The Other View

Big Brother Means Big

By Eugene Byrne

Not since the days of Dallas has a television programme caught the imagination of the public like the recently and thankfully completed showing of the Big Brother series on Channel Four. There wasn’t a pub or shop you went into or a bus on which you were travelling that somebody wasn’t rushing home to watch the next episode. I must admit curiosity got the better of me and I found myself tuning into Channel Four to see what I had been missing. Someone once said that a good reason for doing something twice is to ascertain if it was as good or bad as the first time. Well, after a first viewing I felt the need to put this theory to the test and indeed, discovered that it was every bit as bad as the first time.

As I sat down to watch the series in my South Armagh home, the reception on the television screen faded and became a haze when low-flying helicopters from the nearby British Army spy post on the hills of Glassdrummond flew overhead. It was at that moment, and but for the seriousness of the matter, that I found the situation farcical. Here I was watching a television programme where people by their own choice were being monitored for fun and entertainment while all around me in South Armagh, the populace were forced to live under around-the-clock surveillance from approximately a dozen high rise army observation posts.

The South Armagh region is undoubtedly one of the most monitored areas in Europe. Added to these monstrosities which blight the landscape are the covert cameras hidden in hedgerows, culverts, etc. Local farmers in South Armagh have discovered a number of these hi-tech surveillance devices. In many of these cases it is not always the obvious we have to be concerned about, there is also the question of the damage this type of surveillance can do to our health and this is a serious issue currently under investigation.

This is an infringement on privacy. The basic human rights of people are being eroded and all done supposedly in the interests of safety and the betterment of society. Most towns in the North have CCTV’s installed or are in the process of doing so. Therefore, whether we like it or not hi-tech surveillance has become part of our daily life … just like TV. However, unlike the participants in the Big Brother series we do not have a choice. We do not know who is monitoring us and whether we can trust them with our privacy. There are arguments for and against such intrusions into people’s lives. It may be argued that if you are doing nothing wrong you have nothing to fear; but is CCTV really a deterrent? Personally I don’t so. There may well be a hidden agenda for this type of Big Brother approach. It may or may not identify people in the act of committing a crime, but it doesn’t stop it.

We know from past experience that the information garnered from surveillance cameras doesn’t always protect the public. This was proved some years ago in Tyrone when a grandmother was murdered. Directly after the incident an elaborate surveillance camera which had been focused on the scene was discovered. It did not help to apprehend her killers or more to the point, was not instrumental in the prevention of her murder.

Nationalists and Republicans have every reason to be concerned about their security or safety especially when the RUC has responsibility for installing and monitoring CCTV’s in our towns. Currently in Newry there is an ongoing debate about the installations of these cameras. In Derry City, Armagh and elsewhere it is the same. The SDLP seem to believe that the recent spate of assaults in Derry would be reduced if CCTV’s monitored by the RUC were installed. Have they so conveniently forgotten that this is the same organisation who watched and done nothing when Robert Hamill was being kicked to death in Portadown town centre. Would CCTV’s have been made a difference? I don’t believe they would no more than a name change of the same force would. This is an issue that effects us all. It concerns fundamental rights of people and therefore it is important that the public have an input into the whole matter. It should not remain solely the decision of traders or the RUC. After all it is the general public who come under close surveillance while they go about their daily lives.

Recently pupils in England quite rightly objected to CCTV’s being installed in their school toilets because someone vandalised a mirror. A line has to be drawn somewhere. The Big Brother approach is a total infringement of everyone’s civil liberties. After the recent findings of the BSE inquiries we know we cannot rely on those in power to reveal the truth.

Unfortunately we don’t have the advantage of Big Brother’s purple chair to express our judgements and opinions on matters. If we did I would safely venture to say it would be a unanimous decision as to who would be evicted and why.

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