# Surveillance or Sousveillance?



## a_majoor (4 Jan 2013)

The age of privacy is over, but not quite in the way that George Orwell had considered. This article points out the scale and scope of the problem, but reaches no conclusions. Essentially, data recording, storage and retrieval have become so cheap and sophisticated that we are all under surveillance of some sort or other all the time. Now it is still possible to get under the radar some of the time (although with mixed results. I throw the occasional nonsense search into Google to see what will come up on adsense [the sidebar ads on your searches and Gmail page], and after playing with Bollywood movies started getting ads for saris, medical tourism to Mumbai and offers to date Indian women....I can hardly wait to see what happens when I start doing searches on Sergei Eisenstein). OTOH since _your_ data is being sent to marketing organizations and profilers for free, corrupting their databases seems an appropriate response.

The longer term effects of living in a surveillance society where the State intrudes on your life is bad, but the effects of living in a sousvellance society where you are under constant observation by random strangers are hard to judge. At least a sousvellace society also means the watchers are also under observation (as the article notes, the numbers and placement of cameras is easily accessable via crowdsourcing and the Internet).

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887323984704578206063994711952.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop



> *Andy Kessler: In the Privacy Wars, It's iSpy vs. gSpy*
> Big Brother is watching us. But we are watching back.
> 
> By ANDY KESSLER
> ...


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## a_majoor (8 Feb 2013)

The positive of Sousveillance is *we* can find out about these things. The bad thing about Sousveillance is it provides no context. Given the bare facts laid out in this article, it is pretty easy to see how paranoid conspiracy theories can arise (what exactly is the purpose of all that ammunition? Why are government departments not actively involved in law enforcement being armed and equipped?). We can hope that exposure does lead to explanation:

http://news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/020813-643707-obama-homeland-security-vast-ammunition-purchases.htm

[pquote]
*Why are the feds loading up on so much ammo?*

By Andrew Malcolm

Posted 09:02 AM ET

In a puzzling, unexplained development, the Obama administration has been buying and storing vast amounts of ammunition in recent months, with the Department of Homeland Security just placing another order for an additional 21.6 million rounds.

Several other agencies of the federal government also began buying large quantities of bullets last year. The Social Security Administration, for instance, not normally considered on the frontlines of anything but dealing with seniors, explained that its purchase of millions of rounds was for special agents' required quarterly weapons qualifications. They must be pretty poor shots.

But DHS has been silent about its need for numerous orders of bullets in the multiple millions. Indeed, Examiner writer Ryan Keller points out Janet Napolitano's agency illegally redacted information from some ammunition solicitation forms following media inquiries.

According to one estimate, just since last spring DHS has stockpiled more than 1.6 billion bullets, mainly .40 caliber and 9mm. That's sufficient firepower to shoot every American about five times. Including illegal immigrants.

To provide some perspective, experts estimate that at the peak of the Iraq war American troops were firing around 5.5 million rounds per month. At that rate, DHS is armed now for a 24-year Iraq war.

The perceived need for so much ammunition in federal custody is especially strange given Obama's double-barreled emphasis in his inaugural address on the approaching end in Afghanistan "of a decade of war." And he also noted, "We, the people, still believe that enduring security and lasting peace do not require perpetual war."

The lack of a credible official explanation for such awesome ammunition acquisitions is feeding all sorts of conspiracy theories, mainly centered on federal anticipation of some kind of domestic insurrection. Napolitano has at times alluded to threats from the extreme right-wing.

Other conspiracists harken back to an Obama Colorado campaign speech in July, 2008. That day he deviated from his prepared text to say:

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded."

Writing at American Thinker, Lee Cary noted at the time that the speech context seemed to involve expanded opportunities for community service. But as still happens when Obama goes off-teleprompter, his non-fortuitous word choice on the fly such as "national security force" prompted numerous writers to speculate since about some kind of national Obama para-military force.

And as great as Obama's unlikely, newly-revealed passion for skeet-shooting might be, that involves shotguns, not handguns over-heated from blasting off millions of rounds.

Additionally, Napolitano, a former governor of Arizona, is widely expected to seek the 2016 Democrat presidential nomination. But you wouldn't think she'd need that much ammo for such a bid.

Read More At IBD: http://news.investors.com/politics-andrew-malcolm/020813-643707-obama-homeland-security-vast-ammunition-purchases.htm#ixzz2KKpTBrHC
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[/quote]


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## BeyondTheNow (8 Feb 2013)

I feel there's a blind complacency to 'sousveillance', which is both scary _and_ expected, unfortunately.   I think the people who are most uncomfortable with the direction society has taken in this regard feel that they're at too much of a loss to bother doing anything about it--_is_ there anything that can be done at this stage to somewhat dampen the level at which we're all monitored?  New laws/legislation can't keep up with the speed at which things are progressing...

