Former Congressman Fuels "Big Brother" Fears

Americans are being scared into compromising their own safety, and Bob Barr is doing the scaring. As Barr has discovered, nothing is more effective at whipping alleged privacy fears into anti-government frenzy than inflammatory warnings that “Big Brother is watching.” Barr, a former Georgia Republican congressman and U.S. Attorney contributed an OpEd piece to today’s Washington Times that contained a torrent of fear-inducing comparisons between Tony Blair’s and Michael Bloomberg’s efforts to install thousands of surveillance cameras throughout London and New York with George Orwell’s “1984 ” and philosopher Jeremy Bentham’s Panopticon society. According to Barr, Americans have much to fear from governments at all levels that place great emphasis on the need for surveillance cameras as a solution for ensuring safety.

According to Barr’s dire warnings, we must not allow America to become a land where, as in Bentham’s Panopticon, “control was exercised not by being surveilled continuously but by each person knowing they might be under surveillance at any time, or all the time.” Barr was a U.S. Attorney, and as such one would assume that at some point he attended law school. Apparently Barr missed the course where privacy in public places was discussed, because his OpEd piece, “Big Brother in the Big Apple,” was long on exaggeration and incongruous conspiratorial comparisons to Orwell but short on facts or for that matter, the truth about London’s and New York’s surveillance systems.

No surveillance system is perfect, and despite conspiracy-fueling television or movie depictions they are not installed in every hallway or room in any city. It is important to separate the fear mongering from fact: in London and New York there are no cameras in private areas, such as restrooms or dressing rooms where by law one is granted a reasonable expectation of privacy. Private establishments such as a business or doctor’s waiting room are mandated to post signs indicating the presence of closed circuit TV cameras. Those who do not wish to be on camera in such areas are not required to stay. The cameras that Barr and privacy rights activists condemn are located in public places, such as malls, city streets, tourist attractions, and other areas where there is no reasonable expectation of privacy. Ironically, Barr, a former congressman, is more afraid of government cameras monitoring public areas than he is of terrorist cells in the planning phase monitoring those same public areas for vulnerabilities.

Major tourist attractions such as Disney World have utilized closed circuit TV surveillance for many years, with great success. Signs are posted at the entrances to such theme parks advising that visitors will be surveilled. Bags are checked, certain items are banned, all in the name of security. Would Barr prefer to visit Disney World in today’s age of terrorism without these security measures in place? Reasonable people are glad that steps are taken to protect them while they visit attractive terrorist targets, and like it or not, the streets of our major cities are lined by such targets, whether they are historical sites, government buildings, or financial nerve centers of the global economy.

The key to such security measures is simple: if you are not a criminal or a terrorist, you should not be bothered by the fact that when in public you may be on camera. If you wanted to do something that you wouldn’t want anyone else to see, wouldn’t you find somewhere private to do it off camera?

Barr avoids this entire issue by focusing his OpEd on a baseless argument that “government at all levels convinces a fearful populace that a surveilled society is a safe society.” Having worked in the private sector and the federal government I can assure Barr that no promises are given by government that any security measures are guaranteed to produce “a safe society.” There are thousands of government attorneys at all levels whose duty is to make certain that government never guarantees anything, because it if fails to deliver on its promises, it would be ripe for lawsuits. Government certainly extols the virtues of camera surveillance systems, particularly for their role in identifying pre-operational surveillance conducted by criminals and terrorist groups or providing investigative leads after attacks that lead to identifying and arresting the suspects, like the London Tube bombers in 2005. Yet at no time has government stated that installing cameras will make us completely safe.

Terrorists never strike at random, and cell operatives must physically visit and evaluate potential targets, usually taking many photos and lingering in the area engaged in seemingly innocent behaviors. It is only through careful monitoring by law enforcement and intelligence specialists and reviews of surveillance footage that pre-operational planning and descriptions of the suspects are gleaned and plots thwarted or pieced together after the fact.

The point of video surveillance in public areas is not to guarantee safety but to deter criminals and more specifically terrorists from choosing those areas for attack. Like criminals, terrorists often seek out targets that offer the least resistance. A home with an ADT or Brinks security sign posted in the yard is far less likely to be burglarized than a home where no such system is visible. That same principle applies to counterterrorism and anti-crime security measures in the public areas of our major cities.

