46. Sousveillance

Sousveillance (the opposite of surveillance) means to watch back from underneath. Sousveillance is a democratized reaction against totalitarian surveillance, and attempts to put surveillance back in the hands of the people, usually through the mediums of concealed personal video/still recording devices.

Excerpt from "Sousveillance" by Steve Mann, 2002

"Totalitarian regimes are often the cause of terrorism, or at the very least, often have a higher incidence of terrorism than less oppressive regimes. Thus increasing "security'' may actually increase terrorism, rather than reduce it. Rather than tolerating terrorism as a feedback means to restore the balance, an alternative framework would be to build a stable system to begin with, e.g. a system that is self-balancing. Such a society may be built with sousveillance (inverse surveillance) as a way to balance the increasing (and increasingly one-sided) surveillance. " -Steve Mann