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The Upsides of a Surveillance Society
theodp writes Citing the comeuppance of ESPN reporter Britt McHenry, who was suspended from her job after her filmed ad-hominem attack on a person McHenry deemed to be beneath her in terms of appearance, education, wealth, class, status went viral, The Atlantic's Megan Garber writes that one silver lining of the omnipresence of cameras it that the possibility of exposure can also encourage us to be a little kinder to each other. "Terrible behavior," Garber writes, "whether cruel or violent or something in between, has a greater possibility than it ever has before of being exposed. Just as Uber tracks ratings for both its drivers and its users, and just as Yelp can be a source of shaming for businesses and customers alike, technology at large has afforded a reciprocity between people who, in a previous era, would have occupied different places on the spectrum of power. Which can, again, be a bad thing — but which can also, in McHenry's case, be an extremely beneficial one. It's good that her behavior has been exposed. It's good that her story going viral might discourage similar behavior from other people. It's good that she has publicly promised 'to learn from this mistake.'"
TL;DR: The upside of being under continuous surveillance is that everyone else is too. It is the same argument as, "Because terrorists might get caught."
Here's just one example of the downside: Alcoholics Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous, and similar will all have zero attendance as soon as employers stop hiring people who have been seen at an AA/NA meeting. That will be a reality within ten years, as private license plate tracking databases come online.
Doubt it? Ask yourself this: Would a typical "profit over everything" manager hire someone he knew was in NA? That guy is going to abuse these databases as they come online. That is reality.
Stop-Prism.org: Opt Out of Surveillance
To be fair, her car was towed by a company that has a reputation for illegal towing. I had this happen to me once and I wanted to burn down the business with everyone inside.
Having you car towed illegally is a pretty disturbing experience. You know it wasn't parked illegally, yet it's gone. Was it stolen? You call the police, they show up hours later only to tell you it was towed and then leave. You are out hours of time and then you get to the tow company and they want hundreds of dollars. No one in authority cares about it because you got it back and no one was hurt. Let's just call this a "micro-agression"
Fuck them and fuck the attendant, who is probably complicit in the scheme.