society.

This is not to say that the camera is never used for friendlier reasons in domestic settings; to be sure, handicapped persons of various sorts use cameras to conveniently see who's at the door and automatically open it, and the visually impaired can use cameras that magnify and brighten the small print or images on paper so they may be able to read and understand their mail and write out checks (CCTV, May, 1994:12). Additionally, the baby food company Gerber is now selling a video monitoring system for parents who cannot be in the same room with their child at all times. In Kingston, Ontario, one dealer says that a popular "yuppie" model is available for $400, which comes with infrared technology. Unlike an ordinary intercom, the video monitor may shed light on why the baby is crying.

Not to be forgotten, of course, is the common camcorder itself, a camera and VCR combined in one for recording family events, vacations, and anything else of interest for home viewing or posterity since its introduction in 1984. They have evolved from the large 8 pound VHS shoulder contraptions to the modern 2 pound-or-less palm held 8-mm devices. Although meant to be for amateur use, some of the latest camcorders can produce "movie-like" or "professional journalist-like" quality pictures--digital stabilization holds the camera steady even though your hand shakes. Prices range from a low of $600 to a high of over $10,000, although the standard price hovers mostly around $900. Between 1986 and 1990, the total number of camcorder units sold more than doubled, as it was estimated that more than 2.8 million camcorders were sold in 1990 (Klain, 1990:630). That means there are 2.8 million more cameras "patrolling" North America ready to "capture" anything of local or national interest, and some estimate that there may be as many as 40 million total world-wide in the hands of tourists, vigilantes, and unappreciated relatives. Nobody had a VCR in 1982, but by 1987 over 45% of Canadian homes had one (McKie and Thompson, 1990:58). If 8% of North Americans have camcorders now, how long before they become a "new necessity"? What will happen when, as Alvin Toffler speculated (and perhaps over-stated) on the documentary "Videos, Vigilantes, and Voyeurism": "millions of camcorders are in the hands of poor people, in the hands of minorities, and in the hands of terrorists. . .this is not something that our present political structures are going to be able to accommodate without phenomenal change" (1993).

It is in the context of vigilantism and amateur video-journalism where cameras take on even more characteristics of a weapon. It is not just a symbol of distrust and self-defense, but a powerful electronic sword that can be wielded to gain ground for a particular group. George Holiday did it on behalf of citizens and oppressed peoples when he taped the Rodney King beating, concerned citizens videotape prostitutes that "pollute" their neighbourhood (hired by Current Affair for a special episode), and David Lynn, a private investigator in Miami, has a full-time job documenting incidents of police brutality against minorities using his camcorder. While many incidents do not receive the world-wide attention Rodney King received, similar videotapes are aired on local TV stations: a bystander videotaped a police officer beating a man in Fort Worth, Texas (July 5, 1991) and in Washington, D.C., police were videotaped shooting a man outside the Whitehouse (December 20, 1994).

Like American military weapons, video technology finds its way all over the world: the massacre at Tiannamen square was captured on videotape; underground video news agencies using consumer camcorders were instrumental in the collapse of the communist regimes in Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia; Solidarity in Poland used video documentaries between 1981 and 1988 to keep its spirit alive; the Palestinians in Israeli occupied territory recorded evidence of Israeli soldier brutality; in Chile, dissenting political parties offer video cassettes of the news which the ruling party will not air on television; in 1987 anti-Gorbachev videotapes circulated through the Soviet underground; a guerilla group in El Salvador, the Farabundo Marti Front for National Liberation, has used videos as propaganda tools to gain peasant support since 1980 (Ganley, 1992:29). Sean Cubitt also records a number of similar cases in his book Videography: Video Media as Art and Culture (1993). Visual information can become persuasive knowledge, and the spread of such knowledge is a powerful weapon. Says Cubitt, "Video, with its instant playback and its ability to record sound and image simultaneously, thrusts the instability of the present in your face and shouts in your ear: 'It doesn't have to be this way!' Hence its option on democracy" (1991:1). Later, he adds, "Guerrilla media plunge into a universe of boundaries and their transgression, of difference and heterogeneity. The refusal to be the Same, and the insistence on (decentred) individuality form the second necessary condition of democratic media" (1991:171). "What is important," he says, "is not that they speak the truth, but that they are aimed at change" (1993:138).

