Steve Mann's essay was really interesting and easy to read. My first reaction was that he's taking his opposition to video surveillance over the top. Is all the action really necessary? I'll admit, upon reading the essay, i thought that he has a really valid point. Our lives are surrounded by camera's watching our every move, our right to privacy is nearly nonexistent, and all anyone is giving us is excuses. But, is it really anyone's fault? We saw this coming. We saw it with all the technological advances made in the last two decades. The conveniences in life come with consequences. You gain some and you lose some. All the plots Mann described in the essay targeted the security guards or the sales associates, people who don't have control over anything in the department stores Mann visited. They're just trying to keep their jobs, they're just saying the things they're supposed to say, they were not trained to have a highly-educated guy come up to them and challenge them with issues way beyond their concern. How effective can Mann's experiments be even if they did raise the awareness of these security guards? Mann's reflectionism targeted the wrong people. If he really wanted to change thing, it's not the employees' awareness that needs to be raised, not even the "higher and unquestionable authority," it's the general public.
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