We'll choose an NSA life, on camera all the time: Column

In the late 1990s, physicist and sci-fi author David Brin argued that tiny cameras were creating " the transparent society." The only question waswho would control the recordings. Since then, debates over surveillance have mostly focused on government surveillance. But imagine a different future:

After our collective freakout over Google Glass, society shifted its focus to the police. There were too many cases of suspected abuse, too many disputes where witnesses saw an innocent victim and police claimed justified force. Public demands to put cameras on cops grew insistent after an unarmed 18-year-old named Michael Brown was shot to death, leading to weeks of protests. Both police and civilians demanded more objective records of their encounters.

By the end of 2016, every cop in America was equipped with a video camera. Within a year, the videos were being continually uploaded to The Vault, where the encrypted files were safe from tampering.

As the cameras got smaller and transmission less power-draining, the standard police uniform came to include ear and eyebrow cams as well as a chest-cam.

College students were next. Shortly after Brown's death, the California Legislature passed a bill mandating that colleges adopt a "yes means yes" rule for sexual activity. The law declared that "affirmative consent must be ongoing throughout a sexual activity and can be revoked at any time." It required school disciplinary panels to punish students if the evidence weighed the slightest bit more toward guilt than innocence.

Other states soon followed. With charges of "rape culture" in the air, no politician wanted to seem soft on sexual assault.

The laws accomplished their purpose, tipping the balance of power toward young women. Fearful of misunderstandings, blackmail and angry breakups but still eager to have sex, male students started to record their encounters.

At first, the videos were surreptitious because women were unlikely to consent to a sex tape that could wind up on YouTube. But once The Vault began marketing its services to civilians, promising encryption to rival Bitcoin and a multimillion dollar anti-hacking guarantee, the recording became overt. Signs notified visitors to frat houses, dorm rooms and apartments that recording was in process.

Within a few years, storing a video record of your life, including its most intimate moments, seemed as basic a precaution as wearing a condom.

From cops and college students, personal videos spread. The younger generation took them for granted, installing cameras in their homes and wearing them as jewelry. The videos came in handy in divorce cases, medical malpractice suits and employment disputes.

Salvation or nightmare, continuous personal video had become an irresistible tool of accountability and self-defense.

Virginia Postrel is the author ofThe Power of Glamour and The Future and Its Enemies. Follow her on Twitter @vpostrel.

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