Ward Off the Watchful Eye
Ward Off the Watchful Eye
I know that what I am about to tell you will seem paranoid and potentially unreasonable to the concern of the average person. But I need to impress upon you that as it would turn out I had my reasons to be concerned.
One afternoon, at my subway stop, I noticed a small device hanging from the electrical box. It was no larger than a berry, so I plucked it like one. In my hand, it looked like a cheap toy. But there was a lens. I thought it was some kind of photo receptor, maybe a camera.
I reported my discovery to the MTA worker at the station, but they didn’t know what it was. I asked the police. They didn’t know either. That uncertainty sank into me. Maybe it was part of a sting operation. Maybe someone stalking me had planted it. I began to live with a sharper edge of fear, wary of my own shadow, unsure of what was watching me.
Months later, while reporting a crime to the local precinct, I was pulled in for questioning. A detective at Coney Island said I matched the man on a wanted poster, a suspect accused of destroying “deployable cameras.” For an hour, he pressed me. He was certain it was me.
I told him the description could match many men. He ignored that. He leaned in close and reminded me he had locked up many graffiti artists, knowing I had painted walls in this city for over twenty years.
“Do you know how many graffiti artists I’ve put away?” he asked.
“The number could be one or a hundred thousand,” I replied to him, “It wouldn’t make me feel any less sorry for you.”
His face hardened. He inventoried my belongings, took my passport, and then lost it on purpose. He told me to file a complaint if I didn’t like it. I didn’t file one. I moved on. But I was left with a wound.
That day changed me. It shook my trust in the idea of justice. It showed me that those meant to watch over us sometimes imagine the worst and then do their worst, even to good men.
That is why I am writing this article, and why I will be showing the wanted poster in Germany this October. I will hang it in multiples, alongside my story, to spark awareness of how deeply the surveillance state has grown into our lives, our freedoms, and our sense of safety.
The cameras I discovered were not like the round cameras bolted to the subway ceilings. They were not like the CCTVs in shops that at least promise to protect us while they watch us. These cameras were meant to be hidden. Not for service. Not for safety. But to profile us, to build dossiers, to search for cause where none exists.
In court, I learned the MTA had paid $600 for each of these cameras. You can buy them online for less than $50. The MTA’s budget is five times larger than that of the NYPD. That fact alone shows the bloat, the waste, and the reach of a surveillance machine that has slipped past the limits of reason.
What I learned is simple. We have given too much away. We have allowed the state to watch us without end, and worse, to imagine us guilty before we have done a thing.
As citizens, we give our privacy away too easily. We tell ourselves we have nothing to hide. We tell ourselves it is only the bad people who need to worry. And so, for the sake of safety, we allow more cameras, more checkpoints, more eyes on us.
But the bargain is false. The hidden cameras I found were not meant to protect the public. They were not there to stop a thief or a violent act in the moment. They were there to watch the system, to feed the machine. Their purpose was not safety, but surveillance.
What these cameras create is not security but suspicion. They collect endless hours of footage, pile it into archives, and use it to build profiles of ordinary people. They do not deter crime. They do not stop it before it happens. They sit quietly, unseen, and wait for someone in power to use them; to confirm a story, to make a case, or to invent one.
I learned that truth firsthand. In my case there was no crime. Yet the evidence they had hoped to build was already there: a face, a profile, a suspicion. That is the real danger. Surveillance that does not protect the people but watches them instead, waiting to make them into suspects.
In modern cities, surveillance has become so embedded in daily life that it often passes unnoticed. Cameras watch from street corners, algorithms sift through phone records, and sensors map the flow of bodies through public space, all under the banner of security. The logic is familiar: to prevent crime, to keep citizens safe, to maintain order. Yet the deeper reality is more unsettling. Surveillance no longer functions solely as a shield against danger; it increasingly serves as an instrument of control, quietly shifting the balance of power between state institutions and the individuals they claim to protect.
This transformation is not abstract. It is lived and felt in the rhythms of ordinary life. In New York City, where I live, surveillance has crept into nearly every public arena, from the streets above to the subterranean veins of the subway. My own experience with hidden “deployable cameras” in the transit system revealed not just the presence of secretive technology, but also the consequences of questioning it: suspicion, investigation, and a reminder that in the eyes of the surveillance state, even private citizens can become suspects.
Around the globe, governments and corporations alike are expanding similar systems, deploying tools that watch, record, and predict, often without public knowledge or consent. The result is a world where safety is promised, but privacy is eroded; where security is invoked, but suspicion is normalized.
