From the Desk of Kiler Davenport

Bentham's prisoners were stationary. Modern people are not. That sounds obvious, but it represents one of the most important differences between eighteenth-century surveillance and twenty-first-century surveillance. Bentham needed to bring the subject into the surveillance environment. Modern technology can place surveillance infrastructure along the subject's path. Roads Become Observation Points A vehicle travels through public space. Historically, that movement was largely ephemeral. You passed an intersection. You entered a parking lot. You drove through another town. Unless a police officer, witness or camera happened to observe you, the moment disappeared. Networked license-plate readers fundamentally change that relationship. A passing vehicle can become a record. The record can include a plate, location and time. Multiply that process across large networks and movement becomes increasingly searchable. That is a fundamentally different form of observation from a police o...