The B side of electronic surveillance

There is only one thing that few are noticing of what happened in the USA with the killing of George Floyd. The B side of electronic surveillance. An unexplored side of electronic surveillance.

The first statement about George Floyd's death spoke of an accidental death. In the first version during the check, the victim would have felt ill and the police rescued him.

Unfortunately for the cops, a person came by with a cell phone and there were two surveillance cameras. This thing is not to be underestimated, because it is the same electronic surveillance of which we complain about the invasiveness .

So I wanted to reflect on electronic surveillance as a civilian tool. Until now to hear the term "electronic surveillance" we have always thought of something that supervises us . But this time the controllers ended up in the viewfinder, because the flaw that came out came out only because there were the videos. So let's ask ourselves: where could this surveillance go without damaging our rights ?

The first thing we notice is that the American police do the worst mess in several places:

1. The streets and open spaces.
2. The raids on the house.
3. Their barracks.

Here the problem is: how should a citizen or could he supervise (like the person who filmed Geogra Floyd's death with his cell phone) without automatically giving the data to google?

Technologically speaking, solutions exist.

1. The Dashcam. link

These are devices that download to SD, so that nothing is sent to the usual GAFA (Google Amazon Facebook Apple). There are all the prices, and they operate "automagically" when the scenario moves. If you now imagine that every motorist has one (there are also similar in shape to a rear-view mirror), the streets begin to become a fairly insecure place to commit abuse.

The same applies to surveillance cameras aimed at the streets, from balconies and / or behind the window pane. These cameras (in addition to recording bad guys) would do nothing but frame cops who abuse their power, in case they do.

Now imagine that everyone has a dashcam pointed at the street in front, or on the balcony below, and you would get one thing: the story of the guy who collapses and the good policemen who help him becomes very weak.

1. Let's go to the other place: the house. CHi has a camera in his house, he knows it is of little use against criminals, for the simple reason that the police do not have the courage to face them. On the other hand, however, every year thousands of judicial errors occur in the USA , even if, as the website https://www.errorigiudiziari.com/ writes, for some time it seems impossible to have statistics.

In case you fear an abusive raid, you can also install it in the house, in order to resume it yourself. This thing about taking yourself back has a big advantage: you can always prove your innocence in the event of judicial abuse.

These are extremely simple devices to hide, capable of night and infrared vision, sometimes as small as buttons. link

In this case, you have at least ONE advantage: that you can prove that you have been in your home on a given day. Which is often more than enough to avoid unfair prison, which often happens in the US .

1. Then you have personal tools. These are generally pens to hang on your pocket, which then contain microphones or cameras. In general, given the difficulty in framing, it is better to use only the link microphone

Some are smaller, and look like USB link sticks

but the concept does not change.

If you monitor yourself, you also have the power of data. The B side of electronic surveillance is nothing other than the possibility of the citizen to record himself on a device (an SD card) that he controls, and to bring out the data as needed. To the USA, obviously.

In the USA, these small gadgets are widespread in men's offices, to defend themselves from false accusations of harassment, and personal ones are used inside elevators. When a person has to take an elevator alone with a woman, he does nothing but put a hand in his pocket and operate one of them. From that moment the sound is recorded, and a false accusation of harassment is averted.

There is a B side of electronic surveillance. The fact that everyone has low-cost surveillance devices at their disposal allows a "defensive" use of these tools. What is called e-Journal

Tracing oneself being able to decide how data ends is an additional power against bullying and scams. Think of car insurance scams: a dashcam in the car can avoid many problems. A problem that is devastating in the USA.

But especially, knowing that EVERY American citizen is potentially filming and recording you becomes a deterrent to certain law enforcement agencies. I'm saying this because you may be wondering how the trial would have gone if there had been cameras hidden at Diaz schools.

The hidden camera in your home also has another big advantage. Drive out the other cameras.

There are policemen who come into the house when you are not there, and place cameras in the house. If you have a guard dog you understand it because on the way back you find it frightened: they used an electric whisk. When they enter they put microphones everywhere.

And finding them is very difficult, unless you have a movie. If you have a video of what happened, you just have to watch it to find where they put their microphone. A precaution that in the united states is fundamental.

In this sense, in the USA these devices can be crucial in showing how the police behave. Because the problem is that there is a terrible dysphoria between what law enforcement is thought to do, and what they actually do.

Indeed, the opinion of law enforcement comes directly from Hollywood and the entertainment industry. If we look at how much cops an average person endures over the course of their lives, we discover that we are talking about a huge amount of propaganda to the police, where the policemen look good good good smart and the thing forms a positive image in the public imagination police.

So, one should not underestimate the B side of electronic surveillance: if we begin to spy on what is happening besides the door sill (without sending it to a cloud, but keeping it to oneself) we acquire enormous power over our data. Power derives from two facts: the first is to have the data for itself and only for itself , the second is to be able to use it at will and first .

In the USA, when cops beat up someone, they always bring up the story of assault on public officials. The trouble comes when the person is wearing a small microphone like the ones I linked above, and it records all the noises. The sounds are more than enough to disprove an aggression narrative.

All this swarm of spy technologies, therefore, is not entirely negative. It is negative if we make passive use of it. But if we buy the surveillance technology and focus the camera on the state, the proportions are reversed.

The B side of electronic surveillance.