Thede and Ambrosi's anthology (1991) echo's a somewhat similar sentiment, although from a more liberal perspective. The articles in their book are the result of an international symposium on "Alternative Communication and Development Alternatives: On the Democratic Use of Video and Television." They state that in an "information society" all social groups should have access to media technology, and this understanding forms the basis for their International Coalition for the Right to Communicate. It is their goal to create and maintain initiatives that place the power to communicate in the hands of the people rather than just the government or large corporations. Their book is more hopeful and action oriented, as opposed to Cubitt who is more theory laden and cautious about emancipatory possibilities.

"Videos, Vigilantes and Voyeurism" (1993) was an informative although regrettably sensationalized TV program on the subject of video surveillance and the citizen. It declared that although "Big Brother is watching," we are also "watching back," and most significantly, playing "Little Brother"--watching each other. Camcorder sales are booming because on one hand, many people buy cameras to capture images of their family for posterity. But with the rise of shows like America's Funniest Home Videos, Code 3, A Current Affair, American Detective, Hardcopy and I Witness Video the images captured by the citizen on camera are now not only for private use but public viewing and corporate profit. Such television programs not only pay money for sensational tapes, they provide cameras for those willing to let their curiosity lead them where a reporting team could never go or plan to be. In fact, there is a network set up for the broadcasting of amateur tapes called the Home Video Network, which also provides an instruction video on doing eye witness reports. Public awareness of video vigilantism came with the Rodney King beating and trials, and a $100 million dollar suit is now in progress over the uncopyrighted use of the tape. Digital signals become valuable private property as amateur video broadcasting is now a booming industry in the United States.

Broadcast magazine writers claim that television news is being democratized: "Anyone who can afford a camcorder is a potential contributor to [network] news budgets" (Broadcasting, September 18, 1989:50). A recent newscast announced that an elephant in a circus in Honolulu had suddenly gone "mad" and trampled its trainer to death, and injured a few other people. They then aired the incident, taped live by a member of the audience, obviously seated in the bleachers. The picture hovered around slightly, and was somewhat unclear--just like the Rodney King video. Another similar video captured the police just outside the White House shooting a homeless man who had a knife. Perhaps to say the media is becoming "democratized" by the camcorder is overstating the case, but as Sean Cubitt (1989) says, the potential of the video camera for allowing private citizens to produce their own cultural products is yet to be fully realized.

It seems that Marshall McLuhan's "global village" has become even more real with the advent of the camcorder as the joys and sorrows of people all over the world are brought to the attention of those who watch television. CNN strives to present scenes of patriot missiles exploding (Gulf War) and O.J. Simpson hearings live because television viewers will tune in to real-life dramas. Unfortunately, with the new technologies that allow live broadcasts, news programming begins to flatten rather than deepen, to become more sensationalized and hyped rather than informative and educational, reducing media to a cacophony of sound bytes. The fact is that for any particular event any number of people could be present with their camcorder ready to document unexpected wonders, comedies or tragedies for prime time news or (as sometimes happens) for police and other emergency departments in the process of training new recruits. It is somewhat disconcerting to know that moments we thought were passed have been retained and can be revived and reproduced by others. Although people may feel their conversations, interactions, encounters are private affairs, people like George Holliday (who videotaped the Rodney King beating from his balcony) may be filling some extra tape. The "global village" gives rise to what might be called "global gossip."

The eye of the camera shows no favouritism--all who fall under the shadow of its gaze become engraved on its magnetic records, regardless of colour, age, sex, or creed. While the authoritarian nature of security cameras is clear in Big Brother images, cameras can also be a very democratic technology. The words of Meyrowitz summarize it best: "For media, like physical places, include and exclude participants. Media, like walls and windows, can hide and they can reveal. Media can create a sense of sharing and belonging or a feeling of exclusion and isolation. Media can reinforce a "them vs. us" feeling or they can undermine it" (1985:7).

The use of cameras also has an interesting effect on our sense of place. As Joshua Meyrowitz explains in his book No Sense of Place: The Impact of Electronic Media on Social Behaviour (1985), it used to be that in order to "witness" an event you had to be there. But now one can be an audience to an incident without being physically present--the former barriers to communication are broken as new types of "interactive environments" are available through new electronic media. Combining Goffman's keen perception of roles in social situations with McLuhan's understanding of media as an agent of social change Meyrowitz tackles the problem of how new media affect and change social behaviour. He summarizes his argument by saying that differences in social group, authority, and age were traditionally supported by differences in experiential worlds. People had different worldviews which formed different "backstage" and "onstage" behaviours, depending on who was present with them in any particular space. The coming of electronic media brings many different types of people into one "place", blurring formerly distinct roles, forcing a new quality of social interaction.

