Steve Mann - "Reflectionism" and "Diffusionism"

Steve Mann talks about "self-ownership" and "acquisitional privacy", or whether organizations have the right to surveil people, and what they can do with those images. He says there are ways those organizations defend their actions, like through secrecy, rhetoric, constancy, appeal to a higher authority, or criminalization of the critic. But Mann wants to turn their reasoning on it's head, through what he calls "reflectionism." Through his WearCam, Mann says that he is able to bypass the sense that he is actively recording the scene, because the device is hands-free. Also, the device transmits the video through an internet connection, thereby keeping the authorities from confiscating it. Through this method, Mann can easily subvert and annoy the societal structures that are typically watching him.

Mann is cleverly using technology to critique and question that which we normally accept. But really, Mann's grand theory of making people aware of the overzealousness of video surveillence won't be very effective through his methods. From my experience, most of the types of people that Mann confronted, small clerks, cashiers, mall security guards, etc., have other issues more present in their minds than whether they or the customers are being surveilled too much, or whether the reasons are legitimate or not. His idea of Reflectionism is interesting, but only for the people who have enough liesure time to worry about such things. To me, his Diffusionist actions hold more water, as he has developed some technology that truly can benefit society.