What is Surveillance?

The word surveillance has not been used throughout the ages, though the concept has existed under other ideals. Ideals such as Freedom, Self-determination, Equality, and Liberty.

Surveillance is the first step to losing all of those ideals.

Surveillance is the tool used to limit an individual’s freedom, and establish control over a population by those with the power to surveil and the ability to punish, restrict or control activities that are deemed counter to the desires of, or beneficial to those in power.

The deeper consequence of modern mass surveillance isn't just restriction or punishment, it is behavioral modification. People who believe they are being watched will self-censor, conform, and avoid association long before any punishment occurs. Scholars call this the "chilling effect," and it is arguably the primary function of systems like Palantir's, Flock, Axon, and others since they make the possibility of observation omnipresent. 

While I have a lot to say on the concept of Surveillance and the ideals I just listed, I will leave the bulk of that to an article I am writing. The article will be available soon on my website.

I also address the consequences of Surveillance in society in my “fictional” series “Law is Not Justice.”

In Law is Not Justice, I explore the actions of ordinary people fighting back against a Surveillance State and the inevitable consequences of letting those with little to no morals, scruples or ethics surveil you.  The dangers of having unethical and immoral people with effectively unlimited power in the form of billions of dollars, paid mercenaries, sycophants, corrupt judges, law enforcement and government leaders at their beck and call, should be obvious to anyone watching the news of late.