As McLuhan and Fiore explain, "The family circle has widened. The worldpool of information fathered by electric media--movies, Telstar, flight--far surpasses any possible influence mom and dad can now bring to bear. Character no longer is shaped by only two earnest, fumbling experts. Now all the world's a sage" (1967:14). Old notions of time and space are destroyed by electronic media, along with all parochialisms.

Through the images gathered by cameras all over the world which are subsequently broadcast on national television, children now see parents acting really childishly, students observe professors getting drunk, and blue collar workers see their bosses getting yelled at by their children. What was formerly "backstage" and unknown becomes common knowledge, and people no longer "know their place" in society. New social arenas have been made, and new audiences are created. The camera, as one of the main tools in the creation of new arenas, ushers in what Meyrowitz calls a changing of the "social geography", a "new social order".

Vigilantes and uninhibited tourists are not the only worry, however, for the Peeping Tom of the past can now claim professional status with the equipment available to him. Esquire magazine (October, 1993) carried an article featuring the antics of a "sophisticated" voyeur. This man had a whole library of high resolution videotapes (affectionately entitled "The Neighbours") which he had recorded from his apartment window using a very expensive, very powerful zoom lens that could see as far as ten blocks. He has thousands of dollars of video equipment and monitors in his apartment ("just like the soldiers had in the Gulf War"), and talks of adding light intensifiers and putting up to $40,000 into a "smart system" which allows him to operate by remote from practically anywhere. The writer romanticises the lonely, intelligent voyeur's actions, declaring his high-tech obsession to have "the best of cinematic technique, with the gloss of social science, and with the noblest associations of fine art." As Cubitt (1993) says, video allows underground cultures to propagate their ideas and work, as an act of resistance against cultural domination and imperialism. While television does offer "reality-based" shows, one can produce one's own material and "relive" the scenes as long as the videotape holds out. Watching as discipline and watching as desire are too closely related, and too often intertwined to be completely separated in critical analysis, and furthermore beg a consideration of gender differences in the use of video cameras. The video camera, whether held by a tourist, journalist, voyeur or spy, is (at least partially) a means of satisfying a superficial curiosity for the Other, the different, as well as an attempt to place the Other within a context where one has some control, a looking from a vantage point of one's own construction.

One's home may be less of a "castle" and more of a "fish bowl" than we would like to think. Most voyeurs, doubtless, are not as sophisticated as the one mentioned above, but cheaper equipment is available for amateurs. And to what extent are the police who monitor public washrooms, the security guards who watch hotel swimming pools, and the discount store owners who watch their customers also voyeurs? It is generally agreed that "much contract private security work is low-status, largely unskilled, tedious and unrewarding work which attracts a highly transient labour force" (Shearing and Stenning 1983:47). The watchers are all situated at a distance from those in the camera's cross-hairs, invisible participants in whatever drama is unfolding. "You are having this experience by yourself," said the voyeur, "and yet not by yourself. You are totally involved in the life of a stranger." The feeling of power that comes with seeing but not being seen can be quite alluring, whether watching a sexual encounter or someone debating whether to buy a blouse, although, as the law points out, in one setting there is a "reasonable expectation of privacy" and in the other there is not. The point is, voyeurism must be included in a paper on video surveillance because the act of watching is inherently ambiguous: one could be spying, peeping, and watching over others simultaneously.

In a sense "reality-based" television ("infotainment," "non-fiction TV," "reality TV") is a form of voyeurism, and exhibitionism (Rapping 1987; Surette 1992; Barr 1994). As Debra Seagul (1993) says in "Tales From the Cutting-Room Floor: The Reality of 'Reality-Based' Television," for a moment of fame (or infamy) people have signed away (or been manipulated to sign away) permission for shows like COPS or American Detective to nationally broadcast scenes of themselves being rudely disturbed in the privacy of their homes and arrested. Although many viewers would doubtlessly never brave the elements and risk detection in an attempt to record the trauma of their neighbours on video, when someone else goes through all the trouble for them and they can see the results uninterrupted in the privacy of their own home, the temptation becomes stronger. Moreover, such programs function as promotion for the public police, re-enforcing the hegemony of the public police in social control, legitimizing their existence and operations (see Ericson and Carriere 1989). These are things McLuhan fails to mention when he talks about a "new environment" that "compels commitment and participation. We have become irrevocably involved with, and responsible for, each other" (1967:24).

