The Surveillance: Paradoxical Exercise of Liberty

Abstract

This essay seeks to analyze how two fundamental principles of democratic regimes (freedom and equality) are very linked to the need for social control and surveillance devices. Our hypothesis is that the more the democratic model is considered according the radicalization of these principles, the more, paradoxically, control and surveillance devices are thought to be necessary to preserve the same principles. In this case, such necessity would be expressed in terms of the equal distribution of responsibility for control and vigilance, as a kind of actions that could be considered representative of democracies of liberal inspiration.