Surveillance
Dear Father in Heaven,
Surely You created us to be in communication with You. You desire to know our inward thoughts and feelings, for our personal good and the good of Your Kingdom on earth. You share Your own thoughts with us in order to nurture our character. But do You want each of us to crawl into the minds of one another? To be able to read each others’ anger, our desires, our most personal thoughts and even secrets? To me, this seems like an invasion of Your territory. I will share below my thoughts and hope that they honor You.
I remember being struck by my two first introductions to the modern world of surveillance. One was when I mentioned the word “shoe” in the body of an email (not the “subject” line, and not a sentence about shopping) and Google began sending me ads for shoes! I was astounded! Didn’t know they could do that! (Obviously, this was several years ago. I’m no longer astounded, but rather, alarmed.)
The second time was when I was reading an account of how a boy was located when he went down the streets of NYC, followed by surveillance cameras located on the various stores on his route. (Sorry, I don’t remember if he was a criminal, or simply a lost boy.) Naturally, everyone rejoiced at the outcome.
However, I thought, does the end justify the means? Do I really want an anonymous someone to follow my every move?
Criminals and traffic violators are caught through camera surveillance. Terrorists are caught through tracking of cell phone activity. Can anyone find fault with this? Like other people, I also am glad to see the perpetrator punished – but at the cost of our integrity as a members of the human (not technological) race?
When I object to camera surveillance, friends ask me, jokingly, “So what do you have to hide?” My answer is, “Nothing, right now.” But one day, if or when the government bars religious meetings, I may want to enter a gathering-place unobserved. I have mentioned this to Christian friends who just give me a blank stare. Do I think this type of surveillance could happen? Yes, absolutely!
It happens in China. Over the past years, China has upgraded from in-person tracking by armed police to cell phone surveillance. They are able to find the illegal Christian meetings and to arrest church leaders. I do not know if cameras are used for this particular purpose, but I am sure they will be:
Analysts estimate that more than half of the world’s nearly one billion surveillance cameras are in China, but it had been difficult to gauge how they were being used, what they captured and how much data they generated. The Times analysis found that the police strategically chose locations to maximize the amount of data their facial recognition cameras could collect. (NY Times, June 21, 2022)
In late October, the pastor of one of China’s best-known underground churches asked this of his congregation: had they successfully spread the gospel throughout their city? “If tomorrow morning the Early Rain Covenant Church suddenly disappeared from the city of Chengdu, if each of us vanished into thin air, would this city be any different? Would anyone miss us?” said Wang Yi, leaning over his pulpit and pausing to let the question weigh on his audience. “I don’t know.”
Almost three months later, Wang’s hypothetical scenario is being put to the test. The church in south-west China has been shuttered and Wang and his wife, Jiang Rong, remain in detention after police arrested more than 100 Early Rain church members in December. Many of those who haven’t been detained are in hiding. Others have been sent away from Chengdu and barred from returning. Some, including Wang’s mother and his young son, are under close surveillance. Wang and his wife are being charged for “inciting subversion”, a crime that carries a penalty of up to 15 years in prison. (Lily Kuo, The Observer, January 13, 2019)
But surely this could never happen in the U.S.! Think again. After 9/11, the National Security Agency began a course of violating our freedoms that could well someday culminate in martial law. I believe the “Big Brother” of 1984 is a possibility. If you don’t agree, read the following Fox News excerpt:
A county in California facing a lawsuit from a local church for allegedly violating constitutional rights with its punitive COVID-19 restrictions is clapping back as its reported surveillance of the house of worship gains publicity….
The statement followed a new report detailing a sophisticated and extensive “spy operation” targeting San Jose’s Calvary Chapel, with which the county is involved in ongoing litigation.
The report, published on Substack by journalist David Zweig, cited court documents in outlining how the county took various actions – such as watching church activities through a neighboring property’s chain link fence, walking in on church gatherings like Bible study, and tracking churchgoers’ cellular mobility data – to surveil Calvary, monitoring for compliance with public health mandates. Aaron Kliegman, Fox News, March 8, 2023
To be sure, Christians are not the only worshippers being tracked; Muslims in this country are even more vulnerable.
When I first started hearing about extensive camera surveillance, my one comfort was that human monitors of the cameras would become bored and fail really to observe what is going on. But when I mentioned this to a doctoral student at Carnegie Mellon University, he proudly told me he and his adviser were working on computer programs that would monitor the cameras and alert someone if there was suspicious activity. Nowadays, we all know that the “computer programs” involve Artificial Intelligence and facial recognition software.
Over recent years, home security systems have been developed to allow working parents to monitor their children in every room when left home alone. What good does this do? Can one prevent one’s children from playing with matches when one is not there to confiscate the matches? Even if the children are old enough to be left home alone (if there is such an age), how can a trust relationship ever be built up?
The latest “technological advance” that I have heard of (and I’m sure I’m behind in the news) is “brain wearables” that fit over the head and monitor brain activity, which is relayed to some sort of central system. Proponents say the brain wearables can help manage ADHD and warn in advance of epileptic seizures. Opponents point out that China (again, a leader in surveillance systems) uses the brain wearables to track students’ and workers’ attention and focus throughout the day. Another use is to probe for loyalty to the Communist Party. (Nita Farahany, Fox News, March 13, 2023)
Apparently, the wearables are already being used here in the U.S., though for what purposes I am not aware. I have heard that truckers may be asked to use them for long-distance trips to alert the company when said drivers are getting too drowsy to navigate safely. I suppose this is a laudable aim, but where does privacy and integrity come in? My hope is that our independent truckers will not submit to the new requirements.
Yes, all these surveillance techniques are handy for catching criminals. But they are also useful to an autocrat who wants to control people. We had a hint of this during the COVID scare. Imagine what could happen to the “right of people peaceably to assemble” (U.S. Constitution) under an autocrat who can view all people travelling to a meeting that protests the leader’s aims. Where would our freedoms be then?
Dear Lord,
I hope this musing is pleasing to You. Somehow, technology is taking over our lives, bit by bit. How deep do we need to go into surveillance – even of our deepest thoughts – before we hit on something evil? Something against Your will for humanity? Please guide us. Lord.