Surveillance society not just an overseas phenomenon

There has been plenty of publicity about the emergence of the "surveillance society", particularly in the UK, but this article in the Sydney Morning Herald says that there are probably 40,000-60,000 security cameras monitoring Sydney alone.

As a recent survey by the Australian Privacy Commission found, a majority of Australians aren't concerned about the use of surveillance cameras. However one of the experts quoted in the article reminds us that it's not so long since we would have responded to news about surveillance of this kind in places like Moscow with a lot of tut tutting about how terrible it was that the Soviets monitored the day to day movements of their citizens.