Counter-Surveillance, Protest and Policing

Abstract

This paper, based upon 17 semi-structured interviews with individuals involved in video activism, examines the growing importance of visually documenting protest events for both activists and police organizations. It is argued that while visual recordings of protest events by activists may be useful in terms of securing safety, dissuading instances of police violence and in providing evidence against police misconduct, there are also unintended negative consequences of video-activism. These negative consequences include selfincrimination, the promotion of spirals of surveillance whereby the police video protestors, and the removal (at times with disproportionate force) of activists with recording devices from protest events to prevent visual documentation of police activities. Thus the practice of video activism at protest events is one with the potential for both negative and positive outcomes in terms of activist aims.