Cameras--and sight--everywhere

This email came over the nettime list the other day:

"Hello, I am Laura, a security guard at the Vancouver Art Gallery. Through work, I have access to a lot of security cameras. I hacked a way to put one of these online on my Website so you can see it and control it. I love surveillance and keep a web journal or blog of what I see and put up video and images of things that happen."

http://eyesoflaura.org

Eyes of Laura is a stylized version of a relatively new phenomenon: viewing surveillance camera feeds via the web. About a month ago, sites like Boing Boing and Metafilter reported that a simple keyword search on Google could result in links to tons of unsecured webcams. Some even allow pan and zoom controls.

This phenomenon doesn't even get into traffic camera sites, like this one from Georgia's Department of Transportation, which are intended to be publicly viewable.

Projects such as the NYC Surveillance Camera Project attempt to intervene into surveillance culture by posting the addresses of all surveillance cameras in New York City. They explain,

"The intent of this website is to raise awareness of the prevalence of video surveillance cameras in New York City, explain the threat they pose to our individual freedom, begin a long overdue, much needed dialogue on the topic and recommend ways to curb cameras infringement on our right of anonymity and to move and associate freely."

I think many of us would welcome such a site to our localities in order to protect our privacy.

But then, what do we make of something like Amazon's A9 visual yellow pages project, which seems benign, and yet also operates on the same logic of sight? One guy already found his whole family in one of the A9 photos.

Observations? Comments? Connections to our readings or to other relevant theories of new media?