Many news media outlets state that the USA has become a “surveillance state.” The realities of modern American life indicate that it is, indeed, the case. Practices of mass surveillance in the country have been around since the First and Second World War. These practices breach one of the core rights protected by the American Constitution, namely the right to privacy (Shields, Smith & Damphousse 2015). The Fourth Amendment provides that “the right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized” (Fourth amendment 2018, para. 1).
State-sanctioned violations of constitutional rights normally occurred only in times of great need for security. Tapping into telephones, surveying mass media outlets, and monitoring personal communications is justified by an alleged effort to stop terrorists. CCTV cameras are allegedly in place to prevent violent crime and theft. These measures are costly and are afforded on taxpayer dollars (Greene et al. 2014). The purpose of this paper is not to argue about the morality of the surveillance society, but to investigate how measures currently in place reduce crime and make the nation safer in terms of privacy, security, costs, and effectiveness.
Surveillance and Security
This section defines the domains of surveillance in the field of security. The purpose of surveillance, at its core, is not malicious. Its initial intent is to prevent crime from occurring, or, if it did happen, to provide evidence that would allow the law enforcement agencies to identify and punish the culprit. Surveillance has two purposes – prevention and detection of crime (Lyon 2014). These two purposes are intertwined, as prevention relies on detecting signs or leads of a potential crime, in order to interrupt it mid-way, whereas the presence detection serves as a passive deterrent against criminal activity – no criminal would willingly conduct a crime if they were aware that they are being watched. Surveillance plays heavily into the inevitability of punishment in order to dissuade citizens from breaking the law. Online surveillance is utilized primarily as a prevention tool by tracking conversations that utilize words such as “bomb,” “death,” “terror,” “shooting,” and other triggers that may indicate preparation of a serious crime (Lyon 2014). CCTV cameras serve as primary detection tools. They are placed in public spaces, supermarkets, parking lots, and other areas where the possibility of a crime occurring is high (Roubini 2015). Their purpose is to deter crime and to provide visual data in order to catch the criminal, should a crime occur. These measures, at least, theoretically, are meant to contribute to safety and security of the society.
Surveillance and Privacy
Surveillance is considered the antithesis of privacy. Whenever surveillance is implemented, it inevitably causes a breach of personal privacy. However, in the scope of this paper, we will not investigate questionable morality of surveillance tactics. Instead, its purpose is to investigate how surveillance can be used to abuse privacy beyond acceptable social norms. According to Gorman (2013), secret service agents have been known to utilize surveillance systems to spy on their spouses and love interests. The term LOVEINT was coined after the incident. Thus, extensive surveillance generates privacy and security issues on its own, as it allows government and security workers monitor other people with impunity, accountable to no one. In many cases, the ability to extensively monitor personal movements and connections is utilized out of perverse pleasures, or to pursue certain political agendas. During FBI’s COINTELPRO operations, surveillance was used to target leaders and supporters of the left-wing opposition (Gorman 2013). Based on the information gathered, it is concluded that surveillance can be used to undermine personal privacy both passively and actively. This results in numerous issues of appropriateness and legality of surveillance actions.
Effectiveness of Surveillance
The views on the effectiveness of surveillance vary. According to Calba et al. (2015), the existing approaches to surveillance systems experience a serious lack of information regarding the identification of security issues, selection of tools, and methods of evaluation. In addition, the researchers detected a lack of consideration of economic and social aspects of surveillance.
These findings are mirrored by the public statement made by the police chief Jim Peschong, who performed a 5-year audit of the effectiveness of surveillance systems in Lincoln, Nebraska (Roubini 2015). According to his findings, the recordings did not help the police identify any new criminals; neither did they provide any additional evidence against known criminals currently on trial. In addition, security cameras did not act as a deterrent for crime, as the average crime rate within their vicinity did not decrease in comparison to the yearly average (Roubini 2015).
However, there is evidence of security cameras showing some efficiency in preventing crime, particularly in subways and in parking lots. According to Priks (2015), security cameras installed in Stockholm Metro did manage to reduce the number of crimes (namely pickpocketing and robberies) committed at the station. However, the average cost of a single prevented crime is estimated at circa 2000 dollars.
