Hold on a minute. Today's society has vastly more surveillance than the society of say fifty years ago. Cameras are everywhere - in our phones, on buildings, on

Hold on a minute. Today's society has vastly more surveillance than the society of say fifty years ago. Cameras are everywhere - in our phones, on buildings, on dashboards, on policemen. How has this affected our democracy? I'd argue that so far, the cameras are working in our favor. Police abuse gets caught on tape and prosecuted. Political corruption is harder to hide. A white supremacist who murders someone with their car and speeds off is caught. The Saudis get busted murdering a journalist. I'm not sure we can honestly estimate the negative consequences of mass surveillance. Certainly not if we lump every camera in to that category; I wouldn't want a camera in my living room, but I sure would like a camera pointed at my parked car. Streetlights? If it stopped my car from being broken into for the fourth time, I'd be pretty ok with it. Here in the US, it's not for want of camera technology that we are not living in a police state. If anything, the cameras are helping keep our social institutions honest.