Surveillance, Online. 2013

“*The street is watching”…. what is this? Of course the street is always watching, always being watched. Online surveillance is simply one more step – in a long and continuous homo sapiens line – of outright oogling.
Anyway, just what does that phrase “online surveillance”, mean? At this time no formal definition, online or other, can be found by this writer. The closest definitions are the verb “surveil…   to observe closely the activities of (a person or organisation)”

or “electronic surveillance”. The Free Online Dictionary (2013), provides two definitions here.  Also called “electronic engineering”, this is firstly the “use of such electronic devices as television monitors, video cameras, etc.” Secondly, the definition  includes “monitoring events, conversations, etc, at a distance”.

To sidetrack for one moment: frankly, it seems natural that we ALL want to be observed – isn’t that what it Life is about, being watched, and watching? Isn’t  watching all bound up with that desire thing – that itchy, twitchy thaang, that we just have to scratch, or watch? (If anyone reading this doesn’t believe, or indulge in that scratch-watching, then they are either senile already, or too young to have yet found their deepest, inner selves.)

Especially when at home, alone, late at night.

Luckily, writers like Hunter S. Thompson, one of our era’s greatest and most tragic poetic heroes, help us all get in touch with our rather horrid, subterranean Selfies. Hunter S. presents our surveillance proclivities, head-on, at  http://espn.go.com/page2/s/thompson/011023.html

In this particular Hunter S. truth we are regaled with some of the many, intimate  advantages afforded the ordinary person by the now ‘traditional’ forms of electronic surveillance such as TV. Hunter outlines some of the enjoyable predictive elements these more established forms of modern, remote surveillance provide, such as voyeuristic viewing and bonding with a chosen sports team.

Hunter S. demonstrates how, via engagement in these forms ofsurveillance, personal vengeance can extracted. For example, by describing certain teams as “doomed like blind pigs”, or “chicken crap”. Especially those teams he has observed that, in their pathetic performance, have “humiliated” him, personally.

Yes, I know, he’s American – but they often have the best lines. He then quickly moves onto other actual, individual, highly-inventive art-form, modern surveillance. He reveals some of his associated “visions” or insights, which, during the previous week, resulted in his “doing top-secret surveillancework on some of my neighbors (sic) who are obviously up to no good and need to be watched closely.”

Familiar?  The good news for us is, contrary to all of the current shouting, surveillance, online, whatever, comes out of something we all really, really want. Provided, like sport – televised or streamed – and Wikileaks online, (or televised) it’s right out there in the open.

The second good news is that, wow, as a two-way form of communication, it is democratic. We can all be involved, one way or another and, give vent to our associated emotions, as shown by Hunter S, and out in the open! What a relief!

Face it; in our multicultural, globalised, online world, privacy is not buried, it is  DEAD!

David W. Hill recently wrote, in a book commissioned by the European  intergovernmental  group COST, about our  voluntary “self-disclosure in the social web”. In particular he commented about our agreed contract with consumerism, saying:
“On the one hand, the expression of thoughts and feelings; on the other hand, the shameless hawking of fizzy pop: the willingness of the user to allow the latter to be represented as the former”. Hill goes on to say we have all been conditioned to acquiesce to this system.

That seems far too simplistic an explanation. Really, truly, surely…  there is no one left alive today who thinks that we get access to Facebook, Twitter, Google – for free? Provision of these services we, the public are willing to ‘buy’, or rather, barter. And, anyway you package it, those services allow us to, well, look.  Or “surveil… watch closely” –  pretty well everything, and everyone: surveillance.

So, let’s look at a current definition of the noun “surveillance” itself. The Oxford Dictionary group (2013) and several others, all online, state: “close observation of a person, especially a suspected spy, or criminal”. Anyway you look at it, that sounds like something established long, long ago. Yep, surveillance is an old, old tradition. While you probably think today is a long way from the Old Testament, those guys had some great lines too. Ecclesiastes, (1:9I), for example, apparently first observed there was nothing new under the sun. Think about all the  spying that went on in ancient Imperial Rome, or Queen Cleopatra of the Kingdom of Egypt’s court.

The importance of this ancient statement was reinforced recently by Bret Easton Ellis. Now recognised as one of our most important, apocalyptic prophetic writers of today, Easton Ellis is a person who certainly seems somewhat preoccupied with surveillance. Yet, at the front of one of his most successful novels he provides a quote. From Krishna. That runs: apparently while man and Krishna were always around, so too were kings. Thus it seems safe to assume Easton-Ellis believes kings are at the root of much that not only previously occurred, forever, but also that goes down today.

Otherwise, would such an exquisitely, and minutely-focussed writer ever mention such an outmoded, archaic construct? So in case it hasn’t already hit us, it is probably important we work out where these kings fit – in the whole surveillance issue.

On that assumption we consider that The Oxford Dictionary (2013) of British and World English, and several other online dictionaries continue to define “king” as “a male ruler of an independent state, especially one… by right of birth”. So kings are born to rule, still do today. Now, the word “ruler” is interesting: “person exercising government, or dominion” – from Oxford University Press (2013) online. The word “dominion”, from the same source,  is even more so: “sovereignty, or control”.

Then we must resort to The Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary,online, to define the  word “sovreignty… complete power to govern a country”.

So we get to the powerpoint-clear conclusion; this thing, surveillance,online or not, is out of our hands –  these king boys still have, one key way or another, the power – and  the control. One venerable tradition of power and  control is surveillance, and so, as there is nothing new under the sun we, as always – make the most of what’s on offer. Peace

End

• I wrote this piece and entered it in a competition advertised by a major, but edgy online magazine. The magazine only acknowledged receipt after many naggings. They then delayed the results of the competition – for more than 2 years! So who knows what happens in that world….. anyway, I enjoyed myself while researching their subject and writing the article. old sus