All of This is Temporary: Oversurveillance, Poverty, and the Ethics of Unequal Visibility

The greatest danger of surveillance is not simply that people are watched, but that some people are watched far more than others—and come to accept that visibility as the price of survival.

Overview

This presentation examined how civilian surveillance has become normalized across twenty-first-century society while remaining profoundly unequal in its application. Rather than operating as a neutral technological capability, surveillance functions as a mechanism of social stratification, disproportionately targeting Americans living in poverty and those who depend upon public assistance.

Using examples drawn from public assistance programs, the presentation explored how recipients are often required to submit to invasive monitoring, extensive data collection, and continual oversight as conditions of receiving essential services. These requirements extend beyond administrative accountability to create systems of persistent observation that wealthier citizens are rarely asked to endure.

Surveillance is not distributed equally. Visibility has become another dimension of inequality.

The presentation argued that this unequal application of surveillance technologies raises significant ethical and constitutional concerns. Examining the issue through the Fourth and Fourteenth Amendments demonstrates that oversurveillance is more than a question of privacy; it represents a civil rights issue in which technological systems reinforce existing class hierarchies while normalizing unequal treatment before the law.

Rather than viewing surveillance as an isolated technological practice, the presentation situated it within broader systems of governance and social control. When extraordinary levels of monitoring become routine for economically vulnerable populations, surveillance ceases to function merely as administration and instead becomes infrastructure that reproduces generational inequality.

Event

Class Consciousness Conference
Bowling Green, OH
April 15, 2023
Paper Presentation

Tags

Technology Ethics, Surveillance Studies, Privacy, Social Justice, Class Studies, Civil Rights, Presentation