With internet and personal communications surveillance, as well as the concept of Big Data, the majority of academic studies agree that monitoring of all available forms of information exchange, as well as the analysis of the databases using quantitative methods, is cumbersome and inefficient (Lyon 2014). One major problem stems from the inability of computers to recognize context, which forces them to sift through irrelevant communications and to brand innocent people as potential threats, forcing security agencies to follow a myriad of pointless leads. While internet surveillance has been proven to prevent several school shootings, in the majority of the scenarios the information was passed by concerned internet users, who spotted a dangerous post in Facebook and were able to judge its content and context (Kirchner 2015).
Cost-Efficiency of Surveillance
The majority of mass surveillance methods are costly. The installation and maintenance of a single security camera can cost up to 1500 dollars per piece. The systems require maintaining, cleaning, and replacing every 5 years (Roubini 2015). In addition, cameras can be damaged by the elements, debris, and human activities. The efficiency of security cameras is disputed, which puts a shadow on its cost-efficiency as well. As it was stated in the previous section, the cost of stopping a minor crime, such as pickpocketing or a minor robbery, with security cameras, is 2000 dollars per crime (Priks 2015). This is more money than the accumulated costs of 10 pickpocketing crimes combined. It can be argued that cameras pay for themselves whenever they prevent a crime with their passive presence, or when they help catch a criminal. In these rare cases, however, it could be argued that money spent on largely inefficient deterrents could have been spent on other methods of fighting crime.
With internet surveillance as well as Big Data projects, the balance of cost-efficiency is even less in favor of the intervention. Data analysis requires computers immense processing powers, thousands of personnel, and various supporting activities. The newest central hub for NSA’s internet surveillance operations cost more than 1.5 billion dollars to construct, and even more to maintain (Greene et al. 2014). In addition, NSA’s demands for information disclosure not only tarnish the good names of companies who are forced into compliance (thus hurting business and the economy) but also passively increase internet costs across the country. Coupled with perceived lack of effectiveness, internet surveillance and Big Data does not give an impression of efficiency or usefulness.
Conclusions
The premise of this paper was to answer the question of whether greater surveillance is or is not a desirable answer to the problem of crime. As evidenced by the research provided above, conclusions about mass surveillance are as follows:
- The concept of surveillance is centered on providing safety and security for the society. Its intended purpose is pure.
- The concept of mass surveillance is hostile to the concept of privacy and has the potential to be abused by individuals and organizations for dubious purposes.
- Mass surveillance is largely inefficient at achieving its alleged goals.
- Mass surveillance is not cost-efficient.
As such, it could be stated that mass surveillance is not a desirable answer to the problem of crime. The incredible amounts of money spent on it should instead be redirected to other venues that would help reduce the percentage of crime by eliminating the need to indulge in criminal behavior.
Reference List
Calba, C, Goutard, FL, Hoinville, L, Hendrikx, P, Lindberg, A, Saegerman, C & Peyre, M 2015, ‘Surveillance systems evaluation: a systematic review of the existing approaches’, BMJ Public Health, vol. 15, no. 448, pp. 1-13.
Fourth amendment 2018. Web.
Gorman, S 2013, ‘NSA officers spy on love interests’, The Wall Street Journal. Web.
Greene, R, Kehl, D, Morgus, R & Bankston, K 2014, Surveillance costs: the NSA’s impact on the economy, internet freedom & cybersecurity. Web.
Kirchner, L 2015, ‘What’s the evidence mass surveillance works? Not much’, ProPublica. Web.
Lyon, D 2014, Surveillance, Snowden, and Big Data: capacities, consequences, critique’, Big Data and Society, vol. 2014, pp. 1-13.
Priks, M 2015, ‘The effects of surveillance cameras on crime: evidence from the Stockholm subway’, The Economic Journal, vol. 125, no. 588, pp. 289-305.
Roubini, S 2015, ‘Police chief: surveillance cameras don’t help fight crime’, ACLU. Web.
Shields, CA, Smith, BL & Damphousse, KR 2015, ‘Prosecuting terrorism: challenges in the post 9/11 world’, Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, vol. 20, pp. 173-195.