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A quarter of young people support surveillance cameras in every house

This is the damnedest thing I've seen in a long time. The Cato Institute recently commissioned a YouGov survey about support for a Central Bank Digital Currency. For what it's worth, only 16% support it, but that's of minimal interest. Cato also asked a few other questions, and for some reason one of them was about household surveillance:

"Would you favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household to reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity?"

(Emphasis mine.) It turns out that 14% of Americans are in favor of putting cameras in every single home and monitoring them for illegal activity. This is mind boggling. What's even more mind boggling is that support for household cameras is considerably higher among some groups:

A full 27% of young people (age 18-34) support universal surveillance. A third of Black people (and a quarter of Latinos) support it. Among people who like the idea of the government being able to monitor all financial transactions, 77% support it.

I'm so taken aback by this that I'm not sure what to say about it. It's not figuratively Big Brother, it's literally Big Brother. And it's not cameras in public places. The question is crystal clear that it's about cameras inside every house in the country. How is it possible that so many people think this is a great idea? Am I missing something here?

31 thoughts on “A quarter of young people support surveillance cameras in every house

  1. D_Ohrk_E1

    Makes sense that the same people who support in-home surveillance also support the elimination of cash. These are the "you shouldn't be anonymous" crowd. It's a weird subset of Libertarian thinking where the lack of anonymity forces society to loosen laws.

  2. CaliforniaDreaming

    A lot of people really don't understand the consequences of surveillance.

    Or they could just be stupid.

  3. Laertes

    It surprises me too. I already knew that a large fraction of my countrymen had poor judgment and were some combination of mean, dumb, and crazy, but even given that, these numbers are higher than I'd have guessed.

  4. dilbert dogbert

    All ours are to see the horses and to see the critters that wander around. Most of the critters are skunks, foxes and the neighbor's cats. Stupid to have indoor cameras. I don't want some hacker to have to see me wandering around in my underwear.
    The front door camera checks on package delivery.

  5. Leo1008

    Regarding this:

    "A full 27% of young people (age 18-34) support universal surveillance."

    I'm not at all surprised.

    Our younger generations have essentially grown up in a surveillance culture (not necessarily a surveillance "state"). They all have cameras and videos in their pockets, they all constantly record what everyone does, and they all then proceed to publish that content instantly via the Internet (thereby broadcasting it around the world).

    Our younger types have grown up in a culture that thinks privacy is essentially over ("Facebook's Zuckerberg Says The Age of Privacy Is Over," NYT, 2010).

    Dave Eggers wrote a book, The Circle (which was adapted into a Tom Hanks movie), about our modern dystopia in which we all essentially agree to place each other under constant surveillance.

    "In ... The Circle, the right approaches are verbalized as: ‘SECRETS ARE LIES’, ‘SHARING IS CARING’ and ‘PRIVACY IS THEFT’" ("Shame and surveillance in David Egger’s The Circle," byarcadia.org).

    On a more personal note, there have been a number of occasions where I have encountered this seeming disregard for privacy among the younger types. One or two years ago, a young acquaintance briefly visiting my apartment proceeded to take out his phone and take videos of the inside of my home without asking me if that was alright. I finally had to ask him to stop, and he seemed a bit confused.

    I was recently on a group trip in which our young-ish group leader constantly had us taking group photos for Instagram. I didn't even bother pointing out that I didn't really want my movement advertised a half dozen times a day on the Internet. That would've been like trying to fight the tide.

    And I'm sure there must be others with many similar experiences, right?

    Another example that comes to mind: Claudia Conway was notorious for secretly filming her famous parents (her mother is the infamous Kellyanne) and then posting those private family interactions online ("Claudia Conway shared videos that appeared to show her mom screaming at her," Insider, 2021). Those videos were seen/heard millions of times.

    All I can say is that if I had kids, I'd make it crystal clear that if they ever posted a secret and private video of me online, their data plan would be instantaneously canceled.

    So, the idea of putting a camera in every home? Our kids are already there. They've been living with that for years. Heck, they're the ones who've been actively promoting exactly that kind of surveillance culture.

    And, as far as I can tell, they seem to have become so desensitized to living under surveillance that they may no longer differentiate if it's being done by their friends or their government.

    Then you can throw in yet more disturbing societal changes among the young, such as their preference for safety and harm reduction instead of free speech and civil rights (The Coddling of the American Mind, Greg Lukianoff and Jonathan Haidt).

    And it all leads pretty clearly to a young generation that's perfectly happy to welcome seemingly unlimited surveillance in order to promote "safety" (among other things).

    1. cephalopod

      For a lot of young people on the liberal end of the spectrum, the "safety" they are most concerned about are hate crimes, police violence, and school shootings. Video has played a major role in successfully prosecuting the first two, and cameras in the home are about the only thing that might stop the third (we'll never get rid of the guns, so it would be useful to know who is putting on body armor and grabbing an AR-15).

      These young people would probably argue against your use of the word "civil rights" as the opposite of safety and harm reduction. For them civil rights means not living in constant fear of attack - not just the right to vote, but the ability to walk down the street in your clothing of choice without being harassed or beaten.

      And, who knows, perhaps there are some right-wing young people who'd love the government to have a list of every man who puts on mascara in the privacy of his own home, and believes cameras will finally prove that all Democrats have child slaves in their basements.

