ABSTRACT
You are under surveillance. Not many years ago, this statement could not have been made in a generalized form to an unknown addressee. Today, assuming that you are an urban dweller in a developed country, to be ‘under surveillance’ is a general condition. Cameras watch over you as you journey to work, registering your number plates or recording your behaviour on the underground train platform. Your image is recorded by every ATM you use, in almost every convenience store you enter, and many times on virtually every street you walk along. Vast commercial data banks assess your shopping habits and your credit history. Intergovernmental networks analyse your phone conversations, searching for key words as indicators of subversion.1 Your boss is probably recording you too.2 Your neighbours can now buy satellite pictures of your back yard.3 In New York, even the police dogs carry cameras.4 ‘You are under surveillance’ is no longer an announcement made to a selected individual – it is a description of our culture.
