With the model of self-government Hillsdale College professes to uphold, one might assume the College trusts its students are capable of developing the capacity for such a thing. Furthermore, one would think that Orwellian measures associated with surveillance states do not fit well with the strengthening students’ senses of the responsibilities that come with freedom. Despite all this, there is a real danger that an institution that seeks to promote the exercise of such responsibility is tempted to adopt — with the best of intentions — surveillance measures that had once only been the tools of dictatorships and dystopias. Always with the best of intentions.
In the late 18th Century, political philosopher Jeremy Bentham came up with what he called Panopticon, a proposal for prison architecture that would allow one guard to monitor a large number of prisoners. The design included a circular, multistory prison with cells ringing the interior, which opened to a guard post in the center. A single guard behind a screen could view any cell at any time, such that no one prisoner would know if he was being watched or not. Bentham believed the possibility of being watched at any time would incentivize and thus inculcate a habit of good behavior, and that it would be a more humane form of incarceration. He imagined the idea could be adapted to hospitals and schools, always with the best of intentions.
Today, Panopticon has become all too real, and even those with no criminal history have been forced, or in some cases have elected out of a sheeplike preference for security theater over freedom, to fill the roles of Bentham’s prisoners. It should not be a surprise to us in the freer world — the United States, western European countries and much of the Americas — that countries like China which call themselves “democratic dictatorships” surveil their citizens mercilessly. China, the second most populous country in the world, has over 700 million surveillance cameras, which translates to one camera for every two Chinese citizens. Everyone is monitored, in realtime. Now, however, this level of distrust seems to have taken root within the country founded not long ago in direct opposition to the overreach of distant tyrants.
North American cities and many of their more-cowardly inhabitants have allowed and even demanded the new Panopticon as it invades schools, roads, and neighborhoods, to name only a few common venues of the recent proliferation of Big Brother. All in the name of safety, and always with the best of intentions.
This is a wrong road, and we should reverse course, while we still can. Although there is no right to privacy enumerated strictly in the Constitution of the United States, the Fourth Amendment protects citizens from “unreasonable searches and seizures,” and a legal framework surrounding such mass surveillance technologies certainly exists. “But,”an advocate of Panopticon may protest, “there have been so many shootings, and constant monitoring is necessary, for it is how we can have a safer society.”
Since, as we all know, power never corrupts, let’s assume that we are dealing with only well-intentioned guardians. The approach divides the population into sheep and sheepdogs, with the sheepdogs themselves doing the dividing, rather than the allegedly self-governing citizens. From the standpoint of a well-intentioned sheepdog guardian looking for bad behavior, which is worse: a false positive or a false negative? A false positive leads to an investigation that finds nothing, but a false negative means that the system failed — If a criminal is able to avoid detection by one of these AI-enhanced cameras and succeed in committing a crime, the guardians would be blamed and thus discredited. In the ZeroEyes context, this would be the difference between a false alarm concerning the presence of a firearm and the chance of a firearm slipping past the guardians. For the guardian, the preference is obvious — “better safe than sorry.” This means that the corporations that develop such surveillance cameras are incentivized to err on the side of being too sensitive and calling law enforcement officers to investigate ordinary, law-abiding citizens. For those of a more sheepish mentality, the feeling of such hair-trigger security must be comforting.
But if the 24/7/365 surveilling of ordinary citizens is justified by potential crimes committed by a few bad actors, perhaps we had better be taking notes from Kim Il-Sung’s illustrious example. After all, he seems to have established a crime-prevention strategy much less likely to have false negatives than the AI systems supposed to detect firearms. Indeed, why stop at AI-monitored cameras when you can have family members, friends, and neighbors inform on each other?
The choice to employ a totalizing network of Flock cameras, other ALPRs (automated license plate readers), and cameras such as the ZeroEyes AI firearm detection system is really the eschewal of the responsibility we all have to learn how to protect ourselves and others. In place of personal responsibility and education, such surveillance substitutes monitoring everyone’s personal activities by a select group of guardians who are assumed to be utterly lacking in any tendencies to misuse their almost godlike omniscience.
Self-Government Alternative
There is an alternative — that of Algernon Sidney, John Locke, Thomas Jefferson, and the Declaration. We ourselves are responsible for securing our rights and those of our neighbors, and for ensuring the safety of ourselves and those around us. In this approach, each of us is to be self-governing, self-responsible, and an active participant in the protection of our social order and each other. This requires both a well-considered moral sensibility, and the cultivation of the ability to carry these principles out.
The difference between the two options before us is stark. Bentham believed his panopticon was humane and would encourage good behavior. But embedded in it is cradle-to-grave monitoring by external cradle-to-grave monitors, which is the opposite of self-government. As for the monitors themselves, why assume good intentions? Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Those who establish such systems might well have intentions that are only the best, but power attracts those who would misuse it. Panopticon carries the seeds of its own abuse. As for the self-government alternative, it is the system of a free people. Only a self-responsible people can be a free people.
What might this look like in practice? Hillsdale College has adopted Panopticon. What would be the self-government alternative? Consider this: suppose the College were to take 15-18 credits from the core, and each incoming freshman began with a one-semester training in the law of self defense, situational awareness, de-escalation, empty handed combat, defensive pistol, less lethal weapons such as pepper spray, and the like…much as we currently do with 18 year old Marines and Army infantrymen. Upon successful completion of that semester, the student takes an oath to participate in the upholding of the security of the College and the town. And then is armed.
“Obviously absurd!” But why? Do we not genuinely believe in self-government?
“Impractical!” Yes, perhaps. It is an ideal; but as an ideal, we should aspire to it and get as close as we can. There will still be a need for watchfulness by experts and specialists; sheepdogs are not bad in themselves. But Panopticon, to treat human beings as flocks of sheep — that’s something else.
Shall we have self-government, or simply pay lip service to it?
Dr. Charles Steele is a Professor of Economics at Hillsdale College.
Alexandra Comus is a student at Hillsdale College.
