Hi Jim.

> TL15 Navy Cruiser (50,000-100,000 tons). How prevalent are cameras and mics for internal surveillance? I could see it being rather useful during a boarding action to know what's going on. Also, in case a fight breaks out amongst the crew, it would be nice to have video evidence of who started it. Also, employers in general like to monitor their employees, and I'm sure the Navy brass is no different in this regard.

Hadn't thought about this much but I would expect that surveillance technology would be ubiquitous on military ships (and perhaps on commercial ships too).

But regardless of the pervasiveness and fidelity of the technology I would also expect that there would be automated protocols in place, perhaps backed-up by sapient review, which controlled access to that surveillance. So, Captain Kirk will be able to see what the Klingon boarding party is up to wherever they are on the ship in "real time." (And the Klingons will understand that disabling the surveillance technology is a key boarding party goal.) But if the Captain wants to know what Yeoman Rand was doing in her quarters when she wasn't on duty, he will need to convince the ship's computer, and perhaps a review panel of senior officers, that he needs to have access to that surveillance.

These protocols will extend to other areas. It will be difficult for the Captain to see surveillance of the Vulcan and Andorian ambassadors having a discussion in a conference room on the way to the Babel Conference, unless there is some sort of "incident" adjudicated by the computer or, again, by other senior officers. The same might hold for the song that Lt. Uhura sang to Mr. Spock in the crew lounge when they were off duty or the conversation Lt. Sulu had with Yeoman Rand in the arboretum. If the computer hadn't gone haywire, the Captain should have been able to see what was happening to McCoy, Sulu and Uhura when they were lost in that holographic blizzard in the Rec Room. . . .

And, of course, there will be the matter of how long these records are "retained." Surveillance of the Klingon boarding party will likely be available to military historians decades later. What was happening in Yeoman Rand's quarters when she was off duty might no longer be available to the Captain in a week. . . .

Go boldly,

David
--
"Captain, you sing and dance as well as anyone I've ever seen but what the devil are you talking about?" - Harry Mudd (Stephen Kandel), ~Star Trek~, "I, Mudd"