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Surveillance Society
An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to a Wired story, a company called Pedagog USA wants to have its cameras be as ubiquitious as cell phones and computers, except that the cameras would be spying on the public. These cameras are pretty cheap and easy to install. Scott Fry, of Pedagog USA, appears to think that if they like it in England, it must be loved here!" The story mentions the slow slide in Great Britain when the public became convinced that surveillance would prevent crimes...
.. a Beowulf cluster of surveillance cameras!
Really, the problem isn't so much the cameras as they are proposed. The problem is that it's the FIRST STEP. If we give a little, we'll eventually have 1984-esque cameras seeing everything we do in our homes. Worse yet, cameras give the government far too much power. Something I've always thought as part of "The American Way" is the ability to break the law and take a gamble at getting away with it when the government makes an unjust law which is against the will of the people, such as prohibition (the merits of prohibition aside... the point is that the people wanted their country to be a certain way, and through the way the US is structured, they got it).
Basically, it's the age-old arguement of what sort of society you want. America as it was meant to be and still partially is, a land of somewhat controlled chaos in which freedom and security are in a constant, shifting balance, or a society in which there are no freedoms, cameras everywhere, no guns, ridiculously harsh criminal penalties, and a ban on any speech that could incite citizens to break the law or simply incite an emotion (passion, anger, hate, outrage) which could lead to violence... but is still unbelievably safe and peaceful. Both are actually very valid and good ways of running a government.
America is meant to be the "Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave". This is a society with that controlled chaos, where the government does not completely rule you, and where some freedoms still survive. If I want the government controlling me, other countries are willing to take me in... but as long as I remain in America, I choose to fight for a country which remains free, in a state of constantly shifting balance between free, wonderful chaos and security.
I've lived in London all my life so I'd like to offer some comments on the proliferation of CCTV.
Firstly, although the number of CCTV cameras continues to grow so to does the crime that at least worries me the most, violent crime. In London violent crime has risen approximately 20 per cent in the last year and is seemingly continuing to rise.
Secondly, whilst violent crime has risen and the number of CCTV cameras has risen the number of police on the streets has fallen. There is no direct evidence to support this supposition, but it would not be outside of the realms of probablity to suggest that perhaps cameras are to some extent being used as a substitute for police. After all, the starting salary of a policeman in London is somewhere in the region of $37000. Whilst the wages of policemen will continue to rise the cost of CCTV will undoubtedly fall.
Thirdly, CCTV is rather ineffective in preventing violent crime. Criminals aren't stupid. In order to counter CCTV they simply wear hooded tops covering their faces so that you are left with a grainy image of the hooded figure who stabbed you.
Fourthly, very few objective studies have actually been undertaken on the effectiveness of CCTV to reduce crime. Those that exist don't really support the proposition that CCTV does have a significant impact on crime. CCTV does however seem to work in geographically segregated ghettos (e.g. old mining communities) but that rules out most urbane areas.
Fifthly, new CCTV technologies either in use or being developed include facial recognition, used in one London borough since 1997 in at least some locations, FLIR (forward looking infra red) cameras used to observe individuals behind walls, night vision capabilities and cameras fitted with parabolic microphones in order to also listen to the conversations of those they surveille.
So, to summarise, whilst the number of CCTV cameras continues to grow violent crime continues to rise and the number of police on the streets continues to fall. You draw your own conclusions.
P.S. If you want to investigate this further go to www.privacyinternational.com (I think) where you can find a link to the one UK site providing a lot on information on CCTV.
You know, you'd be even safer if people were stopped every few miles at check points, asked for their papers, and not allowed through until it was known that there had been no crime in the sector they were leaving.
As a matter of fact, with a properly networked system, computer operated "man traps" (one person at a time gates) between sectors, and biometric scans such a system would be easy to run.
As soon as a crime was reported the man-traps could be locked, trapping the criminal in one sector for easy capture.
If the criminal had gotten out of the sector before it was locked down, there would be positive proof automatically collected of everyone who had left the sector and when.
As there would also be proof of who and when everyone had entered the sector, it would be easy to capture the criminal.
Who would object to this? After all, it would be for the safety of everyone and, properly automated, it less of a hassle than walking through a metal dector which everyone already does without complaint!
Over the past ten years things have progressed in my home town of Aberdeen, Scotland to the point where, on a quick count of the visible cameras, I am now being filmed by 12 police cameras, 4 traffic cameras and 8 traffic master cameras on a 15 minute drive to work.
Trafficmaster is a company that films you as you drive down busy roads and notes your number plate - it OCRs it I beleive - and waits for you to pass the next camera roughly 2 miles away. It then knows how fast traffic is travelling throughout its network.
The police cameras were first justified in the wake of football violence making the city centre a scary place to be on a saturday afternoon or wednesday night when there was a match on. Since then they have bled out from the 'danger zones' to cover roughly 80% of the streets around the city centre.
Traffic cameras that auto fine speeding cars are probably the least offensive. At least they only grab you if you are actually breaking a law. And speeding kills people - so its a proper crime.
It bugs me that I can't drive to work without all this surveillence. My mobile phone tracks me to the nearest base station, traffic master knows which camera I last passed, and the city centre cameras will even know what I'm wearing.
All this, and the number of attacks on 18-30 year old males is higher now than it was 10 years ago! Attacks on women and the elderly have dropped in the city centre, but have increased elsewhere.
Campaign against the introduction of these things. They are ineffective, costly (I recall that between 2 and 6% of my local taxes are spent on these things every year - depending on how many new ones they install), and offernsive to public liberty.
As acceptance grows people will be open to new ideas, like companies owning the images, in return for operating the network. They are trying to get ID cards introduced across Europe, although publicity is way down on a couple of years back because of electioneering. Add that to the mix and I'll be applying for my green card!
...the US already with 2% of its own population in jail ...
...
That stat astounds me each time I see it. 1 in 50 people in jail
So now lets increase that further. Yes sir. Security and prisons are now a growth industry. Is that making you proud? It casts an ugly pall. This cameras everywhere advocate is just another fear mongering opportunist. My blood boils when I'm around these kinds of people.
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
Bush is the president now. Clinton's gone. Where have you been? :)
_____
Sam: "That was needlessly cryptic."
Max: "I'd be peeing my pants if I wore any!"
For one thing, apart from some experiments in Lambeth with face recognition software, cameras need monitoring, and this tends to be labour intensive. In fact, there's such a deluge of data at present that the most extreme surveillancenightmares are going to remain just that (nightmares) for a long time to come. (Try calculating the bandwidth needed to carry ten million real time video feeds, 24x7, if you don't believe me!)
For another thing, cameras work as a deterrent to certain types of crime -- vandalism and car theft are the classic examples, shoplifting (in shops with in-store CCTV) is another. However, some types of crime (most assault, for example) are committed on impulse, without regard to whether humans (or cameras) are watching.
So: why not install cameras, keep rolling six hour tape loops, and simply yank them for use as evidence if a crime is reported during that period? Well, this happens -- but some recent and rather worrying studies show that camera images tend to be of such poor quality that something like 40% of the time people trying to identify a suspect from videotape get it wrong. Cameras are no substitute for careful police work, as the police have been learning (painfully).
The Orwellian nightmare of cameras on every street corner with face recognition software that tracks every citizen as they go about their daily life isn't technologically possible yet, and I suspect before it happens there'll be fairly strong legal restrictions on how the information can be used -- remember there's now an explicit legal right to privacy in UK law, and sooner or later someone will sue a police force (and win) to stop them tracking them without a surveillance warrant of some kind. (Although the control-freak tendencies of Home Secretary Jack Straw do not fill me with optimism on this front.)
