As exampled by the violation of human rights in the prisons in Iraq, terrible things happen when there are no witnesses when helpless people are under the control of others with sadistic impulses. Authorities involved seem to be more distressed by the revelation of the problem rather than the problem itself. Therefor, if it was routine that all prison activities 24 hours per day were exposed to recording video cameras and the videos were automatically stored to be accessible only to central legal authorities or immediately electronically transferred to a central data storage unit at a legal center away from the prison to be available for prosecution of legal violations and to defendants who request legal help, the presence of this continual surveilance would probably deter much sadistic activity. If this were a universal system installed at all prisons inside and outside the country, it might make control of both prisoners and rogue guards and officials much more efficient and simple. There are no rights to privacy within prisons so there should be no objections to this on that basis.
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The videos could be streamed live like Big Brother to a cable channel that could let you pick which monitored prison you want to watch. Prisoners couldn't complain about the loss of privacy since they already lost any expectation of privacy when they were sent to prison. (Anyone who's ever been in a prison knows there's no such thing as privacy there.)
Live monitoring could be both a good and bad thing. It would decrease sadism by guards and violent acts by prisoners who stand to gain from good behavior, but it could also increase the number of violent acts by lifers who want to become movie stars. The actions of lifers could either be blocked out to take away the star factor, or left in to boost the deterrent factor among young watchers.
I am not really for the big brother thing. I think that anytime abuses run as deep as they did in Iraq, no video would be able to end it. Plus the concept of video taping people, sometimes in states of undress and other private things, would certainly be used to violate those that you are trying to protect. After all, it was not just that the people were made to run around naked and the other abuses, it was that they were having their picture taken, that was a big part of the abuse.
You are of couse Joking with "terrible things happen when there are no witnesses ". There were not only witnesses but witnesses with Cameras. These tortuers were led to believe that this was legal, sanctioned and OKAY!
It's pretty easy in any institution to get people to commit crimes that in the REAL world they would know to be wrong. Since we all know this where are the people who ORDERED them to do this? Since these people like Rumsfeld are the actual culprits might I suggest following THEM around all day 24/7 with Cameras the footage from which becomes state property and public property 20 years or so from now.
This might seem harsh but people with goosd intent would have no major issue with this. I'm sure every politician in the world right now WOULD take issue....what does this tell us?
I don't think Saddam would have allowed video cameras to record torture and murder in his prisons.
Oh, wait, we're not supposed to talk about that, right? We're only concerned about excesses that took place AFTER the "Butcher of Baghdad" was chased from power...
My bad.
I am concerned with crimes against humanity by people who claim to defend human rights and claim that what they do is right and proper. I doubt Saddam Husein gave much of a damn about public opinion.
See my response on Contact-Free Prisons for a related theme.