STDIN

The readings for Wednesday's class informed our jumping off point for conversation. George Radwanski's letter to RCMP Commissioner Loukidelis provides an excellent summary of the issues inherent to discussions of mechanical surveillance of public activity, noting many points on the conception of privacy with demand a nuanced approach to account for the subject's stickiness--as we discussed in class, defining 'privacy' is not an easy project, so what people need to do is come up with working definitions that are effective given certain conditions and goals. Radwanski's goals are a safe, well-organized and respectful society-- he speaks of privacy in one's home as a human right, expressing both a conception of the government's role in individual lives, as well as a more implicit conception of the home or 'private' life which citizens are entitled to. For instance, he mentions that the Canadian government cannot "compile detailed dossiers on citizens 'just in case', an assumption about government's role in private life which is not as popular among American legislators. Privacy means something different in American, as it means something different nearly everywhere, to nearly everyone.

Also central to our discussion was Siva Vaidhyanathan's "Naked in the Nonopticon" which discussed issues of data privacy and data trafficking, as well as the shields of opacity used by both individuals and institutions to protect themselves while hiding select information. He outlines a number of different models to understand these complex re-routed flows of carefully selected information-- first, there's the classic panopticon model, in which subjects are aware that they could be observed at any time, but never positive whether they are being watched currently. In theory, the panopticon achieves the effect of total surveillance without having to actually surveil constantly, as people alter their behavior as though they were being observed all the time, just in case. He also introduces the 'nonopticon', a model useful for understanding the surveillance of digital data-- subjects are never aware whether they're being monitored because the surveillance apparatus is completely obscured. Third, he introduces the concept of 'sousveillance', or surveillance of surveillers by subjects.

So Wednesday's class began with students' attempts to define privacy-- the concept of privacy is far from absolute. It means different things in different contexts, and is thus difficult to define. One would do well to note that it is constructed by social conditioning. Different cultures have different notions of the level of privacy that one could reasonably demand or claim entitlement to. This complicates discussion of an individual's "right to privacy" because the concept of a RIGHT is usually understood to be fairly universal. In reality neither privacy nor rights are universally understood to mean any one thing.

Vagueness = Customizability

In effect, privacy means what people want it to mean. People use privacy to protect themselves, from whatever they find to be threatening. Privacy is difficult to peg as a 'right' because most rights are defined positively-- you CAN assemble freely, you CAN own a gun, etc. Privacy, in contrast, is defined negatively. To enact privacy is to say that you can NOT be surveilled or recorded in a given situation. However, it's difficult to imagine a cultural arrangement where one would ever be completely free from the gaze of his or her neighbors. Privacy does not exist unless placed in opposition to publicness or display.

Opacity vs. Transperancy

Protection of information is protection of the self. In a completely free egalitarian society there would, in theory, be no need for privacy. The division between selves, between workself and playself, of streetself and homeself, is a form of alienation. Marx theorized that in his unalienated state, man would not play multiple socially determined roles but act as one, holistic, self-- thus one might say that alienation necesitates privacy. If we were truly free and at peace, privacy would be a non-issue. But we aren't that free.

Privacy can cause alienation as well. It is not only the subject, the consumer, that enacts privacy in an attempt to protect his or her self. Corporations enact privacy in the form of opacity with regards to trade secrets, financial information or other data that if proliferated could dent profits or marketshare. Coca Cola protects the secret recipe and Apple locks its computers. As a result the consumer is left to purchase commodities about which he he or she knows next to nothing.

Apparent Surveillance, Hidden Surveillance

In discussions of privacy the Panopticon is frequently invoked-- all subjects know that they may be watched at any time, because the apparatus for surveillance is apparent, though one never knows if they are currently being observed. Some scholars have coined the term nonopticon to refer to technniques of surveillance which do not reveal themselves-- I personally would argue that in our current cultural framework, the nonopticon is nearly a moot point-- though its framework isn't always readily apparent, we can be certain at all times that if someone wanted to observe us, they would be able to. I would argue that the panopticon is so ubiquitous that it no longer requires a symbolic presence in order to make itself apparent. It goes without saying.

One thing that one can not be sure of, however, is the exact extent of possible consequences for the information that interested parties may obtain. Because the surveillers enact a certain amount of their own privacy, one is never completely sure just what observers know. Ironically, it is the same privacy presumed to protect individuals which also prevents them from knowing the extent of their subjectification.

Privacy = Control

Privacy is a form of control. However, their are historical examples of tight control restricting intellectual activity and cultural production. The digital age has thus far been characterized by a number of experiments in transperancy and relinquish of control-- of code in open source projects, or personal information on facebook. Though the negative effects are difficult to pin down, the positive effects have been apparent-- systems of efficient community support have emerged surrounding everything from child rearing advice to the production of computer operating systems. In addition, there are examples of surveillance technologies being used to protect rights aside from privacy-- by protestors to document police response, for instance. This is called sousveillance, surveillance used to protect individuals from the gaze of other surveillance methods.

--James Hodges