resistance – Page 2

The Vancouver Statement on the 2010 Winter Olympics

Following recent discussion, a number of leading surveillance researchers have signed and issued the following ‘Vancouver Statement’ of which I did the first draft (followed by multiple revisions from many hands!). If you are a researcher who has done any work on mega-event security and surveillance, and agree with the statement, you are encouraged to send your name and affiliation to Adam Molnar at UVic. It is being press-released and hopefully discussed in the BC Legislative Assembly.

The Vancouver Statement of Surveillance, Security and Privacy Researchers about the Vancouver 2010 Olympic Winter Games

As researchers from Canada and the wider world, who are conducting research on the global security dynamics of mega-events, we agree:

that the Olympic Games should be a celebration of human achievement, friendship and trust between people and nations.

However, having analysed past and planned Olympics and other mega events, from a variety of historical and international perspectives, we recognise:

that recent Games have increasingly taken place in and contributed to a climate of fear, heightened security and surveillance; and
that this has often been to the detriment of democracy, transparency and human rights, with serious implications for international, national and local norms and laws.

Therefore, we ask the City of Vancouver, the Province of British Columbia and the Government of Canada:

to moderate the escalation of security measures for Vancouver 2010 and to strive to respect the true spirit of the event;
to be as open as possible about the necessary security and surveillance practices and rationales;
to withdraw temporary bylaws that restrict Charter rights of freedom of speech and assembly;
to work constructively with the Provincial and Federal Privacy Commissioners;
to respect the rights of all individuals and groups, whether they be local people or visitors, and pay particular attention to the impacts on vulnerable people;
to conduct a full, independent public assessment of the security and surveillance measures, once the Games are over, addressing their costs (financial and otherwise), their effectiveness, and lessons to be learned for future mega-events;
not to assume a permanent legacy of increased video surveillance and hardened security measures in the Vancouver/Whistler area, and to have full and open public discussion on any such proposed legacy.

We hope that these recommendations will contribute to a unique and positive Olympic legacy by which Vancouver, British Columbia and Canada will be remembered for setting the highest ethical standards.

For further information, contact:

Richard Smith, tel: 778-782-5116; or Colin Bennett

And there’s now more on Richard’s blog!

Olympic surveillance legacies

David Loukidelis, the Information and Privacy Commissioner of British Columbia, speaking today at The Surveillance Games workshop, has made it quite clear that his office does not want the Winter Games to leave a legacy of securitization in the city or indeed, fear (as the Assistant Federal Privacy Commissioner, Chantal Bernier, put it), in the consciousness of its residents. In particular he argued that the 600 (yes, 600) cameras that are being installed at the Olympic venues and beyond should not be allowed to remain after the games. I hope that his office is able to deliver on this view, but I doubt that it will. As Kevin Haggerty and Phil Boyle have noted, security architecture is now an actual deliverable of the Olympics, and as many other researchers have shown, such architecture, including in particular CCTV but also adjusted local or national laws on the thematic and spatial limits of protest and freedom of expression (which, as Michael Vonn of the BCCLA and Chris Shaw, a leading anti-games activist, are describing at this very moment in the conference, are themselves often illegal and unconstitutional) tends not only to persist but to act as a kind of Trojan Horse for an expanded surveillance. And as Vonn’s group has also shown – the city is building a permanent CCTV control centre as part of the security architecture for the Games, and you don’t do that for cameras that are going to be removed.

Surveillance image of the week 3: remembering One and Other

One and Other, Anthony Gormley’s remarkable populist and popular participatory artwork, which enabled 2400 ordinary people to spend an hour each on the vacant fourth plinth in London’s Trafalgar Square, ended recently. Not surprisingly, given London’s reputation as a the surveillance capital of the world, there were some pointed reminders. This ‘plinther’ spent her hour dressed as a CCTV camera looking at the watchers and the watched…

(thanks to Eric Stoddart for this)

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…

Big Brother Watch

I’ve just been contacted by a UK organisation calling itself ‘Big Brother Watch’, which claims to be a ‘think-tank’ asking for my help and support. Now the UK already has Liberty, Privacy International, No2ID, No-CCTV, not to mentioned the Surveillance Studies Network, and various other campaigns and organisations, so why this new one? Of course anyone and their dog can call themselves a ‘think-tank’ but Big Brother Watch is being more than a little disingenuous. It is basically a creation of the Taxpayers’ Alliance, which in turn is a fake ‘popular’ pressure group, and a front for neoliberal economic think-tanks like the Adam Smith Institute, various large industrial interests and the most free-market wing of the Conservative Party – you can find out more about what they are really about here. Now, if those are your politics, and you are happy with who backs them, then you are most welcome to support this new creation, but they aren’t my politics and I won’t be offering any support for such front organisations.

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.