Video Surveillance: Power and Privacy in Everyday Life

Yesil proposes that video surveillance is not a novel technology specific to the post-September 11 era, but that it can be historicized within crime prevention and risk management initiatives going back to the 1970s. Analyzing press coverage, security industry statements, and federal agency and law enforcement reports, Yesil discusses this visual technique of knowing and communicating as part of the larger culture of control, and she situates it in the broader processes of rationalization and normalization. Based on interviews with police officers, school administrators, students and private citizens, she presents a systematic exploration of everyday experiences of power and offers insights into the surveillance/ privacy nexus.