Out of Sight, Out of Mind?

The Loss of Privacy in America



There are 4.2 million closed-circuit TV cameras spying on people as they go about their lives in Great Britain. Cities around America are following Great Britain's lead in watching people's every move. At what cost?

In The Washington Times, former Republican member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Georgia Bob Barr writes:

Though the lion's share of publicity surrounding Tony Blair's recent departure as Britain's prime minister focused on his legacy as George W. Bush's top foreign cheerleader, a more lasting legacy for Mr. Blair's lengthy tenure as Britain's chief "decider" will be that he greatly accelerated Great Britain's ascendancy to the position of the "most surveilled" society in the world. Still, Michael Bloomberg, the Democrat-turned-Republican-turned-independent mayor of New York is giving Mr. Blair a run for the money as the most surveillance-hungry public official in the world.

Even though officials in other cities are embracing and installing surveillance cameras in huge numbers — Chicago, Detroit and Washington, D.C., to name a few — the latest plan unveiled by Mr. Bloomberg and his equally surveillance-enamored police commissioner, Raymond Kelly, leaves these other American cities in the surveillance dust. Truly what we are witnessing being created here is a 21st-century Panopticon.

The Panopticon, as envisaged by British philosopher Jeremy Bentham (1748-1832), was a society (initially proposed as a prison) in which surreptitious surveillance of the citizenry was always possible and ever-known. Control was exercised not by being surveilled continuously but by each person knowing they might be under surveillance at any time, or all the time.

Bentham was a man ahead of his time. His pet project was never fully carried out because the technology available at the time, relying as it did on direct, physical surveillance (electricity as a harnessable force, with which Benjamin Franklin was just then beginning to experiment, was still more than a century away) made creation of a workable Panopticon infeasible. Were Bentham alive today, he probably would be the most sought-after consultant on the planet.

The key to the surveillance society foreseen by Bentham more than two centuries ago was control. Crime was rampant in late 18th-century and early 19th-century London. Controlling the populace by modifying behavior became the central problem for Bentham and other social scientists of the day.

Of course, the notion that surveillance is key to control was not new with Bentham; centuries before, the Greek philosopher Plato had mused about the power of the government to control through surveillance, when he raised the still-relevant question, "Who watches the watchers?"

More recently, of course, George Orwell gave voice to the innate fear that resides deep in many of our psyches against government surveillance, in his nightmare, "Big Brother is Watching You" world of the novel "1984."

Whether in Bentham's world, or Plato's or Orwell's, the central task is to modify behavior by convincing people that the government — that entity with power over their lives — may be watching them all the time or at any particular time. As 20th-century American philosopher and advocate of personal freedom Ayn Rand noted, taking away a person's privacy renders to the government the ability to control absolutely that person.

In fact, studies by Bentham and others have established that individuals do in fact modify their behavior if they believe they are being watched by authorities.

Whether learned of these philosophical treatises or not, Mayor Bloomberg and former Prime Minister Blair epitomize the almost mindless, unquestioning embrace of surveillance as the solution to problems — real, manufactured or exaggerated — that pervades government post-September 11, 2001. Fear of terrorism as much as fear of crime is the currency by which government at all levels convinces a fearful populace that a surveilled society is a safe society.

Of course, Messrs. Bloomberg and Blair have one benefit available to them that was largely denied Bentham — money. Lots of money. "Homeland security" money taken from the wallets of taxpayers, but treated by government appropriators as theirs by right, is eagerly ladled out for cameras to surveill all. Add the magic words "for fighting terrorism" to your request for federal money and the chances of securing those dollars are made many times greater.

Not only is money readily available for government agencies to install, monitor and expand surveillance systems, but the cameras themselves are magnificent generators of money. Already in London, vehicle owners are billed for using their cars and trucks in certain areas and at certain times, through use of surveillance cameras that photograph, record and track vehicle license plates. The multimillion-dollar system being set up by Mayor Bloomberg and Commissioner Kelly will almost certainly be similarly employed down the road.

With more than 4.2 million closed-circuit television surveillance cameras now operating in Great Britain (the vast majority in and around London), Mr. Bloomberg has a long way to catch up to his British counterparts. Yet the eagerness with which he is approaching this challenge, coupled with the easy money available to him and a largely ignorant and compliant citizenry willing to surrender their privacy in the vain hope that thousands of surveillance cameras will guarantee their safety, bodes well for the Gotham City to overtake London as the most surveilled city on the planet. Somewhere, Jeremy Bentham is smiling; and George Orwell is saying, "I told you so."

Jeffrey Rosen, an associate professor at GWU Law School and whom you also may recall from his testimony on one of the panels that testified at Clinton's impeachment, wrote a book entitled, "The Unwanted Gaze: The Destruction of Privacy in America."

In it, he talks about a doctrine in Jewish law, "hezzek re'iyyah," which means "the injury caused by seeing." He quotes the Encyclopedia Talmudit:

"Even the smallest intrusion into private space by the unwanted gaze causes damage, because the injury caused by seeing cannot be measured."

Jewish jurisprudence of the Middle Ages provided for a legal action to stop a neighbor from building a window from which he could peer into your courtyard.

The loss of privacy, our right to an interior experience where we rehearse ideas and innovation away from judgment and interference, has had a devastating impact on our culture.

Just because people don't want to be observed doesn't mean they are engaged in criminal acts or "wrongdoing." And a state that insists that it has the right to determine if that is so, loses the very traits that set the American people apart from others - Our creativity and ingenuity. Innovation requires being able to make mistakes, trial and error, practice, out of the watch of prying and judgmental eyes.

