Surveillance Goes Country

~ This article first appeared in The Leader-Vindicator newspaper. ~

WARNING: 24 HOUR VIDEO SURVEILANCE IN USE.

The message, printed on no fewer than four signs, is at the end of a quiet lane.  The lane connects to a dead-end country road that provides residents of a few wide-spaced houses access to the outside world.  Presumably, everybody knows each other.  Presumably, there isn’t much suspicious traffic that goes unnoticed by the neighbors.  The signs have the same effect on the atmosphere of the little village as does a hydrogen bomb on the vicinity surrounding its detonation.

I’m starting to see the threats everywhere.  They’re scattered up and down the road my parents live on: “Smile for the camera!”  I pass them posted in fields on the way to the farm store: “YOU are on camera!”  Almost everywhere I look the landscape is looking back.

I expect it in the city.  The reality of being watched and recorded in urban centers is something you have to accept.  But to be monitored and photographed while walking through the open country is an offense I’m not prepared to deal with and would like to see disappear.

It’s a good bit different monitoring the countryside than it is a cash register or a store front.  Rural surveillance is not afforded the luxury of choke points that funnel everyone through the same confined space.  Therefore the first issue with country snooping arises:  If a picture is captured it will likely be completely at random and will in most cases be of a person wearing protective head cover inside or on top of a mass produced ATV, which narrows the scope of suspects down to the entire population of a tri-county area.  Even if the image is a face shot of a stranger on foot, what exactly is the plan for follow through?  To carry a printout and ask people in passing if they recognize the man who walked on the property?  Maybe the meth-head at the Wendy’s drive-thru window knows him.  Better ask.

I doubt the police will be of much help based on the outcome of a hit and run experience that damaged my cousin’s pickup over the summer.  Armed with multiple sources of photo and video evidence, along with the license plate number of the offending car, he reported to the police who quickly concluded that there was little chance they’d ever find the driver who ran.  Case closed.  If photo, video, and identifying license information is insufficient to find a car, what are the officials going to do with a sasquatch-hunter-quality image of a dude on a path?  Justice will probably sneak away on that one.

Now, if the camera is at best unlikely to help arraign strangers, then we must consider who will be most affected by the unblinking eyes and digital memory.  The answer is the neighbors.  While a photographed stranger might cause some head-scratching and a flaccid investigation, a picture of a familiar face will cause exclamations such as “By George, that’s Jim!”  Suddenly the people who share the same landscape are acutely aware of one another, and being watched doesn’t contribute tidings of comfort and joy.

Digital imaging of rural places does not affect the intrusion of strangers; it affects the neighbors who have to live under the lens every day.  In the example of the farm lane at the beginning of this article, some cameras and the truly off-putting signage have been installed directly across the road from my friend’s driveway.  He is the victim here, because even a trip to the mailbox puts him on camera.  I know that I, too, have been pictured many times passing up and down the road while performing daily tasks and the thought bothers me considerably.  It’s true that my life is rather boringly devoid of criminal activity and so I wonder why the fact needs proven again and again. 

This is a problem of vanishing agriculture.  Growing food is a grand admission that the land does not belong to those who tend it, for the land is providing for many others.  This reality forces in the mind an understanding that a landscape is much different than a possession.  A farm community shares this unspoken truth among neighbors and everyone keeps an eye out for each other.  Conversely, people who own property and refuse to farm it are increasingly proving to be special; property is an expansive plaything and nobody else can touch it.  There is no culture, there is no benefit to having neighbors; there is only a lens to hide behind with their stuff, and a threat: “I’ll tell on you!”

I think of a neighbor in his eighties who refuses to post his property.  He told me about the land at our first introduction: “It’s not really mine.  I just watch over it.”  When people abuse the right to be there, he bellows from the bottom of his lungs and throws them off.  He loves the land deeply, but in a much different manner from someone who thinks they own it.  I feel good knowing him.  I feel a strong desire to respect the place the way he does.  He’s a stronghold against Big Brother, and I’ll always remember his example so I can pass it on to my kids.