[wordup] World Sousveillance Day

[Adam Shand]

Via: The Eristocracy <Eristocracy at merrymeet.com>

From: Matt Brown <mlbrown at everstrive.com>
Date: Sat, 30 Nov 2002 10:19:04 -0800
Subject: Sousveillance

http://www.wired.com/news/holidays/0,1882,56185,00.html

Ronald Deibert, a University of Toronto associate professor of political
science, wants people to grab their cameras and hit the shopping malls Dec.
24 and participate in World Sousveillance Day. Surveillance means "to view 
from above." Sousveillance means "to view from below."

On the day before Christmas, at noon, local time, all over the world,
Deibert wants citizens to "shoot back" at surveillance cameras -- not with
guns, but with cameras of their own. Participants are to head out, in
disguise, to their favorite malls and public spaces, and photograph all the
security cameras they find.

Deibert warns that photographing security cameras will quickly cause large
men wearing navy blue blazers and two-way radios to place their hands over
your camera lens. Photographers may even be escorted off the premises.
Which is exactly the point. Deibert hopes World Sousveillance Day will
"raise awareness about the increasing pervasiveness of all forms of
surveillance in today's hypermedia society."

"A lot of people probably aren't aware of the extent to which they're being
monitored," he says.

Deibert chose Christmas Eve because it's one of the busiest shopping days
of the year.