Surveillance: Good or Bad?

Here are five issues about surveillance posed by Eugene Volokh, Professor of Law at UCLA, and author of “The First Amendment” who observes that “surveillance is not inherently good or bad.”

In any given surveillance situation, he says, one has first has to determine:
* What concrete security benefits will the proposal likely provide?
* Exactly how might it be abused?
* Might it decrease the risk of policed abuse rather than increase it?
* What control mechanisms can be set up to help diminish the risk of abuse?
* What other surveillance is this proposal likely to lead to?

“Such analysis suggests that traffic cameras are a good idea at least as an experiment. Cameras at public places from ATM machines to convenience stores are probably worth trying.”

Each situation needs to be evaluated independently to determine whether Breathing Space is curtailed or enhanced.