Sousveillance: How the Watched Turn the Cameras Around
Sousveillance flips surveillance on its head: instead of authorities watching from above, ordinary people record from below using wearables and phones. Steve Mann coined the term in 2001, and it now covers everything from Copwatch to police body cameras. But it's not a cure-all—Eric Garner's death was filmed, yet no officer was indicted, and the recorder himself went to prison. The piece explores inverse surveillance, alibi sousveillance, and dark sousveillance, revealing both the power and the price of watching back.
Garner's death was documented by his friend Ramsey Orta, and the video was widely disseminated. Despite the video evidence, a grand jury declined to indict Garner's killer, leading to widespread outrage and protest. (In an ironic twist, the only person indicted in connection with Garner's death was Orta, who came under police scrutiny and was arrested on an 'unrelated' weapons possession charge. Orta is now in prison in New York. Sousveillance is not without its costs.)
- goodmythical
I don't see the need for a new word.
Surveillance is the monitoring of one party by another unaware party.
A company surveilling an individual and an individual surveilling a company is the same activity, despite one perhaps having potentially greater resources.
I don't buy the claim that the root word meaning "above" means that we should mean that we need another word with a root word meaning "below" given that a so called "sousveiller" could in fact be recording from a place of advantage. (Either physically above a company or given the potential scheduling freedom of a dedicated and compelled freelancer.
Is it sousveillance if one were to write a script logging every available source of one other who's registered a company and is the soul employee of said company? e.g. If some neckbeard "sousveills" every post of a sex worker that's working for a company they registered for their own tax purposes?
Clearly not. The first might be suurveillance or possibly spying, and the second is clearly stalking.
- doginasuit
This seems like one of those terms you have to explain every time you say it so people understand you aren't just pronouncing it wrong.
- Cider9986
I'm opposed to public security cameras. No expectation of privacy in public does not mean we should surveil everything in public.