As my collaborator in Rio de Janeiro, Paola Barreto Leblanc, points out to me, it isn’t just the police (see previous posts here and here) who have been installing surveillance cameras in the favelas. Accoring to UOL, in September 2008, the military police found a whole clandestine CCTV system of 12 cameras, and a control room hidden behind a false wall, in Parada de Lucas, a favela in the Zona Norte of the city. The cameras covered all the entrances to the favela. The system was allegedly operated by a drug-trafficking gang but since the room was, according to the reports, destroyed in the police attack, and no one was captured, it is hard to verify the story… however it is not surprising that a major illegal commercial operation would seek to have early warning of police (and other gang) raids in this way. Indeed, this system may well have been the reason why no traficantes were caught in the raid in question. From the interview we did earlier in the year, it seems clear that the favelas have intense human surveillance systems of mutual observation, whether they are gang-controlled, community-controlled or police-‘pacified’ morros. Very little goes on in the crowded informal settlements that almost everyone will not know about. Of course, the nature of the power-structure within the favela will determine to whose benefit such knowledge works. CCTV in a context like this can be seen as a sign of insecurity and weakness. Perhaps the Parada de Lucas gang felt that they were losing their grip, and the cameras in Santa Marta installed by the military police certainly seem to indicate a lack of trust in the community and the civil pacification measures – investment, infrastructure development, regular meetings and confidence-building – so far undertaken.
Category: policing
Surveillance cameras in the favelas (2)
A couple of weeks ago, I found out that the military police had installed surveillance cameras in the favela of Santa Marta, in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, which I visited back in April. This is the first time such police cameras have been put into such informal settlements in Rio. My friend and colleague, Paola Barreto Leblanc, sent me this link to these youtube broadcasts from a local favela TV company, in which residents discuss their (largely negative) views of the cameras.
There is also a poster that has been put up around the area produced by the Community Association and other local activist and civil society groups – see here – which reads as follows in English:
SANTA MARTA , THE MOST WATCHED PLACE IN RIO
At the end of August, the inhabitants of Santa Marta were surprised to learn from newspapers and TV that nine surveillance cameras would be installed in different areas of the favela. A fear of being misinterpreted paralysed the community.
Many of the people of the city, and some in the Moro itself support this initiative. However, we are a pacified favela, so why do they keep treating us as dangerous?
Walls, three kinds of police, 120 soldiers, cameras – this is no exaggeration. When will we be treated as ordinary citizens instead of being seen as suspects?
Wall: 2 million Reais, Cameras, half a million Reais. How many houses could this amount of money build? How many repairs to the water and sewage system?
The last apartments built in Santa Marta are 32 square metres. The Popular Movement for Housing [an NGO] says that the minimum size should be 42 square metres. Other initiatives have gone with 37 square metres. So why don’t we stand up and demand this minimum standard? This should be our priority!
When will the voice of the inhabitants of this community be heard?
We need collective discussion and debate.
Fear is paralysing this community and preventing criticism. But the exercise of our rights is the only guarantee of freedom.
“Peace without a voice is fear”
We want to discuss our priorities. We want to know about and be involved in the urban development project in Santa Marta.
We will only be heard and respected if we unite.
Think, talk, reflect, debate, get involved…
UAE plans DNA database of entire population
Police in the United Kingdom have recently been forced by the European Court of Human Rights to scale back their increasingly large National DNA Database (NDNAD), which previously potentially included DNA profiles of anyone arrested by the police, whether charged with any offence or not. This at least shows that there is some recourse to law and and a higher authority that will protect the rights of citizens against the extension of state power… in reasonably democratic Europe at least.
However authoritarian regimes need have no such concerns. The Persian Gulf state of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has decided that it is to create a national DNA database of the entire resident population. According to The National newspaper, this will not even need any kind of debate or even new legislation. They estimate that this will take up to 10 years if population growth is factored in.The paper claims this will be the world’s first such comprehensive database, but this is only partly true. Iceland, Sweden and Estonia have all set up comprehensive DNA databases run by their health services. But the UAE’s certainly appears to be the first attempts at a comprehensive law enforcement DNA database.
