9th October 2009 till 24th October 2010
You are surrounded by eyes that never rest. By cameras and microphones that are never turned off. Has this made you safer today than ten years ago? Are you a freer person than your great-grandparents? The history of surveillance is long, sinister, and more topical than ever. You can now experience it on your own body and soul in a special exhibition at Post & Tele Museum.
The Danish civic rights embodied in the Constitution are constantly challenged by anti-terrorism acts and anti-gang laws. How far can authorities go to protect democracy against terrorists and criminals without becoming as ruthless as the people they are fighting? The dilemma is not new, but it has become scarily topical in the global high-tech society of today where we are using communications as never before.
The exhibition presents the dilemma of surveillance in five intense documentaries, which through tangible stories show the human consequences of 400 years of surveillance. The exhibition is built into a scenography, which in a surprising way exposes the visitor to surveillance.
Along the way the visitors will meet some of the most important objects from the Danish history of surveillance: The letter which traitor Poul Juel tried to swallow in his attempt to avoid disclosure; the pistol that shot Prime Minister Estrup; the surveillance equipment used by a Danish resistance group to listen in on the Gestapo in order to reveal informers and save resistance men; or the radio equipment used by the Danish navy to monitor Russian warships during the Cuban missile crisis which almost triggered off a 3rd World War.