There's only one area in the UK where cameras have made an unequivocal, positive, contribution to loaw enforcement: that's GATSO cameras for photographing and fining drivers who speed, run red lights, and otherwise endanger other road users.
The nature of the change is quantitative, in that it puts more police eyeballs out there on the street.
Essentially it's a force multiplier for law enforcement.
(Of course, as a general commented, "quality troops beat ordinary ones every time, but quantity has a quality all of its own".)
If you want to prevent abuse, what you need is a right to privacy in public. That is: rather than making it a specific offense to stalk someone, there should be a general right not to be stalked (or monitored) without cause.You also need to ensure that law cams are not introduced without stringent regulation over who can monitor them and what they can do with the output -- which also needs to be subject to the rules of evidence.
bonehead, I mean bluehead. He is talking about England! You know there is a reason people used to say "The sun never sets on the British empire"...
I don't know how it is in the US. But when I went to driver's school there was little difference between driving drunk and driving tired. What happens is your reflex get slower; so it doesn't matter if you're drunk or tired, you shouldn't be driving if you can't keep alert.
Thanks, but it is David Brin's, or at least I read about it in his book "The Transparent Society". I think he had more arguments for it, but those were the ones I remembered :-)
I didn't remember the tile, or his name this morning. I spotted it when I was upstairs looking for another book.
Beats me. Let me try a strawman. The government has to provide an NTSC or MPEG2 feed from any camera to any entity that pays $500 a month (per camera). That entity can rebroadcast that feed under any terms it likes (from totally free to over $500). -- the $500 is just a starting point, it could be more or less.
Or another strawman, all the cameras have to feed into a ATM or Frame Relay cloud (MPEG2, or a future NIST blessed open standard). Anyone that can pay the normal connection fee plus (to the LEC) plus 10% (to the government) into the cloud can get the bits out, and as above can retransmit them as they wish.
Either of those will get coverage of traffic areas and other areas of high interest onto the web pretty fast, either on ad funded sites, or pages with low monthly fees. They will both self fund (the incoming money should cover the cost to transmit)
Third strawman, to get the camera installed it has to have an internet connection and multicast the feed. This will push taxes up a bit, or keep camera deployment down.
To view on a PDA? A ton. To view low frame rate stills on a desktop? Thanks to the porn industry, none.
Wireless has a long way to go. But other things are driving it. Broadband is there already. Let me be clear, I'm interested in granting access to these cameras, but I don't care if it has a modest cost. I'm not looking to have another government subsidy. They shouldn't divert a penny from education, national defense, or wasting my tax dollars. They also shouldn't raise my taxes any for this.
Well, either a fair amount of general CPU, or a little hardware dedicated to the task. If enough people want it, it'll eventually happen.
A click through map (zoomable would be nice). Of corse I expect a 3rd party to do that.
Anyone anywhere (if the system is tax neutral, or actually makes money). USA Citizens only (if it costs tax dollars, only tax payers should see). No geographical limits. Why should there be any? If someone spots the police planting evidence, I don't care where they are. If Nike wants to check how well their new sneakers are selling in NY, I don't care if they do it from CA.
I want the camera images accessible in real time to the public. It has a few advantages:
(I'm not saying I want the cameras, but if we have them, these are my terms)
Um, they both tend to increase over time?
It us understandable to be surly sometimes.
Godwins Law. This discussion is over.
Commodore 64, Loading up the dance floor!
Ah, yes the, "My government would never do anything bad. They're good people." argument. I won't give you the quote by Benjamin Franklin (not Jefferson) but I will give you a paraphrase of another quote: Freedom requires constant vigilance. Have fun in your authoritarian state, pal.
There is. It's called "human nature."
As long as there is a non-hostile government
There is no such thing as a non-hostile government.
They are on YOUR SIDE, can't you understand that?
Right. They're on our side. That's why they fill an innocent and un-armed immigrant with 42 bullet holes just because they didn't like the way he looked. That's why a police officer here in SC pulled an innocent woman over and tried to jerk her out of her car at gunpoint because she was black. That's why they attack peaceful demonstrators in almost every protest coming down the pike.
Are you from the U.S.? If not, you may not realize that our entire system of political philosophy is based on the concept that government is essentially evil and oppressive and must be carefully limited by the people to restrain its power.
Yes, well, it's getting more and more so every day. Law enforcement and intelligence agencies abuse our guaranteed Constitutional protection every day in the name of "national security."
Nevertheless, most people are not targets of this abuse, so few people raise a fuss about it. When high-profile cases do occur (as with the African immigrant who was murdered) there are usually a lot of cries of, "This is horrible! We must do something!" Then, everybody forgets about it and things continue as they were. This, in my mind, justifies the quote (that I mangled before) "The price of liberty is eternal vigilance."
Be glad that this sort of thing hasn't happened where you live. But, the lesson you must learn is that it *can* happen if people cease to care.
Crime in the US declined considerably in the 90's, without CCTV. While CCTV didn't cause the rise in crime in Britain (Theodore Dalrymple has some ideas on what did), it is not that good an answer to it.
And don't tell me "The weapons today are more powerful". The AK47 was developed in 1947. The Model 1911 .45 handgun was developed in 1911. None of this is new - it has been around far longer than most readers of /.
It is what you are taught. Children today are not taught that killing is wrong; nor are they taught that their actions have consequences. A respect for life and a firm fear - yes, fear - of the consequences for their misdeeds must be established. Otherwise no amount of law will help you.
And please don't prattle on about "controlling access to guns". You can't do it. It still hasn't worked in England: English gun bans a total failure
All your solution would do is disarm the law abiding public - the criminal, who is already willing to commit murder - is not going to obey the law. Or are you going to create a "magical" law that criminals will obey?
Do us a favor and try to think before you post, ok?
-- Ziggy Sig Sig
*Cough* Well, 'scuse me..
The governments et. al have a hard enough job actually getting the film out when needed in a crime that people are jumping up and down about.
When you go in a picket line, you frequently rely on the police present to guard yer butt against people who don't really want you to be there.
And yes, there are a lot of scary clashes on picket lines between opposed pressure groups, not groups and police.
Do you really think they're going to waste their time getting a group of people to pick out each face in thousands, cross reference it against any files they may have, and write notes on you if you're having a peaceful demonstration?
Whoah, please keep taking the paranoia pills.
All government departments (well, over here in the UK anyway, and most likely over there too) are cash starved for keeping up with what needs to really be done, not just what they'd like to do.
I'm of the feeling that when I'm out in public, I don't care if it's a camera or people's eyes that see me. All equates to the same thing. I'm in public. Note the difference between public and private.
Interestingly enough, I knew a few people who actually use the stuff from surveillance cameras. Most are pretty much automated, with no real operator control, although, the one or two people operating huge numbers of cameras can override in the case of emergency.
I'd sorely love to know where your sources of that state they're not used for the advertised use come from.
Cheers,
Malk
And lo, you do more damage in a few words to your cause than a whole horde of decriers from the other side of the fence.
Something people overlook in these discussions is that there are too many yahoos with guns in the USA for something like this to become widespread. England doesn't have the yahoos with guns, not like here in the USA. Most o' them yahoos vote, too. Congress could never pull something like this off. It would be declared unconstitutional in a heartbeat. It has nothing to do with the Congressional mission. The President might get away with an Executive Order but that would still only affect "Federal Installations," i.e. gov't offices.
Local communities might get away with it, but for how long?
Just be sure to wear the gold uniform when you beam down -- you know what happens when you wear the red one.