DNA pioneer, Sir Alec Jeffrys, has his doubts of course. But learned critique, or opposition or overt resistance are probably all largely irrelevant to the UAE government. However, if there is to be a roadblock, it may be the economy: the UAE’s population is made up to a great extent of temporary foreign workers of all skill levels and occupation types, and the economy depends largely on the willingness of such workers to continue to come to the UAE. Whilst those at the bottom may feel they have little choice, those at the top may decide that such a policy would make the difference between them coming to and investing in the UAE, or not. The second article claims that ‘visitors’ will be exempt, but not ‘residents’. How this plays out remains to be seen. I have no doubt that the UAE will give in to the pressure of global wealth and find some way of exempting rich foreign residents, whilst making absolutely sure that poor immigrant workers are the first to be sampled.
Project Indect and the NeoConOpticon
Following the release of the NeoConOpticon report, Ben Hayes of Statewatch has set up an interesting blog monitoring EU security policy, called (ahem…) Notes on the European Security Research Program. One the first post (and a follow-up) concerned one particular EU 7th Framework Program-funded project called Indect, which seems to think that it is a great idea to have an Enemy of the State-style comprehensive surveillance system across Europe. It appears to be filmed in Poland – you think the Poles at least would have learned from almost half a century of totalitarian rule…
There are of course, hundreds of these security projects being funded by the EU that Ben’s report detailed (with a tiny, tiny number of alternative or critical ones, and of course some token nods to simple ethical concerns like privacy within some of the projects). One that finished in 2007 was the SAFEE project that proposed (amongst other things) to put cameras in the back of every aircraft seat so that passengers’ facial expressions could be monitored automatically for signs off threat… it’s unclear how many of these ever get beyond the research stage – and I hope most don’t – but if they do, the future of the EU is one of a tightly controlled society of people constantly monitored even at the most personal level in case they step out of line. The great thing about the NeoConOpticon report is that it puts all of these things together rather than treating them in isolation. I wonder if the individual researchers involved would think differently if they actually considered their work in this context and in the context of the political architecture of security that is being built in the EU.
Anyway, here’s the PR video for Indect, for those who are interested in such things. It’s typical of the genre: a dumbed-down, hyped-up, over-macho, TV-detective series pastiche with a ridiculous voice-over and music. No doubt it goes down a storm at sales events.
Anyway, keep an eye on Ben’s blog. I will be.
Rio gets the Olympics – and now the poor will suffer
Most people will probably have heard the announcement that Rio de Janeiro has been awarded the 2016 Olympic Games. While I am pleased that Brazil has beaten the USA in particular in this race in the sense that it shows a slight shift in global power balances towards the global south, I am very concerned as to how the current right-wing administration of both the city and region of Rio will deal with the ‘security’ issues around this mega-event. The Pan-American Games, which Rio hosted in 2007 led to the violent occupation by military police of several particularly troubled favelas (informal settlements), and the new administration has already shown its authoritarian tendencies with the Giuliani- wannabe ‘choque de ordem’ (shock of order) policies that involve building demolition, crackdowns on illegal street vendors (i.e. the poor) and more recently, the building of walls around certain favelas, and most recently the unwelcome imposition of CCTV cameras on favelas that were just starting to enjoy improvements in trust between police and community. The favelas that line the main highways into the city from the international airport were already slated for such ghettoization, and the Olympics will only make this more likely to happen and more quickly – just as has happened in South Africa, similarly afflicted by race and class-based social conflict, during the various international meetings and summits there in recent years. Foreign delegates and tourists don’t like to see all that nasty poverty, do they?
I will write more on this later (I am on the road right now…).
Reclaim your data!
A new campaign launches on the 1st October in Europe to reclaim your data from the European police authorities.
