Greetings, my friends. I hear that there is a surveillance camera for every fourteen people in the country, and that well-intentioned people have expressed serious concerns about threats to liberty. Personally, I have always found appeals to liberty unhelpful and contradictory, since all government, all law consists in nothing else but the restriction of liberty, while it is to government and to law that we owe everything that makes our lives valuable, or indeed recognizably human. If you would be prepared to break a lance with me using the terminology of security, that is immunities, permissions and entitlements created and supported by law, you might benefit from making sense, and I might benefit from making you see sense.

First as to surveillance cameras: sempiterne floreant say I—Why do I think thus? It seems to me that the argument is so straightforward as almost to fall within the category of self-evident propositions, but permit me to rehearse it once more. I really do believe that the more strictly we are watched, the better we behave. All of us, you and I included, are liable to the temptation to make the sinister sacrifice, that is, to elevate our own interests, and the interests of those for whom we care most, above those of other people affected by our behaviour. It is for this reason that the penal law exists, and attaches sanctions, that is pains, to the commission of harmful acts, to the end that the costs of such commission might outweigh the anticipated benefits to the criminal. Of course, if I do not anticipate detection of an offence, the putative quantity of pain contained in a sanction is utterly beside the point. If I am confident that my crime will not be witnessed, or that the evidence of my crime will be insufficient to lead to prosecution, or that any prosecution will be unlikely to result in conviction, or that the execution of any sentence consequent upon conviction is improbable—if, that is, in my judgement, the balance of probability indicates that I can get away with it—even rendering of an offence capital—I, of course, deprecated capital punishment as uneconomical and irremissible—would be a merely idle gesture. It is for this reason that indirect legislation, that is a body of law consisting of measures to prevent crimes, by, for instance, weakening the seductive motives which excite to evil, is so important, and it is in this regard that I would have enthusiastically embraced CCTV. In a nutshell, CCTV preserves evidence and delivers us from reliance on the chance presence of witnesses to facilitate the effective punishment of crimes, and thereby their future deterrence. Indeed, cameras have many advantages in comparison of human witnesses, which all centre upon their greater objectivity: they don’t forget, they don’t lie, and they do not possess interests and emotions and past histories to be exploited by artful lawyers!

What, after all, is the objection to observation? I would have been entirely happy to appear on camera during my daily circumgyrations of the park, confident in the knowledge that, however foolish I might appear, I was doing nothing of which I should be ashamed. The demand for secrecy is prima facie evidence of a desire to inflict harm on others. Why should I object to appearing on my neighbourhood camera?—because I am up to no good? because I am supposed to be ill in bed and I am worried that my employer will see me up and about? because I have a romantic tryst involving the betrayal of a partner? Of course some things need privacy: military secrets, mercantile inventions, and sex, to name but three—but few have suggested that affairs of this nature should be conducted on the public highway. In essence, the more transparent the behaviour, the less chance is there that it will be directed to anti-social ends. Public security demands a presumption in favour of transparency and publicity.

But, I hear you protest, there are myriad practical difficulties in the operation of CCTV. You are right, but practical difficulties demand practical solutions, and only in the absence of such solutions do they impugn the principle. First, if the quality of the images is too poor to enable reliable identification, the whole conception is in danger of falling apart. What should be our response? Simple: improve the quality of the images. Second, if only some parts of a town are covered by CCTV, might there not be a danger of merely relocating all the footpads to the areas which lack coverage? Quite so. Answer: cover all parts of the town! Third, will not the disreputable classes take steps to disguise themselves before committing their outrages on personal property? Quite probably. The greater number of offences would not be committed, if the delinquents did not hope to remain unknown. Answer: Take ulterior steps to facilitate the recognition and finding of individuals.

Behave yourselves now,

J.B.