This article examines that tension, beginning with my own experience in New York and expanding outward to consider the broader implications of a world increasingly defined by hidden watchers and silent data collection.
The Promise of Safety vs. the Reality of Control
In 2022, Governor Kathy Hochul announced a $2 million federal grant to the MTA, enabling the installation of security cameras in every New York City subway car. This initiative aimed to enhance safety and deter crime throughout the transit system. The funding facilitated the purchase and installation of 5,400 cameras across 2,700 subway cars, with two cameras per car, supplementing an existing network of over 10,000 cameras in subway stations.
Surveillance has always been sold to the public under a familiar contract: a modest surrender of privacy in exchange for greater safety. The reasoning feels sound, even comforting. If cameras watch the streets, crimes might be prevented. If databases record identities, potential threats might be intercepted. The watchful eye is framed as a benevolent guardian, vigilant in its protection of the innocent.
But this promise rarely aligns with lived reality. Time and again, studies have shown that the presence of cameras alone does little to deter crime; at best, they document events after the fact. What surveillance does accomplish, often with quiet efficiency, is the collection of vast amounts of data on ordinary citizens, data that can be stored, analyzed, and repurposed in ways far removed from the claim of “public safety.”
The subtle shift is this: the public is no longer simply protected by surveillance, it is defined by it. Each person becomes a set of data points; movements tracked, habits recorded, identities cross-referenced. And when safety is measured in terms of control, innocence itself becomes provisional. A citizen is safe not because they are trusted, but because they are watched.
This inversion, the transformation of public safety into public suspicion, is the true legacy of the surveillance state. Its architecture is not built to reassure, but to discipline; not to deter crime, but to normalize oversight. It reshapes the social contract in ways most people never see, until the moment they are caught in its lens.
My Discovery of Deployable Cameras in New York
While specific details of individual cases are not publicly disclosed, the MTA’s deployment of hidden surveillance cameras in subway cars has raised concerns about privacy and the potential for misuse. For instance, in June 2022, the MTA installed “hidden” surveillance cameras on 65 train cars as part of a pilot initiative to test the technology’s effectiveness in enhancing safety.
The New York subway is a city unto itself, a place where millions of strangers converge, where the hum of electricity mingles with the screech of steel, and where anonymity once felt like a quiet freedom. For decades, riders could vanish into its tunnels, swallowed by the crowd, unremarkable and unseen. Yet beneath that surface, a new architecture of surveillance has been unfolding, subtle and mostly invisible.
It was here, in this subterranean labyrinth, that I first encountered what are known as deployable cameras. Unlike the familiar fixed lenses mounted high on tiled walls, these devices appeared suddenly, almost like intruders. They were not part of the city’s permanent infrastructure; rather, they could be moved, shifted, concealed, and repositioned at will. Their very nature made them elusive, difficult for the public to recognize, harder still to question.
At first glance, they looked innocuous: small, discreet boxes with a lens, perched where few would think to look. But the more I studied them, the more unsettling they became. These were not tools of transparency, placed to reassure the public. They were devices designed for concealment, for quiet observation without acknowledgement.
The revelation was troubling not only because of their existence, but because of their secrecy. Nowhere were commuters told they were being watched by movable, experimental cameras. There was no public disclosure, no visible oversight, only the silent presence of unblinking eyes that could appear and disappear without trace. What purpose could such technology serve if not to expand surveillance beyond the realm of deterrence, into something more insidious; profiling, data gathering, suspicion cast across the innocent as readily as the guilty?
It was in this discovery that the abstract notion of the surveillance state became personal. What had once been theory and speculation was suddenly concrete, embodied in the very tools that monitored the lives of millions who rode those trains every day, unaware that the shadows were watching back.
Being Treated as a Suspect
The MTA’s exploration of AI-powered surveillance systems exemplifies the growing trend of predictive policing. In April 2025, MTA Chief Security Officer Michael Kemper announced plans to deploy AI cameras capable of detecting “problematic behavior” on subway platforms. These systems aim to flag potentially dangerous actions before they escalate, raising concerns about profiling and the potential for biased decision-making.
The discovery of the cameras should have ended as nothing more than an observation, an uneasy note tucked into the back of my mind. Instead, it spiraled into something far stranger, and far more telling about the machinery of surveillance in New York.
One day, I was summoned into an investigation. The charge: destruction of deployable cameras. I remember the absurdity of it even as the weight of the accusation pressed down on me.
