Surveillance refers to the tracking of the activities, behavior and other information. Surveillance is for the aim of protecting, managing, influencing, or directing people.[1]
Neighborhood watch programs generally consist of little more than communities agreeing to keep and eye on things and making sure everyone is aware of unusual events.
Video surveillance uses CCTV cameras and IP cameras to view one or more locations remotely. This one to potentially monitor and record activity on a property.
There are several types of surveillance devices that allow you to monitor activity.
Surveillance an important security concern. Knowing what is going on in and around your property will allow you to react to a situation in an effective way. Without proper surveillance you may be caught off-guard by an intruder.
There is a 21st-century trend, as revealed by Edward Snowden, William Binney and other Bill of Rights supporting whistleblowers, towards pervasive monitoring by both the Federal government and businesses like Google via "wiretap" of law-abiding citizen's internet, smartphone and smart television (Amazon FireTV, Roku and AppleTV) activity.
Daniel Ellsberg explained the significance of the Snowden leaks which was played out two years in the Trump-Russia investigation and the Obama administration's FISA abuse scandal. Ellsberg asked sceptics:"Do they really believe that real democracy is viable, when one branch of government, the Executive, knows or can know every detail of every private communication (or credit card transaction, or movement) of: every journalist; every source to every journalist; every member of Congress and their staffs; every judge, at every level up to the Supreme Court? Do they think that every one of these people "has nothing to hide," nothing that could be used to blackmail them or manipulate them, or neutralize their dissent to Executive policies, or influence voting behavior? Is investigative journalism, or aggressive Congressional investigation of the Executive, or court restraints on Executive practices, really possible with that amount of transparency to the Executive of their private and professional lives and associations? And without any of those checks, the kind of democracy you have is that of the German Democratic Republic in East Germany, with its Stasi (which had a minuscule fraction of the surveillance capability the NSA has now, but enough to turn a fraction of the population of East Germany into secret Stasi informants)."[2]
This apt quote best explains the reason why this pervasive domestic surveillance matters to many patriot conservatives and veterans, who are inherently against big government, and to many citizens interested in preparedness:
The progress of science in furnishing the government with means of espionage is not likely to stop with wiretapping. Ways may some day be developed by which the government, without removing papers from secret drawers, can reproduce them in court, and by which it will be enabled to expose to a jury the most intimate occurrences of the home. Advances in the psychic and related sciences may bring means of exploring unexpressed beliefs, thoughts and emotions. 'That places the liberty of every man in the hands of every petty officer' was said by James Otis of much lesser intrusions than these. 1 To Lord Camden a far slighter intrusion seemed 'subversive of all the comforts of society.' Can it be that the Constitution affords no protection against such invasions of individual security?"
- Louis Brandeis (1856-1941), United States Supreme Court Associate Justice Dissenting, Olmstead v. United States, 277 U.S. 438 (1928).