It seems that it is always easy to justify surveillance. In this case it is something extremely minor:
- graffiti on a wall that has been a monument of free expression because
- tons of drunk tourists
As we can see, it is trivial to justify surveillance. When we don’t define where the line is, we never know when we’ve crossed it. What is currently happening is that the line is being pushed further and further for ever more meaningless circumstances and in a great part dues to police laziness. It’s much easier to blame the lack of surveillance than the lack of competence. (in has also happened in Portugal)
We should strive to fight these arguments as soon as they appear in the news. When we are more resourceful, something we could do would be to prepare some templates texts to send out when this stuff happens to the entities responsible for doing the surveillance and some media organizations.