It's like when you drive out the pimps and the prostitutes from a district, they just move elsewhere.
That's a so fucking typically anglo-saxon "solution": drive the problem elsewhere, so someone else is stuck with it.
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That's because England, the seminal culture of the USA (no matter how much the americans drum being a colony that broke free) had quite a few "revolutions" where powerful barons revolted against weak kings, and thus the notion that the State (the king's power) was nocious was slowly, over the centuries, brewed into public opinion.
The corolary is that it is not seen wrong that the powerful barons/big corporations are able to accumulate so much wealth and influence so they can directly challenge the State/king. This is why the US is so corrupted: it's okay for powerful corporations to abuse the people, but the State cannot abuse the people (or big powerful corporations).
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A technological solution:
Video streams are not public, not viewable by public or police unless deemed necessary. Streams are encrypted and saved for a set period of time - unencryptable only by public court action. (The judicial system retaining the key.) If A assualts B in a certain spot, B can go to a judge asking for that video stream to be decrypted. If C witnesses a crime in a certain spot, C can report this crime and during an inquiry (public action only, no secret subpoenas) the police can request decryption of the particular video stream for that particular place/time/date.
This depends highly on evolution of technology, but such a system could provide a tremendous benefit to the public while keeping the public private. It also depends on Congress not passing laws allowing police/secret service/intelligence have private access to encrypted streams.
Maybe it'd be best done by a third party NGO?
I'd like some comments. I think about this plan every time the whole video camera in public issue comes up.
- Jon
Sounds just like Snowcrash, if you ask me. People running around gathering intelligence on other people and selling to the highest bidder....
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
The point I was making was (for once - I don't agree with your gun laws either :-) that it was a manageable cost, easily defendable to a concerned public, and certainly not in the realm of "It won't happen here".
Politicians are to a (wo)man weasels. Almost the definition of a good politician is one who can understand and manipulate public fervour to make his/her viewpoint actioned. Do you think the jingoism in wartime is an accident ? Do you ever see a politician attacking a wrong but popular idea when (s)he's up for election ?
Guns were just one (convenient) example. Any semi-competent politician will measure public mood for the latest "all-bad-thing", then concoct a story illustrating how his/her pet project will be society's saviour. Get used to it. The issue here is larger though. You *are* at risk. Complacency is *not* the answer. Don't let what happened to us happen to you.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
It may or may not happen in the US. Certainly the size is not the issue.
You're making the mistake of assuming a consistent average population density throughout the US. Sure, hicksville Nevada will not get mandated cameras any time soon, but major cities (where the majority of the US population lives!) are not immune.
Britain has a population of ~60Million. The US has a population of ~300Million. According to US Gov figures, the top 20 cities by pop. in the country housed 40Million people in 1990. The cost of coverage of only these 20 cities would be on the same order of magnitude as Britain's spying network, and would probably cost less than the individual cities garbage collection bills...
Seems pretty simple to get it through to me, especially with all those kids killing themselves and others in schools. Just put the argument "We'd see the guns before they got to the school, don't you think your child's life is worth more than your garbage ?"
BTW, I'm not in favour of CCTV everywhere (see www.domesday.org for my views!)
Simon
Physicists get Hadrons!
Since when did America go from innocent until proven guilty to guilty no matter what. All I see anymore is another example of the government saying "well if you haven't done anything wrong you don't have to worry". Why don't we remote controlled cameras in the offices of our elected officials and broadcast the feeds in television. C-SPAN could make their own reality series about how the bribes and pure criminality taking place in publicly funded buildings.
I'm a loner Dottie, a Rebel.
I think it's more his right to have his actions weighed by a real person with a faculty for reason. If you run a red on a back road at 2am because you're tired (not drunk) and you get pulled over, a lot of cops will let you off with a written warning, especially if you don't have any recent violations. You'd get no such clemency from an automated video system.
When you post as AC, your post invariably starts at 0.
If you click on the (#383) and look at the bottom you will see that that there was no moderation.
The only reason all cover-ups appear to fail is that you never hear about the ones that succeed.
I can only speak from experience. In my younger days (~15yrs old) I was involved in crime around the city centre here in Brisbane, Australia.
One day the city centre had many cameras installed and a police monitoring room was put smack-bang in the middle of the main city mall. As crazy kids with few morals we were very much deterred from comitting crimes in the areas with cameras installed. This dosn't mean the crimes disappeared.
What does this mean? You deceide.
If a penguin dies in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, what sound does it make?
I can only speak from experience. In my younger days (~15yrs old) I was involved in crime around the city centre here in Brisbane, Australia.
One day the city centre had many cameras installed and a police monitoring room was put smack-bang in the middle of the main city mall. As crazy kids with few morals we were very much deterred from comitting crimes in the areas with cameras installed. This dosn't mean the crimes disappeared.
What does this mean? You deceide.
If a penguin dies in the woods, and nobody is around to hear it, what sound does it make?
Apart from that, what's the problem?
The real problem is that they're not a crime reducing remedy. It doesn't stop anyone from committing crime. It just increases their chances of being caught. If you want to reduce crime put an armed cop with orders to shoot to kill on every corner.
As an aside, the cameras have proved so ineffectual in the nightclub district of Perth, Australia, that they're turned off at night and replaced by 50-100 armed cops.
skribe
Blog
Nice troll... some problems with your argument:
... they are not used to *spy* on people but for security. They are used to catch criminals and prevent crimes.
The problem is not their use NOW; its what their use will turn into once the wrong persons have power, and the people are used to the cameras presence. And lest we forget: how many more jews would have been rounded up had the Nazis had cameras everywhere to watch them as they ran? How much more effective would the Soviet Secret Police have been in controlling the people (the State, as you seem to think)? How much more powerful will the powerful become in places like Iran and Iraq, where dissidence is a crime?
Sometimes I can't believe how much paranoia there is on Slashdot
Just because I'm paraoid doesn't mean there's no one trying to get me.
You know, the state is *YOU* after all; all people
In theory, that's true; however, anyone who truly believes that in this country is either idealistically naive, or a complete fool, or both. "The State" is no more for the people, by the people, in this day and age than it was in communist russia. The State is run by the privileged elite, who run it in a balance designed to keep the governed happy while they increase their wealth and power. Sounds a bit communistic, i know; the reasons communism was able to rise are the same today as they were then. The solution, however, is not Communism; its educated democracy, and while we have a democracy here, every year it becomes less and less educated, and therefore less effective in protecting the real rights of the people.
So in conclusion, if you want cameras watching your every move, go to Europe. We aren't going to take it here.
Congratulations, you have just reconstructed the argument behind re-legalizing concealed carry.
"An honest society has 270 million policemen. A dishonest society cannot ever have enough."
jafager
There's a large difference in usefulness here, though. Police stationed on corners, or even patrolling a small area, can respond. Cameras continue staring on obliviously, and only if they're actively monitored will an officer be dispatched, which means (s)he still has to get there for it to be purposeful at all.
This raises an issue in and of itself -- how are you going to pay for monitoring 24/7? Sure, you can do it, but it'll cost insane amounts of money to pay a staff to watch a bank of probably thousands of cameras.
I'm not sold on this crap. Grainy video from a tiny camera can easily be misconstrued, the cost is far too high, and it doesn't honestly solve anything.
Feed me the lines on cameras making people behave all you want, it's not true. Once people have adjusted to the idea of the camera being there, it no longer matters. Many criminals are too brazen to worry about some surveillance device, as well -- recently, someone broke into a museum gift shop and stole thousands of dollars in jewelry. Audible alarm, visible surveillance system, criminal breaks in, criminal escapes.
