Analyse af 'Big Brother is watching you more closely than ever'

“Big Brother is watching you more closely than ever: CCTV cameras, the spies in our midst”

The Jamie Bulger-case in 1993 was a turning point, which in many ways blurred the limit between surveillance and individual liberty. Ever since there has been a massive increase of surveillance, especially in Brittan, carried out through CCTV cameras; there are more than two millions cameras in Brittan and with the newest technologies the cameras are capable of recognizing faces, tracking faces and even spotting people walking suspiciously.

In the article “Big Brother is watching you more closely than ever: CCTV cameras, the spies in our midst”, published in Daily Mail the 3rd October 2012, John Kampfner criticizes the surveillance system and asks the reader where the limits should be.

John Kampfner’s claim is that the use of CCTV cameras has reached the limit and that they are threatening our liberty rights; and that all of us should be deeply concerned. He begins the article by arguing that not only he is concerned; the society itself must be as well, since the government has found it necessary to employ Andrew Rennison as Britain’s first surveillance commissioner with the task of looking after the system. According to Andrew Rennison, the British people, in fact should be deeply concerned because of the disturbing high number of CCTV cameras and the new digital technology, which Kampfner describes in the text; “Now, thanks to software called Intelligent Pedestrian Surveillance, cameras are capable of facial recognition, facial comparison and even “gait analysis”, to spot people walking suspiciously.” (p. 2, l. 30-31). Next Kampfner draws parallels to a Kafkaesque situation because of current and potential misuse and overuse of CCTV-cameras; “You could be walking along a crowded street and the camera could home in on you, zooming up, forwards and backwards, keeping tabs on you.” (p. 1, l. 24-25).