Back in the pre-digital age, it was feared that having cameras everywhere
would lead to a Big Brother state, where the government would use this footage
against us. But now, thanks to the latest scandals involving NFL wife abusers
and naked movie stars, it is becoming clear that the real problem is not Big
Brother, but Little Brother.
Who is Little Brother? He ( or she) is not
the government, but anyone who gets their hands on some of the millions of
hours of raw footage that is taken every day of the rest of us. Unlike the
National Security Agency, which at least knows what laws it is breaking, Little
Brother could be an underpaid security guard in a hotel, or a stockroom boy in
a grocery store, or some pimply kid living in his parent's basement with a gift
for hacking. All they need to do is come across some embarassing act that has
been captured by the ubiquitous security cameras. It may be a child wetting its
pants in a grocery store, or a kiss in a stairwell that is discovered by the
cuckholded husband, which leads to a fight. Or a star NFL player hitting his
wife so hard in an elevator that she is knocked unconscious.
Some may object that we all had a right to
see the video of Ray Rice hitting his then fiancee in the elevator, since it
has exposed the tolerance of wife abuse in the NFL. That sounds like good
journalism, right? The problem with that perspective is that Ray Rice's
fiancee, Janay Palmer, was not consulted before the video was released to the
Internet. The Ravens already knew about the beating, and had suspended him for
two games ( a light sentence, obviously).
If Little Brother was trying to help her, the video completely
backfired. By the time it was released, she had married the star Ravens player,
who had a 35 million dollar contract. The public outcry over the video led to
the cancellation of that contract. Before the video was released, Ms Palmer was
married to a wife beater who was worth a lot of money. Had she chosen to
divorce him later, she could have walked away with a lot of money, depending on
their pre-nuptial agreement. But thanks to Little Brother, her wife-beating
husband is now worth nothing ( and perhaps less, if he is in debt). She has
publicly objected to the NFL's rulings and the cancellation of her husband's
contract. We may disagree about her loyalty to her husband, but there is no
question that the video has ruined his career, and decimated her financial situation, not to mention grossly
abused her right to privacy. Through no fault of her own, she is the public
face of wife abuse, a role she did not ask for, and which should not have been
thrust upon her against her will.
The problem here is that Little Brother
doesn't care about the law, fairness or future consequences. Little Brother is
just some unknown employee at the hotel, grocery store or parking lot who sees
something that might get some traction online, and may earn him or her some
cash. That's the full extent of their moral reckoning, which is to say, none at
all. At least with Big Brother, the focus was more narrow. The National
Security Agency only cares about the video footage that it can use to find
terrorists or threats to the state. Moreover, the government doesn't have
enough people or computers to watch all the footage that is being collected.
But Little Brother does have the time. Some schmo *is* watching that footage
all the time in some low paying job, and will notice when you or someone famous
does something embarrassing. Unlike Big Brother, the bar is much lower for what
is worth posting, since national security is not the main filter. This is a big
problem, one that is far more
likely to catch up with you than anything the government may come up with.
This is why all those cameras in stores and
parking lots are a problem. They claim in those little signs that they are for
our security, but Little Brother doesn't see it that way. Janay Palmer's
personal security was not protected by having an elevator camera film her
beating. She lost her privacy, and her
financial security by the release of the video. A grocery store that has
cameras in every direction stands to save how much money from shoplifting? The
maximum price of any item is about twenty dollars in most smaller stores. But
the money Little Brother can make ( and that you can lose) through posting a humiliating
video is far, far more. We are all at the mercy of Little Brother now, and it
will take a lot of work and new laws to reign him in. I, for one, would happily
just have all those security cameras removed. I would much rather have a
security guard watch the parking lot and come home with a funny story, rather
than have a security camera take footage which ends up online the next day,
featuring some couple's mishap as they try to make out in a car.
All those cameras are *not* for our
security - that is just Orwellian doublespeak ( also known as B.S.). It is the
company that owns the cameras - the store, the parking lot, the casino- which
enhances its security with the cameras. No one came to Janay Palmer's rescue as
she was being beaten. The crime will be committed, and it may be on film, but
any bad guy knows that the best defence is a cheap hoody to keep their identity
hidden. So, at best, we get footage of unknown criminals. Meanwhile, what shows
up very clearly on the footage are the people who are not committing crimes, (
us), but whose actions are deemed worth uploading. Those security cameras are a
sham, and just make our lives less secure. Little Brothers won't ask the Janay
Palmers of the world if they want their footage uploaded, and they won't ask
you, either.
It isn't 1984 we need to worry about, it is
2014.
Stephen Milton is a freelance documentary
film maker in Toronto, Canada. www.milton2.tv