      1. Leo1008

        There is, of course, always a tension between safety and freedom. And different generations constantly try to strike their own balance, in their own ways, between such concerns. That being said, my point is that the younger generations of today clearly seem to lean heavily in the direction of safety. And, no matter what their concerns may be, I disagree with that approach.

        I would add that we arguably live in a vastly safer society than we ever have before. Yes, as you point out, some current issues stand out (such as school shootings). But by most measures we currently live in one of the most safe and secure societies in the history of the world. It's not perfect, but it never will be, and that's an important point to keep in mind.

        Proponents of an idealized society can very easily become the enemies of a free society. Because, of course, a free society will always entail risk, hurt feelings, inequalities, loss, and other various sufferings. But for the sake of free expression, individual autonomy, and, among other things, a free republic, those are necessary evils that I will accept. Obviously, we need to continue working on those problems, but that process will always be a work in progress.

        Many young people seem to disagree, but I am not as inclined as them to make the perfect into the enemy of the possible.

  6. bmore

    I was a non-traditional college student around 2018. One class the professor was asking if genetic testing showed a propensity for a particular trait, would the students be in favor of actions based on the testing. For example, an airplane pilot shows a higher risk for a heart attack, should he be allowed to fly a plane. The kids pretty much said no. Many also thought if there was a higher risk of serious mental illness, then abortion was justified. Not a sure thing, but just a higher than average risk. Kids. Smh

  7. Joshua Curtis

    The question wording is not neutral. The part about domestic violence, abuse, and illegal activity will change how people respond. I suspect some people supported the surveillance because they oppose those negative activities and didn't think through whether the surveillance would actually help or not.

    1. jdubs

      This.

      Throw in the fact that 10% of people will say yes to anything in these kind of surveys and the results becime fairly meaningless.

      Its garbage, just ignore it.

    2. ruralhobo

      Exactly. Lots of people already can't understand long sentences, even a former president of the US of A. So they'll latch on to the last part, "reduce domestic violence, abuse, and other illegal activity". If the last words had been "prevent pet owners from beating their dogs and eating their bunny rabbits", there'd have been support for that too.

  8. ScentOfViolets

    I wonder how they feel about cameras in the classroom? I've heard some horror stories from people I trust about who administrators choose to 'believe' when it come to student/teacher behaviour.

    1. Leo1008

      If a student asserts that a professor "harmed" them with words or ideas, the professor gets the boot. The main premise of Higher Ed these days is to provide students with a safe environment, not a challenging environment where they might learn something new or upsetting.

      That's the background, for example, for the whole drama that unfolded at Hamline University earlier this year (a Muslim student was upset during an art history class where she was exposed to a work of art featuring the prophet Mohammed, so the teacher in question was fired).

      Tenured professors may have a bit more security; but, of course, Admins have been slashing the tenured jobs for decades ...

      1. ScentOfViolets

        My question flowed from how a potential student would take that question? Would it be in the service of creating a safe space? Or would they take the camera to be snitch?

  9. kahner

    my first reaction is i don't have a lot of faith in anything CATO puts out. not sure who ran the study for them but that would be good to know.

    ETA: looks like yougov

  10. shapeofsociety

    I am quite sure that a lot of respondents are not taking the question seriously. Some people will see it as so over the top that they'll treat it as a joke and say they're for it when they would never support it if it were a serious proposal.

    Also, as others have pointed out, there's the issue of non-neutral wording; polling questions about issues that most people haven't really thought about tend to get inaccurate results, as people give a "first thought" response, which often wouldn't be their real opinion if they took the time to actually think about it. "Who do you plan to vote for in the upcoming election" and "do you approve of the president" tend to get solid responses; "do you support this hypothetical you've never heard of before" does not.

  11. HalfAlu

    Have kids growing up today *ever* had privacy? They are under surveillance at school, at their jobs, and at home by their parents. Their school computers are monitored. There are surveillance cameras in the stores and malls, on street corners, in buses, pretty much everywhere.

    1. Special Newb

      It's not just that. Too many parents have put their entire kids lives up on social media. Think of it like your mom pulling out the baby pictures full of dumb stuff you did and showing them to everyone not a random relative

  12. megarajusticemachine

    I work with "surveillance cameras" all the time and let me tell you: nothing would ever be caught because no one can afford the mental space - or to pay the staff - to always monitor all the cameras all the time. Little would be caught by these cameras. Camera footage at best exists to go back to after the fact. Seriously. The only place I've ever heard of cameras really being monitored is in casinos, trying to catch cheats and dealers conspiring with cheats.

    Just a little side trip along the silly road against the dumb idea put out by Cato of all groups, based on a biased question, ha ha.

  13. Justin

    "Would you favor or oppose the government installing surveillance cameras in every household so that police could monitor the home to reduce domestic violence, abuse, gang activity, and drug use by young black and Latino men?"

    That might get a different answer!

  14. Bluto_Blutarski

    I suspect an epidemic of exhibitionism.

    Perhaps reality TV has convinced everyone that every aspect of their lives should be broadcast to anyone interested?

    It's like the Truman Show except with full consent and everyone playing the Jim Carrey role.

  15. Hank

    Occam's razor for survey results that just don't seem to make sense... This indicates how people answered survey questions *in one survey* rather than actual underlying beliefs. When people say who they will vote for or what they like or dislike, generally believe them. Much beyond that and there is so much error.

  16. Special Newb

    Because they think domestic violence and sexual abuse is worse than spying. And that's fully legitimate even if you disagree.

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