Here's Looking At You Kid

Last night I briefly caught the More4 documentary Erasing David - where London based David Bond tests the system to see quite how difficult it is to disappear in the 3rd most intrusive surveillance state in the World (that's the UK in case you were curious). I'll be honest I didn't stick around to discover the conclusion, I left David sheltering at his Dads house whilst the Private Investigators on his trail staked out his Mum's house in the wilds of North Yorkshire.

I won't engage in a discussion on how much is too much and the switch from safely to control, but the TV documentary will add fuel to the ‘we are being watched’ debate that’s been simmering since George Orwell’s 1984 dystopian novel was published back in the late 1940’s.

In the build up to the 2010 general election citizen-control.tv launched a campaign to bring attention to the slow erosion of privacy & civil rights using a Hitler image with a CCTV moustache. Correctly or otherwise is another level of the debate - click here for CR blog's take on it.

Back in 2008 Banksy create the below on the side of a building in London.

Hilarious in October of 2002 the following poster campaign was put up on London bus routes. The hilarious bit is that it wasn't a guerilla art campaign mounted by privacy and civil rights advocates, but part of an official anti-crime campaign by the Metropolitan Police! The message is that the public should feel secure from being under constant surveillance. How successful this was I'd love to know.