Speculation.

How has the surveillance importance of citizens capturing video progressed? The footage of the John F. Kennedy assassination captured by Abraham Zapruder seems as good a moment as any to mark as "ground zero" for a citizen capturing politically charged moments by happenstance, a sort of "inverse surveillance" (or "sousveillance," [literally observation from below, rather than "surveillance" being observation from above] as coined by the privacy and cyborg-advocate Steve Mann). Likely a minuscule percentage of Americans exist who have not seen at least segments of this film, let alone heard debate over its contents and the conspiracy theories surrounding the assassination. This led to years of debate, still continuing today, often involving the phrase "back, and to the left," over what the video does or does not prove about the issue. However, this is merely a starting point for amateur video as a whole, not for the specific examination of authoritative abuse "caught on tape." For that, likely the most important example is the videotaped beating of Rodney King.

The footage of the King beating captured by George Holiday was ultimately enough to incite days of riots when the video evidence was seemingly ignored by jurors at the trial of the officers involved in the beating. This one incident ultimately led to a society-wide examination of police brutality, socioeconomic and racial struggles, and certainly contributed to increased transparency in policing.

Perhaps a myriad of examples exist so far in the 21st century, but for this example let us imagine "Bro" tasing him. That a student attempting to ask questions at a John Kerry question-and-answer session was tased after a brief slangy diatribe was a somewhat-comical piece of Internet effluvia, despite the very serious nature of the officers' actions. If this led to any sort of dialogue about excessive police taser usage, it was only tangentially and very briefly. Perhaps the ever-escalating efforts of the news media to turn "the news" into celebrity gossip, sports, and fashion updates is somewhat to blame for the lackadaisical response to this disturbing scenario, particularly as the officers were cleared of charges and yet no riots (or even much annoyance) occurred. But there is more to it than this.

Yes, the severity of these three situations is obviously greatly dissimilar. This does nothing to change the fact that desensitization to concrete video evidence of abuse at the hands of authorities is already in full swing. Expect there to come a time in the next five years where a brutal police beating of a new Rodney King leads to zany YouTube mashup parodies and nationwide catchphrases to shout at keggers, rather than to riots.