Skripal Case Shows the Limits of Surveillance

The U.K.’s ubiquitous surveillance cameras have clearly played an important role in the attribution of the attempted poisoning of an ex-spy in Salisbury in March to the Russian military intelligence. Thanks to the cameras, the two Russian suspects’ movements were tracked exhaustively. But this seeming success also lays bare the biggest problem with universal surveillance: If everyone is tracked, no one is, so the cameras can only perform their function so late after the fact that even those criminals who are identified are less likely to be apprehended.

It’s estimated that London is watched by 500,000 CCTV cameras, one for every 16 residents. (Many U.S. cities are brimming with cameras, too, despite the protests of privacy advocates.) That made it possible for U.K. police and intelligence to recognize the men identified as Alexander Petrov and Ruslan Boshirov (almost certainly not their real names) as they passed through the airport, the London underground, a dingy hotel and the town where they allegedly smeared former colonel Sergei Skripal’s door handle with a military-grade poison which failed to kill the ex-spy and his daughter — but took the life of a woman who accidentally came into contact with the substance.