the Surveillance Camera Players

Only someone completely distrustful of all governmentwould be opposed to what we are doing with surveillance cameras.-- NYC Police Commissioner Howard Safir, 27 July 1999.

"We are unwitting citizens of a surveilled society," declared Mr. Brown, who is a member [sic] of the Situationist International, the motto of which is, "Never Work." "But we have an unwritten constitutional right not to be photographed in public."

Conceding that anarchy [sic] does not always go together with art, which usually involves some order, Mr. Brown said he would discuss "cultural subversion, political street theatre, whatever you want to call it." But he added: "Don't hurt your head. I'm not finicky about terms."

Mr. Brown founded the Surveillance Camera Players in 1996 after being inspired by a "guerilla manifesto" that labeled the camera "a tool of social control."

New York's falling crime rate, he said, has given the police and security people "less and less to watch on their cameras." But that, he said, has also presented "an opportunity and a problem: A bored surveillant is an inattentive surveillant."
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