I remember reading an article not too long ago about some patrons at a mall being upset that they weren't properly notified (via signage, mainly) about being recorded (video surveillance) while inside.   The most prominent comment about the article and directed at the complainants was, basically, you should expect it these days.

But honestly, out of both articles, what scared me the most was;

"We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." Yikes.


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## a_majoor (8 Feb 2013)

Don't forget Sousvellance is where *we* monitor *them*, rather than the one way surveillance of the past. For the literary minded, imagine if Winston Smith was able to use the Telescreen to see just what the Inner Party member were up to.

Like I pointed out, sousvellance provides a tool to observe, but not to provide insight. On the surface, it is very difficult to imagine what, exactly is going on with the various US government departments purchasing firearms and ammunition in sufficient quantities to fight prolonged wars, or what Mr Obama ment when he made the "We cannot continue to rely on our military in order to achieve the national security objectives that we've set. We've got to have a civilian national security force that's just as powerful, just as strong, just as well-funded." remark.

Absent of further information, you can spin this in all kinds of ways (and very few seem compatable with ideas of limited government, adherence to the Rule of Law and so on), but since you cannot prove a negative, this is clearly a counterproductive exercise. Perhaps the reality is these agencies find this an easy way to "blow" the budget on domestic goods and services, and decades from now we will discover warehouses of containing millions of rounds of corroded ammunition that had been improperly packed and stored.


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## BeyondTheNow (8 Feb 2013)

Sorry, I didn't clearly identify that I understood the meaning very well and after re-reading my own comment, I see that it's very slanted towards 'surveillance' rather than 'sous...'. I like your summarization very much though--more straight-forward.  

I'd like to think that there's a more intelligent and (positively) productive plan behind the purchasing, but I wouldn't be surprised if your last paragraph turned out to be true.  I struggle with the amount of (limited) insight I/society has into government workings as a whole.  Personally speaking, the more insight I gain, the more questions I have, and the more dissatisfied I am with the answers I manage to find.  Some would think that the more insight one has, the less likely one would be to create or "spin" radical conspiracies/theories and spread their odd ideas to those who grasp them readily.  There are countless examples of this _not_ being the case though, so what's better? I don't know. Is it better to remain blissfully ignorant or to continue on the path we're on where _all_ aspects of society (government/civie) are being monitored to varying degrees for a variety of reasons?

I feel limited on how much I can intelligently contribute to the subject matter--aspects of it are definitely over my head.  But it's very thought-provoking, which I tend to be drawn to.  If you find more related articles, please do share.  I really enjoy items like this.


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## a_majoor (11 Feb 2013)

Well here is an article that ties the themes of Sousveillance and context neatly together. It seems that the reason for the exaggerated amounts of ammunition being purchased by government organs is nothing more than old fashioned money laundering:

http://senseofevents.blogspot.ca/2013/02/why-is-dhs-buying-billions-of-rounds-of.html



> *Why is DHS buying billions of rounds of amunition?*
> By Donald Sensing
> Your tax dollars at work:
> 
> ...


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## BeyondTheNow (11 Feb 2013)

I personally enjoyed reason number 3... 


For the fun of it, I looked up _The Evian Group Inc._, which according to their website was founded in 1995.

http://www.imd.org/eviangroup/

"The forces of globalization will continue to foster economic interdependence and systemic complexity in the 21st century. As the velocity of economic interactions increases and changes occur, there is a natural temptation for governments to rely on trade protectionism and regulatory intervention. The Evian Group@IMD focuses its efforts on promoting a better understanding of how multilateral rules and governance can help businesses and societies to benefit from economic globalization.

Carlos A. Primo Braga, 2012
Professor of International Political Economy
Director of The Evian Group@IMD"

========

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evian_Group_at_IMD

"The Evian Group at IMD is an international coalition of corporate, government and opinion leaders, committed to fostering an open, inclusive, equitable and sustainable global market economy in a rules-based multilateral framework."

========

A brochure example

http://www.imd.org/research/centers/upload/EG_brochure_for_website.pdf

...I'm not sure that I fully understand what their purpose is (?)


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## a_majoor (24 Feb 2013)

Sousveillance in action in England:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/motoring/news/9863442/Vigilantes-fighting-revenue-driven-traffic-enforcement.html



> *Vigilantes fighting revenue-driven traffic enforcement*
> Meet the motorcyclists dedicated to save you from traffic fines.
> 
> By Linda Harrison
> ...


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