Michel Foucault was very interested in the notion of surveillance. In his piece, "Discipline and Punish," he says that "the gaze is everywhere" (94), meaning that the society that we live in is a voyueristic one. We feel a sense of safety and piece of mind knowing that we, and everyone else around us is being watched and surveyed. Foucault talks about the idea of the Panopticon, which is an architectural figure that can be used as a metaphor for voyeurism. The building is composed of cells lining the outer ring of the building, with a tall tower in the center. Prisoners in the cells are unable to see into the tower, so they never know if there is a guard watching them at that precise moment. Foucault extends this by stating, "All that is needed, then, is to place a supervisor in a central tower and to shut up in each cell a madman, a patient, a condemned man, a worker or a school boy" (97) . By having the tower in place, we do as we are supposed to because we have fear that there is a person in the tower watching, and if we do something wrong, they will punish us.
As I traveled home for Thanksgiving, I couldn't help but notice the insane amounts of cameras in each of the airports I passed through. In the security checkpoints alone, I probably saw around 150-200 dark domes lining the ceilings. We can assume that there are cameras underneath each of those domes, but we don't know for sure. The fact that they are there, though, gives us a sense of safety because we know (or think that we know) if someone is doing something wrong, they will get caught. These domes almost deter people from doing wrong and keep them in line. As we discussed in class, the airport is a great example of a Panopticon, in part due to the fear surrounding what happened on 9/11.
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