Now in Europe, national police databases systems, the Schengen Information System (SIS) on immigration and border control, the files of Europol and more, are planned to be integrated following the Prüm Treaty and the so-called ‘Stockholm Programme’ (now in preparation for European Council vote in December this year).
As the organisers make clear, this does not just concern people convicted of any crime, but all immigrants, political protestors arrested at demonstrations, all the many entirely innocent people included on the UK’s National DNA Database – or any other national police database that includes data on the innocent, etc. What’s more, as a result of pre-existing (and originally secretly negotiated) agreements with the USA, the data will also be shared with the FBI and other US intelligence agencies.
So – first of all, protest! In what ever way you can. And secondly, as the campaign suggests:
“to anyone who would like to know what the police (think they) know about you, or simply to register your dissent, we recommend exercising your right to access your own data by sending a request for information to the relevant police authority in your country. The digest received in response will help to give us an idea of the full extent of police access to citizen data, as well as serving as a starting point for getting your data out of the computer systems, by legal or political means.”
Hoist by their own petard…
I always enjoy stories where those who advocate surveillance and say things like ‘nothing to hide, nothing to fear’ are then caught by surveillance (see for example, this story). In the first place, it shows how bogus and hypocritical that insidious argument is, but in the second place, it can be just really funny. So this week’s amusing surveillance story is provided by a local TV story posted on YouTube, which supposedly shows a team of Lakehead, Florida, cops who were supposed to be raiding the house of suspected drug-dealer, indulging in a nine-hour Nintendo Wii bowlathon… all caught on the householder’s home CCTV system – and now spreading virally all over the world. Ooops…
There are serious issues here though. Of course there is the whole question of 4th Ammendment violation (if you are in the USA), but more generally it raises the question of whether the use of surveillance can itself become a method of resistance to surveillance and of holding the state, private corporations, and indeed other citizens, to account, or whether a society of mutual and reciprocal surveillance (or a ‘transparent society’, as David Brin called it) is one in which we want to live. As surveillance becomes more and more ubiquitous, and in the absense of mass citizen movements to tear down the cameras, it sometimes seems like the only option we have left.
India plans ‘world class’ electronic surveillance for Commonwealth Games
The Times of India reports on the Indian government’s plans to implement comprehensive surveillance for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. One aim seems to be to create the kind of ‘island security’ with which we have become so familiar at these kinds of mega-events: vehicle check-points with automatic license-plate recording and recognition; x-ray machines and other scanners for vehicles (and perhaps people too). They will also massively expand CCTV systems and not just in the actual Games area, but throughout the city of Delhi.There are also, as usual plans to use more experimental surveillance and control techniques (as with the use of sub-lethal sonic weapons in Pittsburgh the other day), in this case a drone surveillance airship,” capable of taking and transmitting high-density visual images of the entire city.”
However, this is not just about the temporary security of the games. As with many other such mega-events, the Indian government appears to be planning to use the Delhi games as a kind of Trojan Horse for the rolling out of similar and more permanent measures in big cities across the country. The Times article claims that the Ministry of Home Affairs intends to expand the measures and “soon the same model is planned to be replicated across the country,” and in particular on use of airships, “similar airships would be launched in other big and vulnerable cities like Mumbai, Bangalore, Kolkata and Chennai.” And there will be an infrastructure too, apparently “the IB [Intelligence Bureau] is silently working to create a command center to monitor all-India intelligence and surveillance.”
Of course the threat of ‘terror groups’ is the justification, and there’s no doubt there is a threat to Indian cities from such groups, particularly those based in Pakistan. However, the Indian public shouldn’t assume that anything done in the name of ‘anti-terrorism’ will: 1. actually work (in the sense of preventing terrorism); or 2. be used for those purposes anyway. This same trend happened in the UK during the early 1990s, when the threat of the Provisional IRA was the justification, and before most people in Britain had even noticed, a massive (and it seems ever-expanding) patchwork of CCTV camera systems had been created, which were joined by further repressive measures even before 9/11. And did this massive number of cameras stop London being attacked by terrorists? No, it didn’t. 7/7 still happened. But of course we had lots of good pictures after the event for the media… and they are very expensive and don’t even do much to stop regular crime, as a recent meta-study has shown. What would be more effective would be peace and co-operation with Pakistan, a move away from both chauvinistic Hindu and Muslim nationalisms and extremisms which only generate resentment and hatred, and old-fashioned targeted intelligence work on those very few people who are actually planning terrorism – not mass surveillance and the gradual erosion of civil liberties of the entire population based on state fears that some of them might be guilty.
