Surveillance Trends

As a Canadian I find that American trends worry me because they can be adopted in Canada on the simple basis that they have been “effectively implemented” in the States. I wonder whose judgment is it that applies the term “effective”?

I just came across a journal entry I had written manually I while back in response to the article about how surveillance is being used a California school, the Turlock Learning Centre Education Academy. The link is http://www.news10.net/storyfull.asp?id8095

The idea of parents watching students at school just seems wrong. How are kids supposed to learn to be good for it’s own benefits rather than being good because they are being watched? Wasn’t there a psychology study about how people being watched who know they are being watched, change their behavior?

How are students to learn the difference between backstage and front stage performances if everything becomes front stage? Will they become so desensitized that they will no longer differentiate? How do they test their boundaries?

The budget for this particular system was about $50,000. This money would have probably been better spent on other things like teaching aids or educational field trips. In reality, in a world where parents use t.v. as babysitters, do we really believe that parents are going to use this system to monitor and be more involved with their children?

Another surveillance system article relating to it’s implementation on Chicago streets also got to me mostly because of the attitude of the Mayor who commented that the City owned the streets and implying that citizens don’t own the streets. He talks as though people who pay taxes have no rights in terms of having a say in how their tax dollars are spent. He argues the surveillance doesn’t impinge on personal privacy because they are not inside homes or businesses. If the surveillance cameras are showing any entryways then isn’t this just the first step to crossing the property line?

However, in my readings I did come across an article which refreshed my trust in Canadians to not just blindly follow the Americans:

U.S. Patriot Act Raises Canadian Privacy Fears

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20041003/lf_nm/security_canada_usa_dc_1