abused was out of the abuser’s control (grown up, in another job) they could retaliate and complain, proof in hand. The possibility of deferred vengeance would make abuse much less likely to occur in the first place. With reduced crime, we could also expect a significant reduction in police work and, by extension, police numbers. Beyond a rapid- reaction force tasked with responding to rare crimes of passion, there would be no need to keep a large police force on hand. And there would also be no need for them to enjoy the special rights they do today. Police officers can, on mere suspicion, detain you, search your person, interrogate you, and sometimes enter your home. They can also arrest you on suspicion of vague “crimes” such as “loitering with intent.” Our present police force is given these powers because it needs to be able to investigate. Police officers can’t be expected to know who committed what crime, and when, so they need extra powers to be able to figure this out, and still more special powers to protect themselves while they do so. But in a total-surveillance world, there would be no need for humans to have such extensive powers of investigation. For most crimes, guilt or innocence would be obvious and easy to establish from the recordings. The police’s role could be reduced to arresting specific individuals, who have violated specific laws. If all goes well, there might be fewer laws for the police to enforce. Most countries currently have an excess of laws, criminalizing all sorts of behavior. This is only tolerated because of selective enforcement; the laws are enforced very rarely, or only against marginalized groups. But if everyone was
It sounds nightmarish – but it might be inevitable.
create near-perfect deterrence, and violent crime would be reduced to a few remaining incidents of overwhelming passion or extreme irrationality. If surveillance recordings were stored for later analysis, other types of crimes could be eradicated as well, because perpetrators would fear later discovery and punishment. We could expect crimes such as low-level corruption to vanish, because bribes would become perilous (to demand or receive) for those who are constantly under watch. We would likely see a similar reduction in police brutality. There might be an initial spike in detected cases of police brutality under a total surveillance regime, as incidents that would previously have gone unnoticed came to light, but then, after a short while, the numbers would tumble. Ubiquitous video recording, mobile and otherwise, has already begun to expose such incidents. On a smaller scale, mass surveillance would combat all kinds of abuses that currently go unreported because the abuser has power over the abused. You see this dynamic in a variety of scenarios, from the dramatic (child abuse) to the more mundane (line managers insisting on illegal, unpaid overtime). Even if the victim is too scared to report the crime, the simple fact that the recordings existed would go a long way towards equalizing existing power differentials. There would be the constant risk of some auditor or analyst stumbling on the recording, and once the
American Consequences 47
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