Cameras were installed at my old school a while back, and nothing changed after about a week of adjustment. Students continued fighting despite the cameras, or found a location where they knew a camera wouldn't see.
Photoradar and red light cameras have recently been installed in my city. The people who want to run the red lights and do 10, 15, or 20 miles over the speed limit still do it.
See a trend yet?
Cameras can't replace people. Period. It just doesn't work.
My feelings on the subject seem quite equal to yours (though I don't have racial profiling or anything else going against me).
Cameras can't discern reality, and the picture quality often mutates it. If the police decide to view the tapes looking for drug dealing, and see a friend handing me something on the street at 10:30 PM, what's going to be their first reaction? I may claim to be innocent, and I may well be, but that means nothing in this day and age. "Video doesn't lie," as they say. Innocent until proven guilty is becoming more and more a fantasy, and judges are becoming less willing to actually analyze a case (and people like That Guy In The White House aren't helping, what with mandatory sentencing and all. Judicial discretion, people...).
The sad truth of the matter is the U.S. is going down the tubes fast. All the liberties our forefathers put their lives down for are being taken away by the government, and with "our" blessing, no less. What a stupid bunch of sheep.
There are already security cameras everywhere and when you're walking downtown, on a subway station or in a store, they are watching you. How many here have suffered from some kind of misuse from security cameras? How many have benefitted from them? Probably everyone has benefitted from them in form of added security on subway stations late at night etc.
Sometimes I can't believe how much paranoia there is on Slashdot. I mean, really.. What do you think they will do to you? Send you videotapes with you picking your nose and ask for money? Just because "Enemy Of The State" says the state is out to get you doesn't mean it's so. You know, the state is *YOU* after all; all people. So relax a little and breathe. Nobody is out to get you.
Here's a link to balance out the paranoia in the Slashdot article:
CCTV gives an arresting sight!(in this window)
CCTV gives an arresting sight! (in a new window)
Cameras on the streets is a totally different thing from cameras in my bed- / bathroom. Streets are public places. My bathroom is not. Don't compare apples to oranges.
If I feel bad, I'll pull the courtains. They won't look in tho cause that's not why the camera is there. It's there to film the street to keep it safe. If I notice it's drifting and looking / spying into my house, I'll pull the courtains and then complain. Still, someone can just as easily sit down outside my house and look in with a video camera or binoculars and there's nothing I can do about that either. Unless it's illegal, which I don't know if it is.
However, if I'm just watching TV or surfing the net or whatever at home, I couldn't care less if someone is watching or not.
I've lived in regions (S.F. Bay Area and the Pacific N.W.) that had too many (i.e. non-zero) unsolved murders. Somebody has to be killing and getting away with it. If so, do they repeat?
--
"You've crossed my Line of Death!" "What? No! Where is it?" "Here in the fine print...."
You know that's what's going to be said.
War is necrophilia.
I really don't understand why anyone would want to trade privacy for security.
The CCTV revolution HAS changed crime here in England. Walking down the main high street surrounded by other people is even safer than before!!! - big deal. It's just moved the crime elsewhere.
insignificant sig
"We all declare for liberty; but in using the same word we do not all mean the same thing. With some the word liberty may mean for each man to do as he pleases with himself, and the product of his labor; while with others, the same word many mean for some men to do as they please with other men, and the product of other men's labor. Here are two, not only different, but incompatible things, called by the same name - liberty. And it follows that each of the things is, by the respective parties, called by two different and incompatible names - liberty and tyranny." - Abraham Lincoln
Be nice to everyone, they out number you 6 billion to 1.
The 'typical' intersection camera replaces those crazy loops in the pavement. See: This Autoscope pdf or visit the autoscope site.
There are uses for video that don't mean that you are spying on your fellow person -- /. being /., that will of course be ignored.
-- Multics
How about installing cameras on farms so they could at least prosecute the sheep and cows responsible for spreading hoof-and-mouth disease?
:-)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
First, if I'm a law-abiding citizen, they have no right to spy on me. Second, the only non-law-abiding citizens these have much effect are are either very petty crimes, or crimes that have no business being crimes.
Want to make the public safe by surveillance? Those cameras should be going into government offices and corporate boardrooms. Corporate crime is much, much deadiler and more costly than street crime.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
You can't put enough cops on the street to make it statistically likely that one will be around when you're being victimized. Increasing police presence has not reduced crime; in fact, the need for more police has resulted lower standards for recruitment and retention and led to increased misconduct.
We need not to create a special class of citizens with a monopoly on the capability to defend us (and thus, the means to oppress us); we need ordinary citizens who are capable and willing to defend themselves and others.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | http://www.infamous.net/
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
From the conclusion of the same report:
...CCTV cameras in Glasgow city centre did not appear to have a major impact on crime... and ...there was no evidence to suggest that the cameras had reduced crime overall in the city centre. (These were taken out of context, go read the report yourself to see a slightly wider context)
Glasgow has been one of the best cities in Britain for combatting its street crime, with more police on the streets, rewards programs, a big push against hard drugs, and more money to aid prosecutions. Glasgow's crime levels have bucked the major trend in the UK for low level street crime, not due to cameras, but because the city council wanted to clean up the image of the city.
camera operators usually focus on minorities or young people in "hostile" outfits
My biggest concerns of camera surveillance are along the lines of operators trained by a mostly white police force saying "Look, he's wearing a Man-U stripe, damn baby rapist, lets track his every move", as well as "track only blacks and asians, because they are the most likely to commit crimes". Since I work in security, I do notice the cameras, and I do have opportunities to observe the operators being biased. It is quite disturbing to watch cameras track you every where you go when you clearly aren't breaking any laws.
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
the slow slide in Great Britain when the public became convinced that surveillance would prevent crimes...
/. community is well aware of the dangers of the misuse of technology, but the average public only cares about the perception of security.
Recently the levels of violent crime in the streets of Britain have acheived record levels. The criminals don't care if there is surveillance video of their actions, successful prosecution requires more than just a grainy video.
Surveillance just allows greater control of the population at large, and will enable even more nefarious actions by various groups (both government and private) at a later date. The
the AC
Hemos is like...sci-fi fans;he thinks technology is cool, but he hasn't bothered to understand the science it's based on
to regulate the use of this information.
Imagagine this scenario: In your neighborhood everyone has cable modem. All your neighbors hook
up some web cams pointing out their windows, to
form the "neighborhood net".
Are you now going to say this is illegal, and
send the police to take away their cameras?
Wouldn't that be an even worse violation of
civil rights than what I propose?
You have proposed no specific regulations which
will help preserve individual rights. Here are a couple of proposals off the top of my head:
an individual.
networks to track and individual without a court order.
public surveillance network for purposes of tracking an individual, without a court order.
These are probably flawed, but at least I am trying. What is your proposal? Private citizens can already have a"neigborhood watch" group. Are you going to outlaw that as well?
Look, cheap cameras are a fact of life.
The net is a fact of life. People hooking up
their cameras to the net and forming
a surveillance network of public places
is now a fact of life. Get used to it.
Would you be opposed to streetlights, because
they can help identify you on the street at night?
Are you against licencse plates on cars?
I think people should have whatever privacy they want in their houses. But in public places,
there should be no assumption of privacy. If
people cannot behave within the limits of the law in public places, they should be accountable. That
means they must be identified.
People can do whatever they want in cyberspace,
but we all share the physical world, and it is
our obligation to behave socially. This means
physical accountability of some kind.
