Cameras as authority figures

One thing that became of interest to me while researching this project but was not considered for inclusion as images is the idea of cameras as modern icons of authority and how that relates to the notions of surveillance that i have been covering.

Foucault's panoptic model of society is one that best fits CCTV rather than cameras in general due to his claims that it functions at its best when the gaze cannot be verified. having said this, the associations with the cameras gaze and control have been facilitated in more recent times to bolster the holders authority. in the UK this point is exemplified by the Forward Intelligence Unit (FIT), police armed with digital SLRs and camcorders whose purpose is to gather evidence and seek out potential troublemakers in situations where the police are involved in crowd control situations. the idea behind this is that although the crowd may vastly outnumber the police, if individuals can be identified and singled out they can later be dealt with as individuals there by removing the sense of power they may feel as a group and placing it back in the hands of the police.

Importantly in this situation it is not the police presence which holds authority but the camera and the information it can record. Again to reference Foucault there is a fundamental link between power and knowledge and thus the cameras ability to document events allows the holder to create his or her own truthful version of that event, to control it, to have power over it. The police's understanding of this is not to be underestimated or assumed to halt at the arming of police with cameras. In an open letter from the National Union of Journalists to the home office, Jeremy Dear (2008) comments on the FIT’s targeting of photographers covering political protest.

“The government must stamp out the routine and deliberate targeting of photographers and other journalists by the Forward Intelligence Team. Such actions undermine media freedom and can serve to intimidate photographers trying to carry out their lawful work.”

His letter describes how police actively discourage the use of cameras so that the knowledge-power balance may be tipped in their favor. Berger uses the political protest as the setting for his discussion on the cameras ability to reproduce reality or rather the photographers ability to re-present his version of reality. simply by turning the camera to exclude an element, a crowd can be transformed into an violent mob or the police into the tools of an oppressive state.

Although Jeremy Dear rightly advocates the rights of his union members to carry out their work he neglects to defend the general publics right to use cameras in this situation. The availability of affordable cameras and camcorders to the public has allowed people to exercise this knowledge-power dynamic to there advantage and form watchdogs against misuse of power. notably the filming of Rodney Kings assault at the hands of several police officers. filmed by a member of the public on home videoing equipment allowed king to stand against the police in court. the video footage was aired on national news stations and put great pressure on the judge not to side with the police which was the president in such cases.

a project named witness combines human rights campaigning with video technology and the internet as a medium of distribution. they allow people affected by human rights violations to expose those committing them on a global scale. the ability to share this information with such a wide audience has also greatly affected the power of the camera. a similar action happened spontaneously at the start of 2009 when Oscar Grant was shot dead by police in Oakland, California while lying on the platform of the city's underground system. many passengers where already filming the police who they thought where using unnecessary force before the incident. the video quickly made its way onto web sites such as youtube as well as official news websites. shortly after this it was aired on TV news and the piece was uploaded back onto the internet, this video received over 500,000 in 4 days. such images allow people to make their own judgments about events and place pressure on those in positions of power to be properly punished and more importantly reassuring the public that they deal with such issues responsibly

Unfortunately as Jeremy Dear noted the police seem to be bent on avoiding the critical gaze of the public rather than responding to it. indeed many people at the scene of the Oscar Grant shooting reported the police confiscating phones and cameras. recently in the UK section 76 of the counter terrorism act criminalizes gathering of information (including photographs) of police and armed forces with a potential prison sentence of 10 years.

Now at this stage it must seem somewhat hypocritical to be singing the praises of surveillance carried out against police and others in positions of power while producing a project criticizing CCTV in Britain. i'll admit that in some respects it is but i find it interesting that the police themselves, who we presume CCTV is ultimately destined for, seem to be no keener on the idea than myself. i also feel that the those who join the police force are entrusted with powers that warrant a need for transparency. lastly the specific targeting of police for surveillance begins when members of the public are concerned by their actions unlike CCTV which is a constant presence.

Some links to relating to discussed

section 76
witness
Oscar Grant news report
FIT tackle anti social behavior