I imagine you’ve heard and seen news of the police vs. protesting students incident at UC Davis. It would be nearly impossible not to have heard about it, but it’s taken a few days for the meat of the story to really crystallize. The original official take on what exactly happened turned out to be less than entirely truthful, but thanks to nearly ubiquitous cameras with video capabilities, we can all have a clear picture of what went down in full color, with sound.

This is a compilation of four videos time synced together and shown simultaneously, which gives the best coverage of one of these situations I have ever seen … and only possible because of our modern technology.

Yup. Looks me to me like the cops were behaving like pigs and assholes. I guess we’re lucky it was pepper spray and not bullets. It’s not like shooting students with bullets would be unprecedented.

I don’t have too much to say about the protesting going on. More power to them all. Nothing I like better than some grass-roots organized freedom of speech (as opposed to the Super PAC created variety). What I’ve been having thoughts on lately is the ubiquity of cameras.

There was a time not so long ago when personal video cameras weren’t so plentiful. Not everyone had one in their pocket, and the power of the camera belonged to the authority figures and businesses in the form of security cameras. Many people began to decry the coming Age of Big Brother, and for a while, it definitely felt like that was a road we were headed down at break-neck speed.

But technology continued to improve, as it will, and now the ability to record video and snap photos is in the hands of anyone having even a cheap, pay-as-you-go cell phone. The ranks of cell phone owners covers all socioeconomic classes, races, creeds. Any time anything interesting, exciting,outrage provoking occurs, there’s a sea of mobile devices recording reality as it happens from multiple angles and points of view. It’s a beautiful thing to have access to so much data.

The power of the camera has been wrested from the hands of authority and placed into the hands of the people. Some people still rage against the security cameras that cover every corner of public life, but the truth is … the people have far more cameras, and thus, far more power. The world truly is watching, and more often than not, what it’s watching comes from the hands of the less-than-powerful. At the length, truth will out … and it’ll be posted to YouTube, shared on Facebook, and Tweeted ’round the world.

The watchers are becoming the watched. Roles are reversing. Down with Big Brother, and power to the people!