If I may speculate further, such shows and similar "real-life" footage may provide a synthetic remedy to what has been called "the sequestering of existential contradictions" in modern society (see Giddens 1985:194-197). That is to say, although "existential contradictions" such as sex, sickness, death, and punishment have in recent times been removed from everyday life into isolated institutions, the amateur videos that play on the news and during "reality-based" shows bring them back into everyday life. How "real" these edited traumas are may be debatable, but there is an awareness or feeling that is different from the glitter of "sit-coms," the melodrama of soap operas, and the special effects of movies; there is certainly something unique about watching natural disasters, riots, and everyday traumas in which "real" people die, maybe even live, on television. In sum, television provides a synthetic community to replace the community Felson mentions as having thrived before the time of the automobile, it acts as an agent of discipline by socializing children and promoting the successful operations of the police, and reacquaints people with the mysteries of life, formerly hidden from view by formal institutions.

Citizen "self" or "mutual" surveillance can be even more intense and surreptitious. "Spy-Tech," "Spy Supply," "The Spy Store" (Toronto), "Bob Dazzler" (Vancouver) or "Counter Spy" (U.S.A) industries sell surveillance technologies to the public, previously only available to the military or police: infrared night cameras, pinhole lens cameras, and briefcase or watch cameras, to name a few of the visual surveillance technologies. Another example is "Babywatch", a video camera disguised as the pedestal of a lamp or vase, which can capture five hours worth of images (it can be rented for $199 for three days). In fact, miniature cameras can now be placed in almost any object desired by the customer--such as bricks, exit signs, intercoms, thermostats, and fire alarms. And one need not search for a specialized store--some security retailers sell them as well. "The espionage agent is one of the most powerful metaphors of our time" says Alvin Toffler (1980:171); but the spy is more than a metaphor. It is a way of life in a society of strangers.

While owners of "Spy-Tech" mention their clients include private investigators, police officers, investigative journalists, security retailers, women in search of personal defence products and business people who want to protect themselves from "shady" deals and lawsuits, the following excerpts from the first pages of their catalogue seem to focus on other clientele:

There is a link between man and machine that is missing. How do we combine the world of the super spy and the mundane and ordinary situation of life?

There exists in the life of every person a circumstance that requires information to be able to WIN that situation. This information is probably unavailable through any resource you may have, and you would be willing to pay almost anything to get it.

Joey was convinced that his wife, Marie, was having an affair. How was Joey to confirm his suspicions?

Bill and Janet had a beautiful baby. Both had to work, and left little Amanda in the hands of a highly recommended babysitter. How did Bill and Janet determine that the sitter was being abusive to their child?

Sibyl was a fifteen year old cheerleader who suddenly became irritable and unpleasant. How did her parents substantiate that her behaviour change was due to her newly acquired lust for cocaine?

. . .Winning is not everything, but it sure feels good! The ability to ACCESS INFORMATION, PROTECT INFORMATION, DOCUMENT INFORMATION, positions you to win at the game of life. . .

This manual will show you how SPY TECHNOLOGY can make you the master of your destiny.

They are obviously marketing their products to ordinary citizens, to the point of even encouraging family members and employers to spy on one another. As a Globe and Mail article on the subject was titled, they are "Gadgets Made For A Cruel World" (March 20, 1993) (see also Smith 1994). They claim that by arming oneself with video technology, one can "win" and become "richer and wiser." The police may even encourage such action: the Assistant Chief Constable of South Wales, UK, urges victims of domestic violence to use hidden video cameras to collect evidence for prosecution (Davies, 1994:6). Says the owner, "Business is strong and just keeps growing."

Such surveillance does not have to be done by oneself, either. Private investigators routinely use cameras, bugs, and wiretaps in divorce and custody cases, but they are by no means limited to this (Taylor, 1987:99). Furthermore, new wireless options make installation of the camera so much more feasible and easy. The extremes to which people will go to confirm suspicions they have of their spouses is remarkable. The expression "in the privacy of one's own home" may soon be obsolete.