Finally, this is about globalization. The whole way this is promoted by the Indian government is as if there is some international competition to install as much CCTV and security as possible. But the global spread of the surveillance standards and expectations of the rich western elite is a self-fulfilling logic that benefits only the massive global security-industrial complex.
Pittsburgh police use sub-lethal weapons against protestors
Mega-events are often the time for some surveillance / control / security innovation and experimentation by states. In what seems to be a rather unwelcome first, the Pittsburgh police have used a military sonic canon to clear protestors off the streets at the G20 summit. These devices are among many so-called ‘sub-lethal weapons’ (see the article by Steve Wright here) that have been gradually migrating from military to civilian use for a number of years – see for example the ongoing debate over the use in the UK of the ultrasonic ‘Mosquito’ device, which is supposed to target young people; its makers rather cynically advertise it as ‘so effective that they tried to ban it’.
The particular weapon used by the Pittsburgh police is the Long Range Accoustic Device (LRAD) made by the American Technology Corporation, which generates a piercing noise that is not only extremely unpleasant, it can damage eardrums and cause heart problems. It was rather eeriely appropriate to see them being used (as you can on The Guardian‘s website) on the same day that TNI / Statewatch released their report on the security-industrial complex and a reminder that this is a global phenomenon.
Surveillance cameras in the favelas…
Well, my fears have it seems, been vindicated already. Earlier this year, as part of my case-study on surveillance in Brazil, I visited the community of Santa Marta, a favela (informal settlement) in Rio de Janeiro. Santa Marta is interesting because of the amount of investment and effort that has been expended in occupying, pacifying and developing the place, by the new gubernatorial administration of Eduardo Paes, who has simultaneously cancelled Favela Bairro, the widely praised and more extensive favela development programs of his predecessor, Cesar Maia.
Leading the new Community Police efforts in Santa Marta was Capitao Pricilla, an indomitable and well-liked young female officer of the Military Police, one of several rising female officers with a new approach, and we heard from residents how trust was being rebuilt between police and community because of her. At the same time, there were storm clouds on the horizon as the city administration was insistent on cracking down still further with its policies of choque de ordem (the shock of order), which involved harassing illegal street vendors from the favelas, and demolishing illegally-built buildings, and also building walls along the edges of some favelas. The word ‘ghetto’ was mentioned on more than one occasion by our interviewees and in more casual conversations.
Now, just last month, the Military Police have decided to install seven CCTV cameras in Santa Marta, in different areas of the community. This has prompted complaints of invasion of privacy, an there have already, my sources report, been protests about this in he favela, but it seems that this is coming from further up the chain of command than Capitao Pricilla and the community police. She isn’t mentioned at all by the article in O Globo, despite being a bit of a PR star, and instead the justification for the cameras is given by one Coronel José Carvalho, who also stated that there are plans to put cameras into the other two areas currently being targeted for development, the famous Cidade de Deus, and the much less well-known and more distant favela of Batan. This also contradicts what I was being told by the Commnder of the police central CCTV control room we visited, which is quoted as being one of the places where the cameras will be monitored. What is interesting is the cameras seem to be being treated by police almost as a tool of urban warfare: a Major Orderlei Santos talks about their experimental use for determine the deployment of officers in the favela.
Could the old macho, male, approach to policing as a war on the poor be trumping the new trust being developed by community policing? I hope not, but everything points that way.
(thanks once again to Paola and David for keeping me in touch…)
ubisurv 