If the concern is that the goverment will use
surveillance to harrass people? Then lets
come up with some laws and procedures, some
checks and balances, just like we did for
the US constitution. The founding fathers didn't
just give up and say "the government will always
crush our liberties, let's outlaw goverment". They
came up with a workable system of negative feedback to keep the concentrations of power from
being unstable.
BTW, the
anti-abortion nuts have a web site already
listing names and addresses of doctors who
perform abortions. The scum bags are already
using networked surveillance. Why can't the
rest of us?
I am living in Germany while serving in the US Air Force and Germany has them all over the place, as well as cameras for catching you speeding or running red lights. I dont have too much of a problem with it because it does seem to work somewhat. I just dont think that it can be used to replace good old fashioned law enforcement. Putting a camera up here and there will not stop criminals from being criminals. Having cops walking around and having a presence in the community is the only thing that help keep crime down.
"If ignorance is bliss, why aren't there more happy people in the world?"
talk about damned lies...
"Perhaps I might point out that this has been the case throughout recorded history in every non-totalitarian society in the world? Britain, the US, France, Germany, Australia, and just about every place on the planet can share this dubious claim to fame, so why focus on just one nation? Ironically, Britain is far from the most violent society in the world - countries like the US and South Africa are the most notable overachievers in that category."
US Crime and violence has not increased. In fact it is at it's lowest levels in reporting history. See: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm Yep. The US Department of Justice's statistics.
"Wrong again. CCTV footage has proven to be an effective deterrent against all forms of organised crime, from terrorism to bank robberies to pickpocketting to car theft."
I'm sorry. Where's the evidence? I didn't realize Britain had so many problems with terrorism. And didn't Britain put cameras in banks long before this? So why has bank robberies decreased all of a sudden? And pickpocketing and car theft? What? A good pickpocket isn't going to be deterred by a camera. Their techniques can be done in broad daylight on a busy street with nobody knowing. Car thefts? In the US property crimes (such as theft) have been going down as well, all without the aid of cameras everywhere.
"Just about everything of significance we do is recorded in some way, from registering to vote to opening a bank account to joining a library. I don't hear people advocating that we stop using credit cards because our card issuers might be tracking our purchases (which btw, is going on right now)."
I may be registered to vote, but my ballot is secret. Opening a bank account is not a criminal offense nor would a photogrpahic/video record be necessary to prove it was done. Using a credit card is not a criminal activity. Nor are any of these things being done by the State. In fact, none of them is actually any sort of contract between the State and its citizens. Spying on citizens and monitoring them is a violation of the natural law contract between citizens and the State. I wold have thought that people in Britian (with no written Constitution/Bill of Rights) would know that.
"The public isn't worried about perceptions of security. It's worried about security. All the more so when politicians, beaurocrats and lawyers tell them they are safe when they clearly are not."
You don't get it. It's the public's perception of security that leads to needless or onerous laws like installing surveillence cameras. The *fact* that crime in general has been going down steadily since the 1970s (except for a pike in violent crime in 92 and 95) doesn't seem to be broadcast much. When people foolishly watch the media and believe that crime is out of control becuase they only see it on the news leads to a conclusion based on faulty perceptions (ie - that crime is going up and that installing caermas will fix the problem).
And since when did a politician tell their population that it is safe? It is the exact opposite. If the population believed it was safe there'd be no wars without invasion, no new criminal laws passed, no redefining things such as knocking over post boxes as "terrorism" etc etc. Politicians play on the population's fear to be elected and stay in office.
Barking out generalities like cameras stop terrorism and crime goes down despite lack of any evidence and the claims that crime is going up (despite eviedence to the contrary) makes your arguments weak.
This is all MHO of course. I could be wrong.
Much as I'd like to see that come true, it won't. Using a work of fiction to counter the argument "If it saves one life" reply doesn't answer the problem.
I'd love if it gov't or IBM/my employer whoever would allow transparent viewing, but they won't nor would govt or business work in such a setting.
As for the "if it saves on life" argument...
If it saves one life, let's burn the Bill of Rights. after all, why not just eliminate trials? Surely, shooting accused criminals on the spot without any examination of evidence can save lives.
If it saves just one life, why not lie down and succomb to the biggest bully? After all, a single life is more important than any prinicples such as liberty or equality.
if it saves just one life, why not stop manufacturing cars? 37,000 people die in car accidents in the US annualy. Surely saving 37,000 lives each year is more important than transportation of goods like food or enabling any kind of commerce beyond say 10 miles?
Geez. We live in the real world. in the real world abuses can and do happen. These are usually perpetrated by those with power over others.
the government is paying for these cameras to be used to prevent crime. That's the difference. While I agree that there is little difference on who is doing the spying, I have no choice or influence on private parties doing such things. AFAIK, private companies art enot permitted to install their cameras in public places, only private property.
When I said the government wasn't doing these things I was referring not to using surveillence camera footage, but the other things (credit card checks etc).
... that's my slogan. What's going to stop a speed addict from killing you in your home so they can steal $50 toward their next hit? Great, so it's all on tape! Sell it to the Fox Network! I'm still dead.
Just think, you're confronted with an intruder on-the-spot, without warning- do you: a) say "smile for the camera!" b) say excuse me, could you please hand me the phone so I can call the police on you; c) say please mr. criminal, don't rape and kill my girlfriend or d) shoot them, so long as they present a serious threat of killing you or doing serious bodily injury.
Cameras won't stop violent crimes, because criminals don't know reason and logic (ie they don't read Slashdot!). If the crime is being committed by a thoughtful person, then they might think twice before doing it if they know they might get shot in the process.
They might as well do it right.. There's an article on the National Instruments page (it's a customer application of they're using to promote their product) about the Redwood City Police, using a network fo microphones to to sense and triangulate the location of gun fire in the city.. the Link is here
If we're going to have cameras installed in the cities, then they should be linked to accoustic, air velocity, air chemistry, and IR sensors. Give each camera enough memory to buffer 15 seconds of video (~450 images), and use the combined sensory infomation to monitor the urban areas for gun shots, chemical agents, and fires.. When any of these sensors are triggered, extra-sensory information can be used to triangulate the area of interest, and the video from those cameras can be then be studied..
Of course this is also has the benefit of providing on-line SMOG, and traffic monitoring..
...just increase public ludity?
There are a lot of people into Voyeurism, you know.
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
"Everything you know is wrong. (And stupid.)"
Moderation Totals: Wrong=2, Stupid=3, Total=5.
The ongoing distortion of the agreements embodied in the Constitution, regardless of the rationalizations, rhetoric and movies portraying patriots as villians, breaks a social contract written by the rivers of honorable blood spilled to gain and preserve those freedoms.
The criminals may appear to have gained control of the law, but do they really believe their lies can long delude those who built and defended the civilization that nurtures and protects them?
Seastead this.
I am very happy to see cameras in Glasgow. My gran lives there, and she enjoys going out walking/dancing/to church even though she is 80 years old. Since the CCTV camera's were placed in the vincinity of her home, what was once a violent area has now become quite peaceful and serene.
--
--
Andy
1. Britain was brought up as a topic in the story.
2. We talk about Britain because we have a clear context.
3. Britain is especially appropriate because the discussed condition (cameras) is widespread.
4. Would you rather we talk about surveilance problems using Eskimo villages as an example?
Talk about flame bait. Let's just examine your statements one by one shall we?
No. You haven't had your meds. How can you have your pondering if you haven't had any meds?
If you'd like to report on any country (surely you don't expect everyone to cover inch of the world at the same time), please visit a psychiatrist for your medication, and then post some research.
Oh my bad you had more to say (lad you may need a lobotomy)
Gee Martha, I'm not worried about my kids being shot in their classrooms or being mugged in the streets, I'm only worried about the perception of them being shot or mugged."