Failing 9/11 Responders Over & Over & Over Again

9/11 Health Costs $393 Million Per Year



Associated Press reports:

Respiratory ailments, mental trauma and other problems that arose after the Sept. 11 attacks are costing the U.S. health care system $393 million per year, according to an analysis that city officials released Tuesday.

The estimate was part of a report by a panel that Mayor Michael Bloomberg convened last year to study Sept. 11 health effects and treatment programs, which are said to be running out of funding 5 1/2 years after the attacks.

Some of the people who worked amid the dust, smoke and ash at the site have died. Others have developed conditions including respiratory problems, anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder, and the report noted the troubling prospect of later-emerging diseases including cancer and pulmonary fibrosis.

The panel noted the liability fight as another mounting expense. At least 6,000 federal lawsuits have been filed by emergency workers who aided in the rescue operation and nine-month cleanup, alleging that the city and its contractors were negligent in monitoring the air.

Thousands more lawsuits are expected, and the city already has spent millions fighting the claims. That money has come from the WTC Captive Insurance Co., which Congress funded with $1 billion in 2004 to provide liability coverage against claims.

Instead of using the money in court, the mayor's panel recommended that Congress change the law to let the city put the money into a compensation program for sick workers, an idea that members of New York's delegation have already floated.

"We're not about to abandon the men and women who helped lift our city back onto its feet during our time of greatest need," Bloomberg said. "They deserve first-class care without exception, and we will work to ensure that they get it."

The fund would be similar to the victims compensation fund that awarded $7 billion to the families of those who died in the attacks and to injured survivors. The application deadline for that fund was December 2003, which excluded those whose diagnoses or symptoms came later.

The Bush administration last month announced a proposal to spend at least $25 million more on treatment programs. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., is calling for $1.9 billion over several years.

Several sick workers said Tuesday they were frustrated that it was taking so long to ensure health care.

"When I got called to the World Trade Center, it did not take me five years to get there -- it shouldn't have taken five years to talk about compensation," said Marvin Bethea, a paramedic who survived the collapse of the twin towers and suffers from afflictions including post-traumatic stress disorder and asthma. "People don't want to be millionaires. They're in the hole because of all these health problems."

The Buried 9/11 Numbers

The 9-11 Victims Compensation Fund made awards to 1,400 FDNY employees. But almost twice that number have filed affidavits of their 9-11 service in case they develop or die from an illness stemming from their time at the site (FDNY)

Preparing for a higher 9/11 toll, the Village Voice reports:

New York can no longer breathe easy about the fate of people who responded to Ground Zero—not after the case of Detective James Zadroga, the high-profile workers comp fight of former deputy mayor Rudy Washington, or the study finding that first responders on 9-11 typically absorbed about 12 years' worth of lung damage in a single, bad day. None of this is surprising to the men and women who raced to the towers and have been struggling for months or years to catch their breath, literally. Nor is the risk of WTC illness news to city and state officials, who haggled at length over a law that grants Ground Zero rescuers a presumptive line-of-duty disability if they come down with certain illnesses. That measure was signed last year.

But the Zadroga case and others like it have upped the stakes, because people aren't just getting sick. Now, they are dying. And when they die, their families will not be able to collect disability payments for as long as they would have if the death had been in the line of duty.

That's why public employee unions are pressing for another presumptive bill, this one covering death benefits. The assembly version sponsored by Speaker Sheldon Silver (A11255) and its Senate counterpart by Sen. Martin Golden (S7885-A) are "intended to rectify this inequity, so these brave men and women facing a grim medical prognosis, need not worry about the financial future and security of their loved ones and dependents," according to the bills' write-up.

The proposed law would cover "uniformed personnel who participated within one year of the terrorist attack, in rescue, recovery, clean-up and related activity at or near ground zero, worked at the Fresh Kills Land Fill, worked at the New York morgue or the temporary morgue on pier locations on the west side of Manhattan, or manned barges between the west side of Manhattan and the Fresh Kills Land Fill." It would apply to people who "registered within the time period specified in such law, or would have met the criteria if not already retired on an accidental disability."

The Bloomberg administration opposed the presumptive disability bill because of the costs it could impose on the city, estimated at around $50 million a year. The deaths benefits bill would add to those costs. But the exact price tag of either measure is a mystery. The city's Independent Budget Office hopes to generate a projection, but IBO chief of staff Doug Turetsky tells the Voice, "At this point, we haven't got the data to do that." The effect of the Ground Zero diseases on thousands of rescuers is a great unknown. Nobody can predict how many will suffer or succumb, or when.

Already, thousands have filed affidavits attesting to their WTC-related service. So far, 2,596 active and retired members have filed Ground Zero affidavits with the FDNY pension fund; 2,870 with the Police Pension Fund; and 973 with NYCERS. Ostensibly, those affidavits are for potential future disability filings under last year's presumptive law. But some first responders who already have line-of-duty disability benefits might be filing in anticipation of the death benefit that will adhere should the Silver/Golden measures become law.

Many 9-11 rescuers have no choice but to make these kinds of calculations. They were forced out of work years before they thought they would leave, and could face either a prolonged retirement or a premature death. Some are wrestling with difficult decisions over how to structure their pensions, trying to balance their current need for income against the possibility that they will die early and leave families behind. Complicating the picture is that while some first responders received payouts from the federal Victims Compensation Fund, others did not. The VCF, for example, didn't cover people whose primary ailment was post-traumatic stress disorder.

The fund is closed. But symptoms of other underlying illnesses are only now emerging. Nearly five years after 9-11, in bronchioles and bloodstreams, the attack continues.