The endorsement of community policing is another relevant trend. A discussion paper on the future of policing in Canada says, "There is a growing consensus among police executives, police professionals, community representatives, academics and other, that 'community policing' is the most appropriate response to the challenges and problems of the next decade" (Solicitor General 1990:18). Urban police have been distanced from the community through technological developments such as the telephone, the patrol car, the two-way radio, and now the video camera. These attempts to "professionalize" the police force have simultaneously functioned to remove the actual presence of the police in the community. In response to this change, police now work with a community policing model, of which "the overall goal is a police-community partnership in dealing with crime and related problems" (bold in original, 1990:20). Use of such a model will no doubt reinforce the vigilance of citizens in their own community. Although for media and not law enforcement purposes, one possible example of future community policing shown on "Videos, Vigilantes, and Voyeurism" was the video taping of prostitutes by concerned citizens. It appears that there is little defence against the roving amateur video journalist, and it may be that the camera, perhaps more so than the ancient pen, is mightier than the sword.

To summarize, while one might assume that a camera in the hands of citizens and consumers might reverse the imbalance in the dialectic of control between organization and individual, there is also another dynamic involved, the relationship between citizens. To put it somewhat whimsically, the gaze of Big Brother and Mickey Mouse (the Disneyland metaphor) is intensified and widened by the camcorder of Little Brother, but he is also "shooting back." Our deeper fear probably should be for "Little Brother" outside our window and on the street, than for Big Brother, of whom the public is already very wary and of whom civil liberties groups militantly watchdog. Critical analysis of current social control trends needs to include not only the operations of state and private security, but of the individual camera holder and the media as well, especially since the law, the media, and civil liberties groups tend to be focussed on the surveillance activities of the state, and unions sensitive to surveillance practises in the workplace. Recognition of or accountability structures for surveillance practises, and especially video surveillance practises, that fall under the rubric of "Neighbourhood Watch" are hardly comparable to those set up for similar activities of the state.

Quinn explains how within the video camera is an "electron gun" which scans the light-sensitive surface of the image sensor, the device which converts light energy to electrical impulses (1987:34). To compare the camcorder with a gun may be a helpful way of understanding the camera. It is a potentially dangerous device when combined with the expanding power of mass media: able to threaten, coerce, and even assassinate characters through visual slander, by taking images out of context or presenting them to audiences never intended to see them. Standing within the cross-hairs of a camera may become less and less of a thrill as people gradually come to realize that one's visual image, like one's data image, can be used against oneself. As more and more people arm themselves with video cameras, shooting back at Big Brother but also at their neighbour, the fascination for visual images may be replaced with an annoyance that recognizes the mischief it can cause. Like gun laws, video camera control laws may be in demand not too far down the road.

If all companies in the business of selling anything from camcorders to watch cameras were included in the definition of private security one might empathize with the concerns of Ian Will:

the individual's right to privacy is too important to be left to the private security industry to define its extent...The pleas of self-interested security personnel for the public to take on trust what is being thrust upon them are based on the lie that the industry is capable of self-imposed restraints; the lie that integrity of the industry exists; and the lie that the security industry understands the technology and its social implications. The biggest lie of all is that the industry cares about any of these things (Will, 1983:183).

Perhaps talking about "the industry" can be a means of isolating agency and responsibility to monolithic social structures. And "the industry" can always pass on blame to "the market."

When private security industry and other authoritarian forces project an image of society disintegrating under a sustained attack by criminal, subversive and anti-democratic forces of social disorder, they are not offering a warning as much as making a sales pitch. It is conditioning a society to an apocalyptic vision of a future given over to rampant crime, rioting, street violence, looting, arson, and anarchy, a society in which any form of security would be welcomed. By accepting the vision, society accepts the supremacy of security in all its forms and its right to be dominant in the public's affairs. By rejecting the analysis of a disintegrating society and pursuing alternatives, however, the influence of security can be brought under control (Will, 1983:184).

It is not only an ideology of effectiveness (that technology solves crime problems) but an ideology of affectiveness (that crime is rampant and the technology is necessary) that dominates the private security industry, overshadowing questions of legality and normativity (see Ericson 1984).

