The Idea of Surveillance : Post-Class

The idea of always being watched is becoming quite common these days. Wherever you go, you hear of security cameras or various systems in place that you feel like someone is seeing everything you do. However, what is funny about this system and its implantation into our world is that it is not quite ‘everywhere.’ Of course it is in the airports and most retail venues in addition to a laundry list of other locations, but ‘everywhere’ is broad and I would inaccurate. Nevertheless, this follows in Foucault’s idea of surveillance. We have become so accustomed to being ‘watched’ that there is a very blurry line between the times we are or are not. It is easy to walk into a store and assume it has security cameras all throughout the location, but that does not mean they are actually there. On a different note, “everyone locked up in his cage, everyone at his window, answering to his name and showing himself when asked” writes Foucault, a statement I cannot help but agree with (95). Here is all this security that is making us safer, possibly hindering our privacy, but make us safer. We go into a situation where these precautions are in place and blindly abide to them. Whether it is a metal detector, a security camera, or the newly introduced scanners in airports, we go in and blindly abide to everything going on because in our minds we justify it as being the right thing to do. If we can assure ourselves that these precautions are for a greater cause, than we do not mind being passive, but there is a great narrative going on. What about privacy and rights? Are these being infringed upon? That is where I stand, asking those questions, wondering what to think first.