Who is watching the watchmen? We are. #

Several millennia ago, Juvenal asked Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? ("Who will guard the guardians?"). It might please him to know that, increasingly, the answer is "everyone":

Using Sousveillance to Defend the Commons - Technology is letting citizens "watch from below" and so make power more accountable (via reddit)
Sousveillance in Seattle - Watching the Watchers
Sousveillance - Steve Mann's 2002 article in which he coins the term

Update on 2011.02.04: This Julian Assange quote from The Guardian (and found on reddit) bears repeating: "We support a cause that is no more radical a proposition than that the citizenry has a right to scrutinise the state. The state has asserted its authority by surveilling, monitoring and regimenting all of us, all the while hiding behind cloaks of security and opaqueness."
Update on 2013.07.01: Check out OpenWatch for Android & iOS

/misc | Jun 24, 2008

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