Anyone who is truly worried about something does his or her own research. The public constantly knee-jerks asks for action and then once they feel safe they tune out and never respond to criticism coherently if at all. In the US we recognize that the general public is irresponsible. The public is a scared stray cat without any clue about the world around it.
People who care research. They know all that's black and white and read all over isn't the truth.
I suppose you see people in libraries researching every little thing that goes on in your neighborhood. Earth to George.
The world we live now in is inherently more violent than the one we lived in 20 years ago. The same will probably be true in 20 years time too.
Yeah, yeah in the future we'll Budweiser conversations like:
"Wazzaaap!"
"Robbing a bank. Where's dookie? Yo dookie, Wazzaaap."
"Nothin' man, just doin my duty man... Once I get finished raping a few goats, screaming fire in a crowded theater, and mooning all the cameras in town, I can go home and pimp my woman on the street."
"True true."
Get a grip. Violence goes up and down. Not a single camera will ever change that.
countries like the US and South Africa are the most notable overachievers in that category.
I must have been dreaming then when I was walking at midnight in a town I did not know at all. And it's a state with no gun control to top it off.
Perhaps societies like the US
Go home. Come back when you've grown out of this socialist crap.
Societies do not exist on a national level in the US. Every collective movement here has serious backlashes, for better and for worse. I kinda like it here.
The message on the other side of this sig is false.
No, there is a relation ship between ice-cream and sexual assualts because they both have some relationship to some other factor. I think this is because ice-cream sales tend to follow good, warm weather when people are outside more often, and maybe wearing less clothing.
I suspect that there is a negative coorelation between such crimes and sales of snow-blowers, for example.
Crime could decrease upon the introduction of cameras (and I am not saying that it does) because administrations that install cameras might also spend more on policing, education, prosecution, and other things. Maybe cameras are installed when there is money available such as when tax revenues are up due to a strong economy and good employement stats, which also tend to decrease some crime stats independant of any camera installations.
If you're a law abiding citizen, why should anyone be allowed to invade your privacy.
This is an outright violation of privacy by any means. Suppose if I wanted to have a romantic kiss with my wife, should I be subjected to someone watching me? Its my own right to kiss her, and not against the law, and although I wouldn't go public with strong displays of affection, I should retain the right to my privacy. The main street has a direct view to my yard, suppose I had a pool party, should my guests be subjected to the views of a camera misplaced, or placed without my consent for anyone to view the privacy of my own yard?
While I'm not for the cameras, in these cases you don't have any right to expect privacy. If you do something on the street, it is to be assumed someone is watching you. There is no reason someone would not. And yes, this includes cameras. The right to privacy does not include the right to not have people view you in public. And if you can see your pool from the street, then yes, once again, you have no right to expect privacy there. I could stand in the street and personally film you in your pool if I wanted, as long as I did not trespass on your property. To say I couldn't do that would deny me the right to stand on the public ground. The right to privacy only extends to private places. The street is not a private place.
"Information wants to be expensive" - Stewart Brand, the same guy who said "Information wants to be free"
There are a lot of shannagans that go on in back rooms in Washington and in the offices of the very rich. I should like very much to see those dealings exposed to public scrutiny.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
I have someone watching me walking down the street. Maybe he is an unsuitable person maybe not. Maybe someone will get a copy of the tape and see me walk down the street. They may well be a bad person.
You have people walking around with guns. Some of them may be bad too.
I would be less worried about a criminal watchimg me on CCTV than one watching me walk down to street with a gun in his hand.
Yes I know some of our criminals have guns, Some use them. Still a lot less than in the USA.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
Have you ever been in the army/navy/airforce/etc?
I presume they gave you an ID card. I got one in the British army - and that was just the reserve.
I have fingerprints and a blood sample. It is all on file somewhere. I don't give a s**t. If someone does something and they check my prints against it, I will be crossed off the list.
Or do you think criminals carry a set of your fingerprints on some rubber gloves, James Bond style?
Tracking device? My VisaCard tracks me everywhere I go. I have a swipe card for access through doors where I work (a hospital). So what??
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.
I would hope this trend would meet with extreme scrutiny by the American public, but it most likely will not.
I've often been mistaken by others that think I'm someone I'm not. This sort of mistake is just a minor irritant. Imagine the legal, monetary, and personal grief one might be presented with by the prospect of thousands of "eyes" sampling your image every day. Mistakes often happen, but a mistake of this kind can ruin one's life in short order, especially if one is not blessed with deep enough pockets to protect oneself from legal repercussions.
"Just because I'm paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get me"
Guyote was here.....
But you forgot, the British already gave up their guns (at least the law abiding ones did)
Suckers
Therel Moore
Austin TX
Reality is just a clever Hack, and the Planck constant is the refresh rate.
micheal said:
The story mentions the slow slide in Great Britain when the public became convinced that surveillance would prevent crimes...
We must have read different articles. I looked at the links to Scottish crime statistics in the Wired article and although critical it admits that the incidences of certain crimes have dropped and the loss of life has been prevented on several occassions by the surveillance cameras.
I am opposed to surveillance cameras for a number of reasons chief of which is the one mentioned in the article (camera operators usually focus on minorities or young people in "hostile" outfits) as well as the loss of privacy but even I don't delude myself into thinking that they don't prevent crime.
If you want to oppose to installation of cameras, complain about the potential rights violations or 4th ammendment violations. of course with the growing rise of reality television in the U.S. if there ever was a time that this kind of action would be gotten away with, this is it. Trying to pretend that crime isn't prevented is hiding your head in the sand and won't win you any supporters if the battle against them is fought in the U.S.
Suppose if I wanted to have a romantic kiss with my wife, should I be subjected to someone watching me?
--Well in North Carolina, where I live, I would be arrested if the cameras were installed in my house because I'm gay if I tried to do that. America the Free? BullShit, and becoming even more so as time goes on.
I've thought about this time to time (in planning for how to govern the world once i take it over)... Such cameras present a huge problem for privacy, yet they offer such an aura of security and such a promise of saftey and lower crime rates.
...except as obtained via warrant, see below), the jury can decide to look at the cameras of the area before making a final decision. A certain type of crime (with no suspect, such as vehicular homicide via hit-and-run) can allow viewing of these recordings by warrant. In no other way can these recordings be viewed - this will ensure privacy.
I concluded that my utopia would contain such cameras. My judicial system would use it to make sure it didn't mess up. After a trial (which does NOT use the camera evidence
A more real-life solution would be to just restrict access to publicly placed cameras and not allow them to be hidden. Require a warrant to view non-live camera footage of any sort.
Use my userscript to add story images to Slashdot. There's no going back.
Hehehe, sounds like Teemu. :)
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
Right. And just think how difficult it would be to pick one's nose if they knew they were being watched!
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
blessings,
"Only in their dreams can men truly be free 'twas always thus, and always thus will be."
--Tom Schulman
That may be all well and good right now, but what happens when the laws change? What happens when something you do becomes illegal? For instance, what if the government decided to round up everyone who had just attended a particular religious service (or to round up everyone who wasn't currently attending a particular religious service)?
"If English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for everyone else."
