Channels, Fall 2018

Page 134 Warder • Eyes on the Money occurred across the world, beginning after World War II in Korea, then extending to Vietnam and Southeast Asia, and even stretching into Latin America during the Carter and Reagan administrations with the trade embargo and committed military and CIA backing of the anti- Sandinista (Marxist revolutionaries that came to power in Nicaragua) rebel group known as the Contras. Put simply, the USA spent the latter half of the century going to great and aggressive lengths to prevent the expansion of the Soviet economic sphere of influence, demonstrating a preeminence of purpose in protecting and expanding its own sphere of influence. This preeminence extends even to the current policies of President Donald Trump, whose rhetoric on the condition of the U.S. economy places his policies well into the zone of the realist, zero-sum- game approach to world power economics. He outlines such thinking in his political statements regularly, referencing “the disaster called NAFTA” (Time Magazine Staff, 2016) and “China’s entry into the World Trade Organization,” which he claims is “the great job theft in the history of our country,” and even stating that losses in U.S. economic influence are the result of “a leadership class that worships globalism over Americanism,” a critique of liberalist policies and a stark defense of realism that will likely continue to exhibit itself in the President’s international trade policies. Examining the efforts of the United States government to protect its economics interests through foreign policy naturally leads to a discussion of how this sentiment manifests in domestic policy. CCTV and Government Surveillance Policy In conjunction with the trend of government surveillance in general, CCTV networks increased in popularity in the USA as a means of domestic security in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in Washington D.C. and New York City. In fact, the attacks drove home the point of the need for greater domestic security as a means of protecting economic interests in the most tragically spectacular fashion by destroying the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in New York City, resulting in thousands of civilian deaths and the destruction of the physical and symbolic manifestation of United States economic power. In response to and in realization of that fact, the U.S. government passed the Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism (USAPATRIOT) Act of 2001, implementing programs that in effect “led to the rapid diffusion of CCTV” in those two cities, directly citing the “heightened security concern following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks” (McCahill, Norris, and Wood, 2002). In Washington D.C. and New York City, there now exist formidable CCTV networks as a means of addressing the aforementioned “heightened security concern.” In Washington D.C., the United States Park Police and Metropolitan Police Department of the District of Columbia both operate extensive CCTV networks throughout the D.C. area, with the Park Police focusing upon the central area of the National Mall monuments and buildings (including the White House and Capitol) and the MPDC monitoring the wider scope of the city (GAO, 2003). In New York City, the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative (LMSI), implemented in 2007, guides the continued use of a large network of government-owned and privately-contracted CCTV systems, which includes license plate reading-capable technology. In addition, the complementary program Midtown Manhattan Security Initiative (MMSI) was implemented in 2010. The MMSI functions in tandem with the LMSI and serves to highlight the continued expansion of CCTV networks as the government (in this case, the NYPD Counter-terrorism Bureau) senses the need to impose more comprehensive security (Greer, 2012). In this perceived need for more comprehensive CCTV networks, there arises the matter of justification and of effectiveness. A wide range of studies have been conducted and are certainly still being conducted in this line of research, examining aspects of security from crime reduction to perceived safety of the populace in those areas.