The key issue is the surveillance of the less powerful by the more powerful. Keeping a close watch on others is not inherently bad. For example, it makes sense to keep a close watch on small children to make sure that they do not get hurt. What makes the close watching in this situation acceptable is the trust implicit in the relationship. What is normally called surveillance then applies to cases when either there is a substantial power difference or a lack of a trust relationship, or both. A large powerful organisation is able to collect data on individuals because it is powerful and becomes more powerful because of the data.

A note on terminology: a focus on privacy directs attention to the individual whose privacy is invaded; a focus on surveillance directs attention to the exercise of power and to the groups that undertake it. For these reasons, antisurveillance is a better rallying point than privacy.

Reform solutions

One way proposed to protect privacy is to ensure that all the people who have access to information collected about members of the public -- such as computer administrators, police, government bureaucrats, telephone technicians and personnel managers -- deal with it in a "responsible" fashion. Yet even if every single person with access to confidential data were absolutely trustworthy -- which is far from the case -- this would not prevent problems. There are enormous bureaucratic pressures to extend the use of data about individuals for, from the organisation's point of view, very sound reasons. For example, the tax office wants to collect data to ensure that all pay their fair share of tax, so that enough money is available for essential public spending. Police see surveillance as necessary to protect the community from serious crime. Almost all surveillance is carried out by well-meaning people with what they believe are the most worthy ends in mind.

Another way of opposing surveillance is for governments to pass laws and establish agencies and systems to protect privacy. Laws, regulations and privacy commissions can allow citizens to see and correct files held on them; they can outlaw certain practices, such as sharing of databases; they can ensure that privacy considerations become a factor in policy making; they can establish organisations to keep tabs on technical developments; they can impose penalties on violators of people's privacy. Nevertheless, the whole approach is fundamentally flawed.

One big problem is that the path of legal regulation assumes a trade-off between privacy and other benefits, such as profit or bureaucratic efficiency. In the balance, privacy usually comes off second best. There are clear and direct advantages to corporations and government departments in expanding their capacities to gather and manipulate information on citizens. By contrast, there are few powerful groups with any direct interest in protecting the privacy of the "ordinary citizen." The result is that privacy concerns are routinely squashed by the steamroller of surveillance.

It is risky to rely mainly on governments to provide protection against surveillance when governments themselves are responsible for much of it, through taxation, police, military and spy agencies. In practice, the main role of laws protecting privacy may be to give the illusion that the problem is being dealt with.

Institutional change

Here are some radical approaches to eliminating surveillance by eliminating the institutional capacity or need for it in the first place. By necessity, this is just a summary account, but it should be sufficient to indicate the general approach.

Dangerous technologies. Surveillance has been justified by the need to protect against the dangers of technologies. One way to eliminate the surveillance is to eliminate the technologies. For example, military spying is needed to protect against unauthorised access to nuclear and other weapons. The solution is to abolish these weapons. One of the earliest objections to nuclear power was the tendencies towards a police state inherent in a nuclear society. The solution is straightforward: abolish nuclear power.

A more commonplace dangerous technology is the car. The danger of traffic accidents has engendered a multitude of traffic regulations. Far from cars enjoying "freedom of the road," they actually do more than any other technology today to put people on police files. The solution is to move towards a society in which cars play a much smaller role.

Medical records. Records of a patient's medical treatment can, in the wrong hands, be used to embarrass or discriminate against them. Instead, let patients keep their own records.

Prisons. Prisons are the ultimate in surveillance. The prisoner is both constrained and observed. There are several ways to reduce the number of prisoners and hence the extent of surveillance. One is to abolish victimless crimes, such as for vagrancy and drug use. Another is to increase social equity, so that there is less incentive for crime. The ultimate aim should be to replace prisons by a range of methods and policies genuinely oriented towards rehabilitation.

Workplaces. Workers are monitored on the job by management to maintain output but also to keep workers under control. The alternative is for workers to control their own work collectively. This includes semi-autonomous work groups which decide the way they will do a job within the general framework decided by management. It includes collectives, in which all workers as a group make the crucial decisions about what to produce and how to carry out their jobs. It includes workers' control -- usually associated with larger organisations -- in which workers make the basic decisions about their enterprise and work, using decision-making methods including voting, delegate systems, and rotation through managerial positions.

Spy agencies. Organisations such as the FBI, MI5 and KGB are responsible for some of the most objectionable snooping. They escape serious scrutiny by claiming the higher needs of "national security." There is a simple solution to surveillance by spy agencies: they should be abolished. What about defence secrets? These should be made obsolete by abolishing the military and replacing it with community-based methods of nonviolent defence, which require little or no secrecy.

Government services. Data is collected by governments to make sure that recipients of services are genuine. This applies to unemployment benefits, child support schemes, pensions for disabled people, war veteran benefits, education support schemes, health benefits, and the like. Keeping detailed data on recipients is considered essential to prevent cheating.

One solution is to provide basic services free to anyone who wants them. This applies today to services such as public parks and public libraries. Why not also to food, shelter, health services, etc.? The basic principle is that services for identified individuals are replaced by collective provision, for which there is no need for individuals to be identified.

Surveillance due to private investigative agencies, commercial databases and the system of taxation could also be eliminated by developing radical alternatives.

From vision to strategy

This institutional change programme is radical, going to the roots of the problem of surveillance. It is hardly a practical proposition, though, to implement these solutions through a short, sharp campaign. What use, then, is the programme?

First, it draws attention to the way that surveillance is deeply embedded in today's social institutions and is becoming more and more pervasive. The real idealism is to imagine that the problem can be solved by legislative and regulatory measures by the very institutions that are responsible for the problem. The radical agenda should warn against investing too much energy or hope in reform efforts, which may give only an illusion of protection.

Second, the programme provides an additional argument to challenge and replace hierarchical social structures. Alone, the problem of surveillance is not enough to question the value of nuclear power or the power of bosses. But surveillance is an important factor which should not be neglected in a focus on environmental impacts or the exploitation of workers.

Third, the programme highlights the range of triggers for surveillance: "national security," marketing, protection against dangerous technologies, provision of welfare. There is no evil agency that is responsible for all surveillance. The debate over surveillance concerns different conceptions of the good.

Fourth, the programme of radical solutions provides a direction for campaigns today. While it is impossible to introduce collective provision or to abolish spy agencies overnight, it is quite sensible to examine campaigns to see whether they aid the capacity for community self-reliance and whether they weaken rather than strengthen the power of the state.