Once upon a time, journalists were limited by the number of words they could print on a page. Ideally, this will mean less corruption, more open government and a more transparent society. If we seek truth and justice, we will be able to appeal to documentary evidence, not just our word against theirs. Whenever any of us come in contact with power being used or abused, we can capture it and make it become part of the public record. Now, we are all equipped to become opportunistic journalists. The recent ubiquity of mobile telephones with media recording capabilities and the ability to run any software the users chooses gives the public a very powerful tool. So the question remains: 'Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?' - roughly, Who watches the watchers? Surveillance technology is currently only in the hands of those who are already in power, which means it cannot be used to combat the largest problem facing modern society: abuse of power. The problem is the lopsided distribution of who is in control of that technology. ( WTF?!) There is a problem, however, and the problem is not the technology. The benefit to society in terms of security and justice is too great for it to ever go away. The surveillance state has arrived and it is here to stay.

OpenWatch is a participatory citizen media project aiming to provide documentary evidence of uses and abuses of power. OpenWatch is Free and Open Source software. It is currently available for Android smartphones.Īudio and video are recorded without any visual indication that media is being recorded, then anonymously uploaded to, where they are post-processed, stripped of identifying information and posted online. OpenWatch is a network-enabled, secret media recorder.

Cop recorder 2