CCTVs: Watching Us While We See Nothing

Cameras are more than welcome at the G20 summit, people not so much.

Closed-circuit television cameras (CCTVs) have become the unseeing eyes of this era. They’ve punched out organic eyes, blinded us all to each other. We welcome 67 new cameras to Toronto in honour of the G20 summit, a.k.a. the Paranoia Pinnacle. We sure don’t welcome people – I mean the you and me kind of people, regular folks, voters and other antique figures.

We ought to be used to the high surveillance fever government agencies run – they have the fever but somehow make us sweat. If you want to know just where you’ll be allowed to breathe, surveilled or not, check in here. If you don’t have a purpose, a passport, a place at the table, or are otherwise recognized as a person, please push off.

If you want to make a cause known, you can go to the north part of Queen’s Park, as close as Baffin Island in city terms, and scream your heart out where nobody has to listen to you. That’s officially called the Designated Speech Area. If you’re outside it, please don’t speech.

Meanwhile, in the sacrifice zone, unblinking vulture CCTVs crane their short necks, collecting streams of digital images of any unpersons who wander too close to the security perimeter. Data harvested from these mechanical eyes will be stored we have no idea where and kept for we have no idea how long. Your face will be playing on ThemTube, behind a government firewall.

The lure of the CCTV is that they’re supposed to scare people into staying away. If you have to travel, if you want to make a complaint against the government, they’ll dial you up. Ever been on camera? No? Visited your ATM recently? They’ve got your picture. And it can be matched against any 2-D picture one of these cameras is going to take.

What the G20 persons would like you to have is: nothing. They’ll talk about what exactly we’re not sure. The press will be fed information bran – hard to digest, easy to get rid of. Inside will be an oasis of information you and I will never know about. Outside will be a human desert. And if there are human beings there, they’ll be tagged and numbered for future reference.

I know what you’re thinking: but if you’re not civil enough to be shepherded into the pasture at Queen’s Park, you must mean to cause trouble. You’ll need some pepper sprayed on you, or maybe a shot from a sound cannon. But remember, this is our city, for all Canadians.

It isn’t a desert, and free speech, as the phrase suggests, doesn’t have designated areas. Free speech (not to be confused with free violence) means you get to have your say, and you get to have it where you want it.

We’ve entered a time when democracy is for a few (and that means it isn’t a democracy anymore). Whoever these 20 Gs are, they’re not you and me. They’re all data, power, knowledge, and speech.

The rest of us are out here in the desert, blinded by the sun spiking our eyes from CCTV lenses. We don’t see anything, but are always seen.

Look up for a camera, smile and wave. Did you have a better plan?