Sorry to pop this into the discussion so late but here goes. If you go to Miami, as you enter the city driving down I-95 you will see 78 cameras. We counted them a few weeks ago but more are popping up on other major thoroughfares. The cameras are on their own poles and are remotely controlled. We were told that this was a traffic cam system designed to help broadcast and update news information relating to the over congestion on our highways. Guess what? Most of the cameras don't point to the highway. They point into the economically and ethnically challenged neighborhoods that I-95 runs through on your way to down town Miami. Normally, I wouldn't have an issue with the cameras per se if they were indeed doing what they were supposed to be doing. They are not and the fact that the density of cameras is much lower in the nicer neighborhoods towards the end of I-95 smacks of racism. If you want to surveil the community you should do it evenly and fairly. There is no reason to have 4 or 5 cameras on a post pointing into mostly black neighborhoods and only 1 on a post in nicer areas pointing at the highway. White people and Latins commit crimes too. I notice a lot of people out there complaining about this as an invasion of privacy. Please... You have no expextation to privacy outside your home. How do you think they caught McVeigh? The feds grabbed footage from every sevurity cam, ATM machine etc in Oklahoma city and synced up the video. They saw him park the truck. They saw McNichols pick him up and they even had the majority of the escape route caught on tape too. This is not a bad thing really. Not a good thing either but the continuing decline of society it just may be necessary.
Prospecting Stinks. Stop Wasting Time on Cold Calling.
Nonsense. There's any number of bampots out there drugged up, mad with the wine, jellied, etc. Cameras ain't going to stop them causing havoc. Intelligence goes out the window when intoxicating substances are involved. All cameras do is help the PF put together a case, and earn the defence lawyer a fat fee.
How would you feel about someone who hangs around all day with a notebook, taking notes.
Bill, just don't point them in my place, okay.
America: gun ownership up, crime rate down. Britain: gun ownership down, crime rate up. Figure it out.
InstaPundit! Ahead of the Curve Since 30 Minutes Ago
You won't mind the camera looking into your window at night. Its a clear shot from the camera to the whole front of your house. But then if you don't mind that how about the one I install in your bathroom? You aren't doing anything illegal so whats there to worry about?
Its not about being spyed on, its about my personal freedoms being erroded away without my consent. Was there ever a vote on this?
Last night on TLC there was a story about cameras in england. Some guy was up late (4am) and went to the store a few blocks away to buy some smokes. When he gets back to his apartment the police are waiting for him and questioning his identity.
Now he did nothing illegal, so why were the police ready to arrest him? If you let your freedom slowly be taken away one day you will wake up and wonder where it all went.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
If I was working that camera my focus would be on cute looking chicks. Screw looking for criminals. See how your argument falls apart?
They ARE taping it. How else do they use the footage in court cases? If your society is so crime ridden that the only solution is constant surveilence then your have deeper issues to look at.
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Like I said before the camera CAN look into your windows. How do you feel about that?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
How do you know?
Only the State obtains its revenue by coercion. - Murray Rothbard
Any study that tries to prove that crime has been reduced by the use of cameras in an area may be neglecting the fact that crime has just been pushed somewhere else.
Example: if I'm running late to meet my friend at the train station, I could use my PDA to look at the cameras in the station to find out if the train is in yet, then call my friend on his mobile phone to tell him I'll be five minutes late. Or I could check the cameras on various street corners if I find myself walking home late at night. Or I could just troll looking for police abuses.
If cameras will be everywhere, then everyone should be able to see what those cameras see.
Louis Wu
"One of life's hardest lessons is that life's lessons are hard to learn."
What kind of technical work would need to be done to make such wide-spread video viewing a reality?
- Video Compression: How much improvement is needed?
- Broadband/Wireless Access: Cost, reliability, universal access.
- PDA Power: How much more processing power does mobile computing need to make live, streaming video a reality?
- Battery Power: What will the power requirements of these PDAs be? How will they be met?
- Camera Representation: How will the ~10,000 cameras in your city be organized such that you can quickly choose the one you want? Click-thru map?
Policy question: Could I see cameras in places I'm not near? From Seattle, could I watch Washington D.C. streets? If not, how do we decide where to draw the line?Louis Wu
"One of life's hardest lessons is that life's lessons are hard to learn."
Cameras don't prevent crime. The only thing that we can say here is that there is a correlation between the rise in the number of cameras and (MAYBE, these postings suggest that this is a point of contention) the decrease in the crime rate. We can't say that one causes the other, only that there is a relationship.
Another good, albeit socially insensitive, correlation is the link between ice cream sales and incidents of reported sexual assuaults. As ice cream sales rise, so do the incidents of sexual assault. Year after year after year this is the case. Obviously, something in the ice cream is turning people into monsters. We MUST start shutting down all the ice cream stores IMMEDIATELY.
(Money, fame, and prizes for the person who knows what the REAL link is between sexual assaults and ice cream sales.)
The state is not doing these things, but the state makes use of the private companies who collect the information. What is the difference between the state spying on you and the state purchasing the same information from a private individual/corporation who spied on you? By the letter of the law, I don't know. Morally, ethically, and by the spirit of the law, there is no difference at all.
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
In other words, only the rich, those who can afford to hire a private detective, are allowed to do this? By this argument, I would vote for the cameras simply because they level the playing field.
Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
- - - -
Monitor your bosses, all the way up to the CEO. Record them with the same type of behavior and sue the company for discrimination. Of course, if the company published a policy that clearly prohibited this behavior, what's your problem? You should have either stopped that behavior or found another employer.- - - -
She learns about you before you screw up her life? It's her choice as to whether to trust you or not. Personally, I would try to get as much info as possible, too, if I was looking for something more than just a one-night stand.- - - -
Admit it. Tell the truth. Though it may take longer without the cameras, that kind of information will eventually come out. Covering things up only makes it look even worse.- - - -
This is my favorite. Use the same type of monitoring system to detect an unplanned or unexpected entry into your house. Have it alert you or even automatically alert the police. Record their faces and cars. Monitor the police's response time. This actually sounds like a logical next step for the alarm/security companies to implement for their customers.- - - -
An organized police force uses public monitoring information to track the location of known crime syndicate members, allowing them to detect crimes as they happen.- - - -
This is a problem. However, the police can't be very secret or faceless when they are also subject to the public monitoring. They have much more opportunity to be secret and faceless when the public does not have access to the monitoring.Edward Burr
Edward Burr
Having a smoking section in a restaurant is like having a peeing section in a swimming pool.
Speed cameras are what the public really hate. Road Rage is getting to be a serious problem over the past few years - no computer yet built can detect bad driving or discourtesy. What they can check is speed (there have been disputes over the system's accuracy to do this). Therefore, passing a 56mph lorry on a 60mph road can land you with a fine if you go over 60mph to overtake. Even if this is the safer option. Enough of these (4?) and you lose your license.
These pictures, unlike CCTV, are taken as proof. Also, there has been controversy over the method in which this evidence is applied.
You basically receive a letter stating that "your vehicle was doing XX mph in a YY mph area. If you were not the driver, you must identify the driver or be prosecuted for the offence yourself". (words to that effect). This removes the right to not incriminate oneself. You must either incriminate someone else, or admit to the offence. There is no option given to dispute the claim.
For any other crime/offence I would have the right to remain silent because my actions may incriminate me. In this one case, I have to either confess or name the person who was driving my car at that time.
Scottish law has seen this folly, and revised their law (they now have their own Parliament). For the UK, Wales and Ireland, however, this ridiculous system remains in place.
That's the real problem with cameras - when they are taken more seriously than genuine safety issues.
#include <stddiscl.h>
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
That surely is reason enough. This is not police/state vs. innocent public, but the monitoring of the police.
The cameras used in Police-Camera-Action!, and similar "look-you-can-be-caught-if-you're-bad" TV shows record everything that police car does... This is monitoring how they do their job, not just spying on citizens.
