Random thinky - Media Promotion of increased surveillance?

[silveradept]

Random thinky from my brain:

While watching television shows like NCIS, especially the LA spinoff, and more extendable to police shows in general, I'm noticing just how much of a panopticon society the main characters benefit from. Of course, they're using it To Catch Bad Guys, instead of the purposes that we've seen it used for out here in the real world, but there's almost always camera footage being reviewed, whether from traffic or ATMs or surveillance or anything else. Bank records, credit card statements, and other paper and electronic trails are accessed and used routinely. Usually with a warrant or search order attached - at least occasionally, there's a nod to the requirement of the law regarding actually having to get court orders, although it usually turns up in ticking clock, high-stress scenarioes as an impediment to the team's ability to Catch Bad Guys. It doesn't seem like the writers ever question whether or not this ability to track anyone is intrinsically good. It just makes their work easier and lets them catch the bad people in time for show resolution. I'd like to see an episode written where the team has to deal with the consequences of someone having access to that panopticon and using it for bad ends.

Comments

[the_future_modernes]

hear hear. NCIS LA especially has been making me extremely uncomfortable with their use of tracking tech., for instance.

[silveradept]

Quite. It always seems like they can zero in on someone because there's X tech and the GPS in the phone, and all the rest. The "smarter" criminals discard their tech and fool the tracking devices, of course, but there's still the assumption that all the people they're working against are Bad People and deserve to have all those things leveraged against them. I'd like to see some wrinkles introduced into those ideas.

[the_future_modernes]

yes. I'm really glad you sid this, its been a seed in teh back for my mind for a long time. Oh. did you see this?Government Seeks Back Door Into All Our Communications

[silveradept]

I had not. Fits in with the other bill they were talking about, though - seems that this administration doesn't want to be known as the anti-Bushes, they want to be known as the people who took it further.

[southernmyst.livejournal.com]

Numb3rs also does similar things, and since it's FBI and Don plays it loose and fast, sometimes they purposefully ignore search warrants, etc, altogether. But they did a major storyline addressing some of what goes wrong with that "do everything possible to catch the possible terrorist" "He's not a terrorist" "Of course he is" storyline; they also had some more minor storylines about it as well. It was ... difficult for me to watch, as I'd already known some of that. I hope it served as an eye opener to some, though I suspect the group that'd apply to wouldn't be watching Numb3rs. *sigh*

Sadly, I think that if any of the other crime-fighting shows have done or do storylines addressing what you brought up, most people still wouldn't realize the reality of it. There's SO much prejudice, it's unreal. "They won't really go after innocent people" is SO embedded, I can't grasp it, myself.

[silveradept]

Yes. Good to hear that Numb3rs did something like that. I've only caught them sporadically, so I didn't know about that arc.

I'm inclined to believe that the audience that most needs to see something like that isn't watching Numb3rs, no, they're probably watching 24 or something more like it and enjoying Jack Bauer's routine and flagrant disregard for the law.