Jeff's question yesterday

Yesterday Jeff asked an important question. I can't recall exactly how he worded it, which is a shame because it was worded well. I think the question was "why do you there is a problem with the police/the state surveilling you?" I didn't answer the question well, but I've been thinking about it ever since. Maybe this answer will be more convincing.

Presuming that we are under permanent surveillance makes us into particular sorts of people. We don't trust each other. We may not even trust ourselves. We start to think of ourselves as "watched." This can lead us to treat ourselves--and each other--as people of whom we are suspicious. In effect, this leads us to adopting the perspective of the police on ourselves and each other. The idea of innocent until proven guilty--a primary supposition of our legal system--turns into guilty until proven innocent.

Here's another way to think about the question. We live our lives with different people. The differences among these interactions is important for us. It expands us and gives us different experiences, different experiences of freedom. For example, how you talk with your friends on a Saturday night is not the same as how you speak in class. How you speak in class is not the same as how you speak with your parents. How you speak with your parents is not how you speak with your girlfriend or boyfriend. How would we change our actions if we had to imagine that even our buddies were always watching them on a screen. They would make fun of us, tease us, tell us we sounded stupid. This is fine for when we are hanging out with buddies. But maybe we want other interactions to have a different character.

The issue of surveillance, then, is not just a matter of hiding from the law or trying to get away from thinks. It involves thinking of the ways that privacy is important for being a particular kind of person.