Barr would like to live in a world where only specific political buildings, such as government symbols in Washington, DC were targets. The reality of our age, however, is that every American city is home to scores of potentially attractive terrorist targets ranging from financial centers, defense industry companies, and natural resource facilities, to local malls, swanky restaurants, and as the thwarted London bomb plot in July should have made clear, even unsuspecting nightclubs. All of these targets share one important commonality: all are surrounded by public areas, streets, parking lots, and parks where there is no expectation of privacy. Installing cameras in those areas would make terrorist pre-operational planning and target surveillance much more difficult and increase the risk of detection. The only “right” violated by such cameras is the terrorist’s “right” to conduct his pre-attack target surveillance without the fear of being caught.

Barr exposed his own Orwellian conspiracy fears throughout his OpEd piece, but nowhere more clearly than in these lines:

Of course, the notion that surveillance is key to control was not new with Bentham; centuries before, the Greek philosopher Plato had mused about the power of the government to control through surveillance, when he raised the still-relevant question, "Who watches the watchers?"

More recently, of course, George Orwell gave voice to the innate fear that resides deep in many of our psyches against government surveillance, in his nightmare, "Big Brother is Watching You" world of the novel "1984."

…Mayor Bloomberg and former Prime Minister Blair epitomize the almost mindless, unquestioning embrace of surveillance as the solution to problems — real, manufactured or exaggerated — that pervades government post-September 11, 2001. Fear of terrorism as much as fear of crime is the currency by which government at all levels convinces a fearful populace that a surveilled society is a safe society.

Barr’s reference to “the innate fear that resides deep in many of our psyches against government surveillance,” was telling. He raised a fear all too commonly cited by opponents of government video surveillance systems, Plato’s “who is watching the watchers?” This question is a conundrum because if taken to its logical conclusion, no one anywhere at any level could be trusted. For if there are watchers watching the watchers, who watches the watchers’ watchers? Where does it end? With Barr, fear of so-called privacy violation is the currency by which privacy rights activists convince a fearful minority of the populace that government at all levels, rather than terrorists, is our enemy.

I understand suspicion of government. Clearly government has grown to exert influence in aspects of our businesses and lives into which it was never meant to encroach. That is our fault as citizens, as government excesses are the result of voter apathy and could be reigned in by a more informed and involved populace. However, this alleged concern over who is watching the watchers when it comes to government video surveillance in public areas is misguided. The watchers observe only public behavior that they could witness if they were seated on a park bench watching crowds pass by them. The fact that they sit in a control room instead of a park bench should make no difference. They are not watching citizens engaged in any private behaviors or in intimate settings, thus it is difficult to pinpoint precisely what Barr fears he will be observed doing by these “Big Brother” public surveillance systems. Like most privacy advocates, Barr cannot offer one example of how his privacy would be violated by a surveillance system in a public area or explain what liberties or freedoms he would lose while on camera.

Americans have been filmed burning the flag, making obscene finger gestures at the president, and similar behaviors and these have been protected as “free speech.” Cameras do not curb political protest or freedom of expression. Barr should speak with any political action group and ask whether they prefer to demonstrate in front of cameras or in useless anonymity off camera. Obviously they seek out cameras and attention, and have no fear of voicing their opinions in public. What freedoms would Barr lose with the presence of public surveillance cameras? He left the answer to that question out of his OpEd piece because the answer would have rendered his fear mongering unnecessary.

Barr may have couched his argument in anti-government rhetoric about privacy, but it seemed that his real concern may have been that New York will one day follow London’s example and use cameras to identify traffic violators and issue fines or tickets. I reiterate my previous point that government excesses are the fault of voter apathy. Americans have expressed overwhelming support for London and New York-style surveillance camera systems in public areas to help protect us from terrorists, and if we do not want those systems to be used for other purposes like traffic fines then we must exercise control over government and restrict its reach.

In the meantime, I will continue to visit historic sites, tourist attractions, government buildings, and financial centers knowing that I am on camera and not bothered at all by that fact. After all, in public it is always a wise personal safety tactic to assume you are being watched. I am glad that our cities are making terrorists more conscious of that fact. If I am being watched in public, so are the planners of a potential attack. I am confident that “the watchers” will differentiate between us. Unless Barr plans to engage in criminal or terrorist pre-operational surveillance in a public area, the only thing he needs to fear with cameras is his fear itself.

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Bob Barr, Big Brother, Michael Bloomberg, Surveillance Cameras, CCTV, Privacy Rights, Terrorist Surveillance, New York, London