Lately I’ve been thinking about the role of technology in changing the relationship Canadians have with all levels of government. The potential for open data to create transparency and direct citizen engagement in deciding how their city is run, and how an MP can now speak directly with the Canadian public across the country to address concerns and respond to criticisms about recently introduced legislation, are two recent examples of how technology is creating opportunities to reshape the way the public interacts with government.
Particularly fascinating is the potential for the proliferation of low cost digital cameras to exponentially increase the opportunities to hold accountable authorities who break the rules. Two weeks ago, the Braidwood inquiry concluded that the RCMP (in CBC’s words) were “not justified in using a Taser against the Polish immigrant and that the officers later deliberately misrepresented their actions to investigators.” The basis for these damning conclusions is the now infamous bystander video of Robert Dziekanski’s taser-induced death at the Vancouver airport in 2007, which lead me to tweet the following:
Rhetorical question of the day: Would there have been a #Braidwood inquiry without the video?
Only several days later, I watched the crowdsourced panopticon that was the G20 vandalism, and the resulting overreaction from police, via photos uploaded in realtime to Twitter (and on television). In a few of the photos I saw, it looked like much of the crowd was there to gawk and photograph everything that moved. Listening to a podcast from The Globe’s @IvorTossell, who was live-tweeting and sharing photos of the protest, my suspicions were confirmed. The 4 minute piece called “All the world’s a cellphone-equipped stage” noted the same observation: that much of the crowd was there to take pictures and shot video; a change that signified a new era accountability and scrutiny towards both the vandals that broke windows and set fire to police cars and the riot-gear-clad cops who stormed peaceful protesters singing the national anthem. The resulting images and footage were pretty incredible, even mesmerizing.
But even more astounding is this report from The Globe: the man shot the video of the death of Robert Dziekanski was at the G20 capturing more examples of the police behaving badly with the very same camera.
“I saw two different people get surrounded by police and beat down pretty bad,” [Paul Pritchard] said. “They didn’t get released until the crowd chanted for their release.”
He realized his cellphone camera was not adequate for what he expected was about to happen. He raced home on his bicycle to retrieve a trusty Sony Cyber-shot camera.
It was with that camera that Mr. Pritchard once captured the shocking images of a man’s death.
At 1:21 a.m. on Oct. 14, 2007, Mr. Pritchard, who had been teaching English in China, was at Vancouver International Airport on his way home to Victoria to see his father, who was dying of cancer. A ruckus in the arrivals area led him to train his camera on a distraught passenger. Four minutes later, police arrived and, in a stunning sequence later aired for millions of viewers, the traveller was zapped by a taser, his anguished cries the last sound he would make before dying. Mr. Pritchard continued shooting over the objections of a security guard.
This man personifies the new era we’re only just beginning to understand.
While size of these already-powerful devices continues to shrink – the power of the smartphone in your pocket now exceeds that of the computer you bought in 2001 – the quality and storage capacity, and the digital distribution network transmitting the media they create, only continue to expand exponentially.
This expansion is predictable. It follows along a smooth exponential curve when graphed, representing the rapid doubling of the speed and price performance of all information technology. But while the continued acceleration and ubiquity of technological expansion are assured, the resulting social and political consequences are still very much up in the air.
What will this future mean for Canadians and our democracy? I’m anxious to find out.