The irony was not lost on me. Surveillance, which had been justified to protect citizens like me, had turned its lens against me instead. I was no longer an observer of this hidden architecture , I had become a case study within it. Each question I faced carried the unspoken premise that I was a suspect, not a citizen; a potential criminal, not a participant in public life. The most disturbing of which was the detective’s insinuation that he already had a file on me for doing Graffiti. A crime of which I was not there to be under question for but he leaned into it like a threat, as if to say, “oh we know you, we hav been watching you for some time.”
In the end, the case collapsed. There was no evidence. Perhaps, too, there was little appetite from the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to admit that such devices existed at all, let alone that they might be quietly watching their riders. But the experience lingered long after the legal matter disappeared. For me, it was not just about the cameras, it was about the speed and ease with which suspicion could be assigned, how quickly the presumption of innocence dissolved once one was caught in the invisible net of surveillance.
It is a peculiar thing, to feel yourself cast in the role of the criminal without committing the crime. The lesson was sharp and unsettling: under the surveillance state, innocence is not something you carry with you, it is something you must continually prove. And sometimes, proving it is no protection at all.
The Broader Implications: Data, Profiling, and Bias
• London: The city is renowned for its extensive CCTV network, with estimates suggesting over 15,000 cameras monitor public spaces. While these cameras are credited with deterring crime, their effectiveness in reducing criminal activity remains a topic of debate.
• China: China’s implementation of a “social credit” system integrates surveillance data to assess citizens’ behavior, influencing their access to services and opportunities. This system has faced criticism for its potential to infringe on privacy and civil liberties.
• United States: Cities like Chicago and Los Angeles have adopted predictive policing tools that analyze data to forecast criminal activity. However, studies have highlighted concerns about these systems perpetuating existing biases and disproportionately targeting marginalized communities.
What my experience revealed on an individual scale is, in truth, the architecture of surveillance at large. Cameras, sensors, and algorithms do more than observe , they categorize. Each piece of footage is not merely a record of events, but a data point that can be stored, cross-referenced, and used to construct a portrait of the individual. Where you travel, when you travel, who you appear alongside; these fragments are stitched together into patterns, and patterns, in turn, become profiles.
This process transforms surveillance into something far more consequential than passive observation. It becomes predictive. Systems of “intelligent surveillance” do not stop at recording crime; they attempt to anticipate it, to flag “suspicious” behavior before any crime occurs. The danger lies in what is deemed suspicious and who makes that determination.
Predictive policing software, facial recognition systems, and algorithmic risk assessments have been shown repeatedly to reproduce bias. They lean on historical data sets already shaped by over-policing in marginalized communities, ensuring that the same populations remain targets under the guise of neutrality. Far from correcting injustice, surveillance often hardens it. The technology carries the illusion of objectivity, but its function is deeply political: it reinforces existing hierarchies while cloaking them in the language of security.
The more data is collected, the more the line between private citizen and potential suspect dissolves. Safety becomes less about protecting individuals and more about managing populations, treating human beings as clusters of information to be monitored, sorted, and, when deemed necessary, controlled.
This is not a hypothetical future. It is already here, embedded in the quiet operation of deployable cameras in a subway station, in the vast digital archives stored beyond public reach, in the unseen decisions made by algorithms that none of us voted on but all of us live under. The problem is not simply the presence of surveillance, but the absence of transparency and accountability around how it is wielded, and to what ends.
A Global Perspective on Surveillance
What is unfolding in New York is not unique. Across the world, cities have become laboratories for surveillance, each adopting new technologies under the banner of safety while quietly redefining the relationship between state and citizen.
London, often cited as the most surveilled city in the Western world, has built an infrastructure of cameras so dense that one can scarcely walk a block without entering their gaze. Officials promote these networks as deterrents to crime, yet studies have consistently shown their effectiveness to be limited, particularly against violent offenses. What they excel at is visibility itself, reminding citizens that they are always being watched.
In China, surveillance has evolved into an all-encompassing system, where facial recognition cameras, biometric scanners, and data-tracking feed directly into a “social credit” system that scores citizens based on their behavior. The logic of security here merges with the logic of conformity: to live outside prescribed norms is not just to risk suspicion, but to incur tangible penalties that affect employment, travel, even access to basic services.
In the United States, predictive policing has become the frontier of surveillance. Cities like Chicago and Los Angeles have experimented with software designed to forecast where crimes might occur or who might commit them. Far from neutral, these algorithms rely on historical policing data that disproportionately target communities of color, thereby encoding bias into the future. The result is a feedback loop: neighborhoods already over-policed become flagged for further policing, perpetuating cycles of scrutiny and mistrust.