In the United States, a bill was tabled entitled "The Privacy for Consumers and Workers Act." Those in the CCTV business objected that it would be "really aiding and abetting the dishonest employee, leaving the employer with no tools to monitor illegal activities in the workplace" (CCTV, July/August, 1993:20). The Closed Circuit Television Manufacturers Association has encouraged people to write their congress representative, arguing that electronic surveillance is necessary for workplace safety, theft prevention, and for staying competitive on the global market. Especially problematic is the phrase in the bill that prohibits collection of personal data that is "not confined to an employee's work". This requires at least an extra employee to review activities as they are recorded and "severely restricts" electronic monitoring practises as a whole.

Some organizations dedicated to the furthering of the CCTV industry include the Canadian Alarm and Security Association (CANASA), the Canadian Society for Industrial Security (CSIS). Other significant associations include the American Association for Industrial Security (ASIS) and the Closed Circuit Television Manufacturer's Association (CCTMA).

THE PLURALIST MODEL

In this discussion on recent trends examples have been taken from Canada, the United States, Britain, and Australia. It is important to realize that not all these trends are happening in the same place. Different countries have different legal restrictions and different social tolerance levels for the various technologies. It would be safe to say, however, a disproportionate amount of sensational examples come from the United States, where investment is high in military innovations and less restrictions exist on the sale of these devices.

An interesting country for comparison would be Singapore, a country with a system of government sharply contrasting with the American democratic ideal. Says Singapore leader Lee Kuan Yew, who has been called one of the world's most successful economic policy-makers, "I do not believe that democracy necessarily leads to development. I believe that what a country needs to develop is discipline more than democracy. The exuberance of democracy leads to indiscipline and disorderly conduct, which are inimical to development" (Globe and Mail, Sept. 24, 1994, D4). This authoritarian government enforces social order not for itself, but for its promise of economic prosperity, as part of its goal to become an "intelligent island". Thus, without any vehicles through which they can voice dissent, citizens in Singapore stroll under the electric eye in elevators, street corners, and stop lights. Recently, a Singapore Residents Committee installed more than $4,000 worth of CCTV equipment in their neighbourhood to prevent littering and vandalism. The three cameras have caught over a dozen vandals, and the residents are reportedly happy with their investment (Singapore Press Holdings, 2/4/94). In sum, a different ethos governs the island, and this requires different theorizing. More research needs to be done documenting the trends in this small country, which is in many ways an ongoing experiment in pervasive technological change.

Despite the differences between all the countries mentioned, the trends in use of surveillance cameras are very much alike. This may be due to the fact that cameras are used mostly in the cities and cities around the world are becoming more and more alike. Buenos Aires and New York have more in common than New York and the surrounding countryside. Urban centres are the heart of modern society, and therefore the most fertile soil for the proliferation of surveillance technologies. They are societies of strangers, driven by the cultural mandate to rationalize. The increasing significance of private security is a global affair, and the major electronics multi-nationals are expanding markets daily.

Another theme that arises relates to Mike Davis' notion of "class war" and Sean Cubitt's discussion of "cultural domination". Visible in the "Beirutization" of libraries, malls and office buildings of the modern city is the widening gulf between the educated, employed "good consumers" on one hand and an underclass of undesirables which it is the function of private security personnel and devices to keep out and away. Libraries like the Goldwyn Library (LA), built as fortresses, are architectural testimonies of the class war that rages beyond the backyards of the middle class; it "relentlessly interpellates a demonic Other (arsonist, graffitist, invader) whom it reflects back on surrounding streets and street people. It coldly saturates its immediate environment, which is seedy but not particularly hostile, with its own arrogant paranoia" (Davis 1990:24).

If surveillance cameras are a source of oppression in such a context, they are a source of hope for contest in other contexts, as Cubitt documents in his work on the power of culture and art in underground video production. Videotapes of oppressive powers say "'This is how things are,' but only in order to add 'but they cannot be allowed to remain like this'" (Cubitt 1993:138). The "global village" may also provide the catalysts for "global warfare."

In this chapter we have focussed on many of the more spectacular trends in society today, trying to sketch a picture of the range and extent of visual surveillance technologies. Sophisticated equipment such as the EyeWitness and disguised miniature cameras are available, but their applications are limited and only well-financed individuals and organizations are able to afford them. In terms of the everyday life of most people, the surveillance camera reality is limited to the CCTV and the bank, which records the scene but has no one monitoring it. The department store may have cameras that are monitored, but they only record when the operators sense suspicious activity. Some cameras may even be "scarecrows", that neither record nor are monitored.

