April 10, 2015--Ready for Your Closeup?

Though I hate the proliferation of surveillance cameras that make me feel that wherever I am under scrutiny--on the street, in my car, going through a red light, in my Manhattan apartment elevator, getting coffee at a 7-Eleven--I am having some second thoughts about being tracked and continuously videotaped.

All our traditional notions of privacy have been obliterated by these cameras, urban crowding, social networks, big data mining (check out the explosion of ads targeted to you on Facebook), and a youth culture that thrives on self-promotion and exhibitionism.

Then of course there are all the people whose smartphones are also video cameras, the hackers and, more than anything else, the various domestic surveillance programs of federal agencies such as the CIA, FBI, and especially the NSA. Pretty much everything that someone wants to know about you--from the sources and amounts of your income to your medical records to your shopping and reading habits--are readily available. Thus, though some may hate knowing this--and for whom the only alternative is to live in the North Woods off the grid--by now there is virtually nothing one can do to retain any shred of privacy.

And then there are the benefits that are less discussed--how these images and data enhance legitimate efforts by the police and justice system to keep us safe.

In the news in the last day or two are glaring examples.

First, in Boston, at the conclusion of the trial of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, with his brother one of the Boston Marathon bombers, we were reminded of how large a part surveillance cameras on the street where they placed their pressure-cooker bombs contributed to their being tracked down and apprehended in only days, which thwarted their plans to explode more bombs in New York City. Without the images of them walking calmly in lockstep toward the bomb site it would have likely taken many days or weeks to apprehend them.

And also a few days ago, in North Charleston, SC, a white policeman, Micahel Slager, was caught on a smartphone camera when he gunned down and murdered a black man, Walter Scott, who from the images it was clear was posing no threat to the officer. Without the video it is likely that it would have been easier than it will be at the eventual trial to cover up the truth of what occurred.

So how to think about this is complicated.