Each of these examples shares a common thread. Surveillance is rarely rolled back once introduced. The cameras remain, the databases expand, the algorithms evolve. The public, meanwhile, is given little say in how these systems are deployed or governed. What begins as a promise of safety gradually metastasizes into an expectation of compliance.
Seen in this global context, the deployable cameras of New York’s subway are not an anomaly, but a local expression of a global trend: technologies that exceed their stated purpose, that creep silently into public life, and that transform citizens into suspects long before they ever encounter the law.
The Need for Transparency and Accountability
The time has come to name surveillance for what it has become: not a public service, but a private enterprise of control. When cameras are deployed without consent, when data is harvested without disclosure, when algorithms decide futures without oversight, this is not safety. This is exploitation. It is the quiet rewriting of the social contract, where citizens are no longer protected but managed, monitored, and profiled.
Surveillance that does not serve the public good is both morally and ethically indefensible. To watch without transparency is to erode trust. To gather data without consent is to deny the individual their autonomy. To profile citizens, reducing their lives to patterns of suspicion — is not the work of justice but of coercion. And when such practices are concealed, shielded from public debate, they cross a still deeper line: they betray the very principles of democracy itself.
Legality, too, cannot be assumed. The Constitution, human rights frameworks, and international law all affirm the rights to privacy, dignity, and due process. Yet surveillance technologies creep forward in the shadows, rarely subjected to the scrutiny that any other instrument of power would demand. By operating in this gray zone, they hollow out the law while claiming its protection.
If safety is the justification, then let us ask plainly: safety for whom? Cameras may reassure institutions, but they do not prevent crime. Algorithms may predict, but they do not protect. What they achieve, above all, is the expansion of authority over the most intimate dimensions of our lives, our movements, our associations, our choices. This is not security; it is subjugation dressed in the language of safety.
To accept this without resistance is to normalize suspicion as the condition of citizenship. But citizenship is not contingent upon being watched. It is not earned through compliance. It is a right. And any system that forgets this, any state that demands surveillance in place of trust, ceases to serve the public and begins to serve only itself.
The call, then, must be clear: transparency, accountability, and limits. Surveillance must be subject to the same scrutiny as any other public power. Citizens must know when they are being watched, what data is collected, and how it is used. Without this, there can be no genuine safety, only the illusion of it, bought at the cost of freedom.
My own encounter with deployable cameras in New York began as a curiosity, but it ended as a revelation. To be drawn into an investigation for a crime I did not commit was more than a personal ordeal, it was a glimpse into how swiftly surveillance can transform an ordinary citizen into a suspect. It revealed the vast overreach we have permitted: a system that profiles private individuals, fabricates suspicions, and constructs the machinery of probable cause not from acts of wrongdoing, but from the very data of daily life.
The MTA’s initiatives, such as the installation of security cameras and the exploration of AI-powered surveillance, reflect a broader trend of increasing surveillance in public spaces. While these measures aim to enhance safety, they also raise important questions about privacy, consent, and the potential for misuse. It is crucial to ensure that such technologies are implemented transparently and accountably to protect citizens’ rights and freedoms.
This is the dangerous logic of the surveillance state: that innocence must be proven, that privacy is conditional, and that even in the absence of crime, the specter of criminality can be conjured from patterns, predictions, and probabilities. From there, the path is perilously short — toward raids justified on little more than algorithmic hunches, toward criminal profiles etched into records before an individual has ever broken the law.
What began as tools of protection have metastasized into instruments of suspicion. They do not safeguard the public so much as they safeguard the power of the institutions behind them. They reduce citizens to data points, build narratives of guilt where none exists, and normalize the idea that to be watched is to be safe.
But true safety does not come from constant scrutiny. It comes from trust, from transparency, from systems that serve rather than prey upon the public. To accept the unchecked reach of surveillance is to accept a society where freedom is rationed, where privacy is forfeited, and where suspicion is the default condition of civic life.
The lesson of my experience is not mine alone. It is a warning: that unless we demand accountability, surveillance will continue to grow unchecked, carving ever deeper into our freedoms while insisting it is for our own protection. To resist this is not a matter of preference, but of principle. For if safety is purchased at the cost of liberty, then we are neither safe nor free, only watched.
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Harrison Love is Artist and Author of “The Hidden Way,” an award winning illustrated novel inspired by first hand interviews about Amazonian Myths and Folklore. He is also the Founder of the Permaculture Art Gallery STOA. More information about his Art and Writing can be found on: www.harrisonlove.com
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