Civil Disobedience Against 24/7 Surveillance

Civil Disobedience Against 24/7 Surveillance

Hierarchical 24/7 Surveillance: A Just Cause for Civil Disobedience in the Form of 'Sousveillance'

Depending on one's viewpoint, ethnicity, property ownership status, hierarchical 24/7 surveillance is either more good than bad, or the reverse. I see surveillance much as the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle would likely have seen it based on his Nicomachean Ethics: as inherently non-virtuous and therefore (it follows logigally) irrational, since it does not teach or promote 'human virtues'. Surveillance does not lead to the highest possible human state of rationality (Aristotle) and it is therefore irrational. Irrationality cannot follow from virtue (Nicomachean Ethics). Hierarchical surveillance (surveillance of the less powerful in society by society's most powerful individuals and/or entities) in fact gives cause for a particular kind of civil disobedience first begun in France (Mann, Nolan, and Wellman) that the French nowadays call 'sousveillance' or inverse - surveillance [translation mine] (Mann, Noland, and Wellman). Sousveillance takes place when the powerless of society spy on the powerful of society instead of the reverse. I shall explain why, philosophically and personally, hierarchical surveillance gives good cause for civil disobedience, in the form of sousveillance in particular..

Sousveillance' occurs when everyday citizens either watch, photograph, videotape or otherwise observe and record police officers; high-level politicians; CEO's, etc., thereby potentially catching them in acts like drunk driving; stealing; procuring a prostitute, etc. The latter would officially disapprove of and/or criminally prosecute should any of these be detected among others less powerful. Sousveillance itself is intended not so much to catch the powerful in criminal acts (although this happens too sometimes) as to visually and distinctly illustrate the irrationality, objectively-speaking of monitoring typical human behavior, of anyone at all, in everyday settings because under close scrutiny the powerful are no less likely, and perhaps even more likely, to be or at least appear criminal than the rest of us; the truth is simply that are not typically as watched by higher authority as the rest of us. I support the idea of sousveillance. I consider surveillance irrational; and sousveillance (being equally but more deliberately; humorously and ironically irrational, in imitating and mirroring surveillance) a valid protest. In my view, purveyors of hierarchal surveillance keep power by falsely convincing us they protect average peoples' interests. The opposite is true. Power for its own sake is nowhere among Aristotle's 'human virtues'. Sousveillance in fact reveals non-virtue in operation by challenging someone's assumed worthiness of power and influence when such people's typically human, often less-than-virtuous behavior is shown.