Once Bitten Twice Shy

By UriHacohen - 22 Feb 2015

The Israeli public has accepted over the past twenty years, that there is an inverse relationship between their right to privacy and their right to security. Further, that the sacrifice of the former is a reasonable price to pay for the achievement of the latter. It is my belief that due to the government's policy, during the previous decades of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the Israeli public became accustomed to waive their right for privacy countless times and on an overall extensive scale. The outcome of this process is that a major breach on the right to privacy in the form of placement of thousands of cameras in the public space, is regarded by this public as de-minimis, not worthy of viable public discussion. I will begin this essay by presenting how the Israeli public is accustomed to the notion that a breach of privacy is unavoidable and then attempt to prove that this notion is affecting contemporary issues like violence among youth and vandalism.

Fighting Terrorism

The perception that there is a need to sacrifice the privacy of the individual for the security of the public is burned into the Israeli public consciousness. The backdrop for this phenomenon is the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, and it occurs in both the defensive and counter-offensive perspectives, I will elaborate on the former.

From a defensive perspective, the said phenomena arose from a wave of suicide bombing attacks against civilian population that started in 1989, during the First Intifada. When the frequency of these attacks became troubling, the public called for the enhancement in security and the government, facing the sudden economic burden of satisfying this need, created regulations that delegated this responsibility into the hands of private security companies. At the height of the Second Intifada existential threat among the civilian population was clear and present and not one person raised the argument of the right for privacy. Security guards were placed in the entrance of any and all public spaces, such as, restaurants, theaters and malls. These security guards preformed a mandatory check in every bag, allowed to preform pat-downs and ask questions. The general feeling was that a public place without sufficient security is not worthy of attending, because the danger is too great. Gil Mordecai Dzikansky described this feeling in his book about Terrorist Suicide Bombings: Attack Interdiction, Mitigation, and Response, in page 190:

"As security guards appeared outside many public facilities from supermarkets to movie theaters, checking bags of visitors, no one complained that their right to privacy had been violated. No one thought the threat of suicide bombers was a fantasy. It was the norm for Israelis to wait in line for mandatory (as opposed to random) security checks of their bags for explosives".

Although it is tempting to discuss the legitimacy of the Israeli government policy during these times, it is not my intent to do this here. Even assuming that when facing terrorism the Israeli government was right in its constitutional decision making and the balancing of human rights, still the damage of the militaristic propaganda and the aura of security related considerations left their damaging mark on the Israeli public.

After years of conflict, the Israeli public learned to live with the notion that privacy and security could not co-exist. These lessons learned while fighting terrorism are being implemented on internal civil affairs. This, although the internal affairs do not demand nearly as much of a breach on the right to privacy. Further, though the standard for privacy is constantly stepped upon, these issues are almost never part of the public discourse.

Fighting Youth Violence

A good example of the eroding standard of privacy concerns the growth in installation of surveillance cameras throughout many Israeli cities over the past years. These installations occur within the absence of legislative framework and without public discussion. In fact, they occur within an overall feeling of indifference by the Israeli public.

This trend of installing surveillance cameras started in the city of Eilat, in 2004. At that time local government began installing, on their own accord, surveillance devices in public areas, to document public movement, while providing only these words: "we do this to fight crime", as an explanation. Although this started as a sporadic trend, these actions, bolstered by government tailwind, became part of what is now known as the "City Without Violence" program. This program is one of the government flagship programs for combating anti-social behavior, violence, delinquency and crime.

These days, this program spread, thanks to government support, to more than eighty-six local authorities in Israel. In order to accomplish the programs moto of "prevention of violence, vandalism, and fortifying each individual's right to security", this program encourages installing an extensive network of surveillance cameras within the public space. A report of the Kneset Research and Information Center shows that within eight cities alone, almost three hundred cameras were installed and more than a thousand new cameras are prepared to be installed in the near future.

The extensive use of surveillance got almost no media coverage or legal balancing required by the constitution. In fact, until recently there was no legal framework whatsoever to regulate this highly offensive practice. Only late in 2012 the Israeli Information and Technology Authority published a regulation dealing with this issue, but these barely received any public discourse and it is even unclear whether they are regulated under the correct authority.

I believe that the background of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict and the ongoing notion of security crisis and the fragility of freedom, made the public underestimate their constitutional right for privacy. The unfortunate truth is that there are only small group of activists organizations that proudly bear the flag of the basic right of human dignity and privacy; and, through the roaring crash of national security propaganda, their faint protest is barely noticeable.