Surveillance and Ownership (by Hanna Jalali)

First of all, we should look at the definition of surveillance. Surveillance can be defined as the close supervision or observation of a person, group, place, or thing. As the title of this blog topic suggests; surveillance often comes from the thought of ownership. If a person owns something, they want to protect it and make sure nothing happens to it, which is where surveillance comes in.

When we think of surveillance, most of us will see images of cameras, audio recorders, and other elaborate gadgets that we can be watched with. These devices are regular occurrences in Marcus’ life in the book Little Brother, and many people even accept this heavy surveillance as the norm! Throughout the book the government watches where every person goes and what they do there; not only outside their homes on the streets, but also within a person’s home through their technology. People were surveyed even before the terrorist attack occurred, and even though there was much more surveillance after the terrorist attack did occur, many people were able to accept it in their everyday lives.

Surveillance can consist of two aspects; care and behaviour control. These different aspects are determined by the amount of surveillance that someone is under. These two aspects can be exemplified by a parent-child relationship. Most parents want to know what their child is doing and where they will be going, which shows that the parent cares about their child and merely wishes for their safety. If the parent constantly watches over the child and they never have a moment of freedom, this can cause the child to feel fear of doing something wrong, and as was mentioned earlier in class, fear can be used as behaviour control. In the case of Little Brother the surveillance is extensive and hypothetically, it controls many people into behaviour that they may not otherwise perform. Such as cameras, that do not actually operate, are meant to scare away criminals. Little Brother did not address the surveillance that is used in private businesses, but the government would have gotten a lot of their information on people from there.

Throughout Little Brother there is a controversy between ownership of the freedom of the people, and their safety. For the most part, the government was established to protect the people of their country, and ensure them a good life. In all sense, the government owns the country, and in Little Brother they are trying to protect the people from further terrorist attacks, but through that procedure they violate the rights of their people, and take away their freedom, and through the surveillance they create what is heading towards a police state.

The government unknowingly takes away the ownership of their people’s freedom, while trying to protect and catch the culprit who was responsible for the terrorist attack on Bay Bridge through the heavy surveillance that is put on each person during that time.