Surveillance Nation | WBUR and NPR - On Point with Tom Ashbrook

TODAY IS SUNDAY, JULY 5, 2009

Thursday, July 12, 2007 at 10:00 AM EDT

Surveillance Nation

By host Tom Ashbrook:

In Britain, it’s commonplace — security cameras, surveillance cameras, everywhere. Some now even shout at you if you misbehave. The average Londoner is caught on maybe 300 surveillance cameras a day.

Now the bug is catching in the USA. Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia are all getting camera-ed up. Thousands of new surveillance cameras are also headed into Lower Manhattan.

Terrorism fears are driving the move. Big Brother will be watching. But does it really work? And is it worth the loss of privacy?

This hour On Point: the craze for security cameras, and imagining life in the “surveillance nation.”

Guests:

Nicholas Thompson, Senior Editor, WIRED Magazine

Mathieu Deflam, Professor of Sociology, University of South Carolina

Gary LaFree, Director, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism

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