Neighborhood mutual surveillance makes neighbors the primary threat

Evidence

It is during this stage that a neighbor gradually becomes a more dangerous enemy to one who happens to harbor “dangerous thoughts” than are the officially appointed police agents. — Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, 945

Categorization

• XREF: The amateur-informer mechanism anticipates concepts of horizontal surveillance and ‘participatory’ policing that later critical-theory readings on surveillance societies build on.