The equipment described in this chapter is a taste of the potential of technology today, not necessarily its reality for any particular city. Human errors abound in the assembling, installing, and maintaining of this equipment: security tapes, for example, are very often overused, underexposed, and therefore blurred. And just because a camera is monitored it does not mean that the eye behind the lens is as attentive as Big Brother. Or even though satellite cameras cover vast areas of land with their god-like gaze, the fact remains that most space in the modern world is not under optical surveillance, and those spaces that are, mostly stand in the public eye anyway. To Winston and Julia of 1984, modern Canada, Britain, and the United States would be spaces that would seem virtually free from the gaze of Big Brother.

Security cameras, like the telescreens in 1984, are present on the city streets, in homes, in public washrooms, and even in the forest--from satellites. While the implementation of visual surveillance devices seems like an important step closer to a Big Brother society, the power/knowledge of the camera is distributed quite widely. For one, it appears that "Little Brothers", armed with their own camcorders, stand poised and ready to "shoot" back. In fact, there are a number of complicated webs of surveillance intersecting each other: Industries watch themselves, government watches industry, employers watch employees, police watch citizens and criminals, criminals watch people, and people watch the police and each other. If anything, in the words of The Economist, "Big Brother will not be Bill Clinton, but Bell Atlantic-TCI" (February 12, 1994:14).

There is a tension between dystopic and idyllic visions which needs to be carried through any honest examination of this topic. Models such as 1984, the Panopticon, the maximum security society, the new feudalism, Disney World, and The Jetsons need to be played off one another and measured against empirical realities in private and public policing, retail security, workplace monitoring, and the video camera craze. This is why documenting the uses of video cameras is vitally important.

Perhaps the most appropriate model for describing empirical realities would be what has been called the "pluralist" perspective (Shearing, 1992). Based on the Foucaultian thesis that the power is unlocalized in contemporary society, this model holds that there is no definite centre of social control, but that private and public forces seem to work together and against each other. As South says, the relationship between private security and public police is a complex one, which, at different times and in various places can be characterized as compromise, complement, competition, or circumvention. Shearing and Stenning explain that the prevalence of private security complicates the formerly more distinct concepts of private and public, as well as individual and state (as private security becomes sovereign in its own jurisdiction). The social world is best described as "irreducibly and irrevocably pluralistic, split into a multitude of sovereign units and sites of authority, with no horizontal or vertical order, either in actuality or in potency" (Bauman 1988:799, cited in Shearing 1992:424). "Pluralists dispute a conception of the political and legal sphere as organized vertically with the state as apex," says Shearing, "In its place they suggest a more horizontally organized sphere of linked but autonomous entities with mutual claims over each other, characterized by considerable fluidity and flux" (1992:425). To say the least, there is a definite blurring between private and public social control forces, a shifting, a decentring, a fragmenting (see Cohen 1989).

Much of the criminological literature overlooks the significance of the video camera, and in doing so also neglects to pay tribute to the powers of private citizens in resisting, subverting, and contributing to the more institutionalized forms of social control. A truly pluralist perspective, while acknowledging the relatively less pervasive and efficacious power of vigilantes and their sort, will recognize the significant role they play in the contemporary "kaleidoscope" of social control. This broadens the scope of discussions on social control and contributes to an understanding of the social sphere as a site of collaboration, struggle, and competition rather than static, unilateral dictation.

This chapter demonstrates how the media, public police, private businesses, and consumers can all become a part of modern surveillance procedures. As Giddens (1985) says, surveillance cannot be located in any one modern institution, as a mere appendage to capitalism, industrialism, or the state militia, but is a separate entity in itself. It saturates all of modern society, like Weber's rationality or Foucault's discipline, although it need not be encumbered with the negative connotations these authors surrounded it with. As Dandeker (1990) says, surveillance includes a power to, as well as a power over. Large social structures which constrain, may also enable, or even be subverted.

Orwell's novel, while provocative and imaginative, was primarily literary satire, not social science prediction. Dystopic images may cloud over more constructive alternative visions for new directions and change. Words of response-ability will encourage thoughts and actions towards alternatives rather than paralysis. Before these words can be given, however, it is important to examine what effect these cameras have on those who fall beneath its untiring gaze. The power of technology in monitoring and controlling human behaviour cannot simply be assumed, not only because of the inadequacy of technology, but also because of the perennial gap between intentions and results and the unfailing ingenuity of human beings when confronted with constraining situations.