#include <stddiscl.h>
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
Even if I don't like them, and voted against their party, then I cannot say that I do not know who is controlling it. See my rant about Speed Cameras.
BTW: As it happens, I just might have voted for this current UK gov't....
#include <stddiscl.h>
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
#include <stddiscl.h>
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
#include <stddiscl.h>
Author, Shell Scripting : Expert Re
I realize this means I am outright advocating vandalism, but when laws and rules are set directly against you, sometimes, the best option is massive civil disobedience, such as the DeCSS case.
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`Lex - Find Me Here: Text Appeal
And next time you're on a demo, or a picket line, or doing anything the Government of the day might dislike, how will you feel about your image being carefully catelogued, cross-referenced and filed? If these cameras were only used for the stated propaganda purposes, all well and good. However, they're not. You're living in a fool's paradise.
File a Freedom of Information Act request. See http://foia.state.gov .
Definitely not the same, but you can keep em on their toes.
"Even if you're on the right track, you'll get run over if you just sit there" - Will Rogers
I think that cameras everywhere are going to become a fact of life regardless of how many people hate the idea. The only suggestion I've seen for mitigating the damage was a proposal that each camera pointed at a public place be registered and its feed made available on the net. At least then if an operator is abusing it (like looking in people's homes for example) there'd be a chance that it would get noticed.
The reason to fear government surveillance is not because you trust in the benevolence of your government, but because it can become a tool of despotism if the government ever turns against the people. And recent history is a sad statement on how often that comes to pass. However much you trust the current overseers, imagine the system in the hands of your worst enemy and ask yourself what they could do with it. Just off the top of my head, I think of China and what it would mean to be captured on tape visiting the home of someone later found to be a Falun Gong member.
I am in public at the time - anybody who walks by can see me anyway.
Yes, but they are not recording your every action and scrutinizing(sic) you.
There is no longer anything that can be done with computers that is nontrivial and clearly legal. -- Paul Phillips
Well and truly off-topic, and (having had a look at the links) pretty damn sad to boot.
-MT.
Terminator 2 - " ... its in your nature to destory your selfs"
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The point is, people don't like being watched when ever they go into public. I want to go out and do what I gotta do. Not have to have someone looking over my shoulder watching every move I make.
When your driving to work in the morning, a cop pulls up behind you. Follows you for about 5 miles. What do you start thinking ? After he drives away you relize there are only 2 things that could have happened.
- The cop was bored and want to catch you doing something. Happens everyday all day long.
- Rarley its mistaken identity. Cop runs your plates, whats a while for the results from the DMV. Relizes everything is good, and goes on his marry way.
Sure, I don't break the law. But, that doesn't mean that you need to follow me around all day waiting for something to happen.
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Comment removed based on user account deletion
Put it this way; if we had the money, would people be opposed to putting a cop on every street corner in the country? Unless you have paranoia about the police, most people wouldn't see a problem with this and in fact, think more police is a GOOD thing. This is just extending the eyes and mobility of the police.
As with all things (like the police), they can be abused, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't do them.
--
Sometimes it's best to just let stupid people be stupid.
Great philosophy: so let's have all law abiding citizens report to their local police station to be fingerprinted, DNA sampled, drug tested, and to have an electronic tracking device implanted. Anybody found without tracking devices will be imprisoned or executed. This will greatly improve public safety for law abiding citizens. You really don't see the problem with this mentality?
....
From another angle: do you really trust politicians never to pass a law which you disagree with? If so, you might try reading a little history, preferably something published by people other than those who make the laws
-- Sigs are for losers
No, of course all people with access to the video tapes will never do anything unethical with them. Just like people who work in film labs never make copies of the most interesting photos to show at parties. for instance.
-- Sigs are for losers
And the only reason you don't want the police to electronically tag you and make a record of every place you go (and who you are with, since everyone else should be tagged also) is that you are a low life mugging piece of shit?
-- Sigs are for losers
I'm not all that anti-CCTV myself (as I indicated in my first post), but I hang around on a mailing list of 'liberals' (US sense), and I know that there is quite a large (minority) anti-CCTV feeling in the UK.
Do you just 'feel safer', or do you have any statistics that indicate that the crime level has significantly dropped since the installation of the cameras?
I.e. would the money actually have been better spent on real coppers, who are able to do far much than just watch crime being committed, or even on roller-blades for coppers, so that they can get around quicker. CCTVs have certainly _not_ proved their worth yet in the UK.
Personally I'm in Finland, where when I travel on the train or underground if I wanted I could avoid paying, because one stamps ones own ticket. And (5 years ago at least) you don't lock your car door when parking to pick someone up from the airport - why would you lock your car doors?
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Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
(this is not a reply to you, but to the scumbag to which you replied, I just wanted to continue your thread)
Hoorah for the so called proud Anglo-Saxons, whose heritage is erm, the Angles (not from Britain), and the Saxons (not from Britain).
Want to be 'more' native? Try winding the clock back 500-1000 years, and call associating yourself with Celts. Then watch us inform you about the fact that the Celts came from even further east than the Saxons.
In order to verify your racial purity I will need a blood sample - 8 pints should do...
FP.
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Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
I'm not the owner of an internal combustion engine, so I've not put too much mind to this issue.
Can I repeat the story of the 'pro-rata' traffic fines in Finland? Basically you are fined X-days wages for an offence, so if you are a top ice-hockey player, and drive too quickly in your ferrari, you can get fined (the equiv. of) tens of thousands of dollars for a simple speeding offence! (and it has happened)
FP.
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Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
It certainly has its place (I think that it's pretty much essential in car-parks), but on the whole the feeling seems to be that having coppers videoing you while you're cheering for Watford, is an invasion of privacy.
The Mark Thomas (Comedy Product) on Channel 4 last series did a big thing about the civil liberties issues behind CCTV.
FatPhil
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Also FatPhil on SoylentNews, id 863
Thought I had seen the word 'pedagog' somewhere before, one of my university lecturers explained the differences between teaching children (pedagogic) and adults (androgogic). According to mirriam-webster..
/'pe-d&-"gäg/
Main Entry: pedagogue
Variant(s): also pedagog
Function: noun
Etymology: Middle English pedagoge, from Middle French, from Latin paedagogus, from Greek paidagOgos, slave who escorted children to school, from paid- ped- + agOgos leader, from agein to lead -- more at AGENT
Date: 14th century
: TEACHER, SCHOOLMASTER; especially : a dull, formal, or pedantic teacher
Does anybody have any reliable info on where the majority of these cameras are put? I get the impression that the most popular places for them are crowded areas (malls, main streets, train stations, etc).
It's sad to think that a camera is considered greater protection against crime (particularly the violent crime these cameras are purported to prevent) than the great crush of your fellow citizens surrounding you.
From now on people if you feel like scratching your ass or picking your nose in the middle of the street, wait until you get home. You don't want hundreds of spy cams capturing that.
Establishment of the US Dept of Surveillance: 330 million dollars
Installation of 1.7 million CCTV cameras at strategic urban locations: 1.2 billion dollars
Yearly operation and maintenence: 2.9 billion dollars
The look on Congress' face when they realize their system is being systematically destroyed by teenage graffiti taggers with $1.95 spray paint cans:
Priceless
He who joyfully marches in rank and file has already earned my contempt. - "Big Al" Einstein
There's already cameras around you everywhere. Look at most major intersections; those all show up somewhere. Smile. Or kill me.
His name was Robert Paulsen.
I also don't understand why police aren't allowed to beat criminals. I mean, I don't break the law, its not like they're going to beat me.
I also don't get this whole "warrant" thing. Why would you want to search someone's house, unless they committed some sort of crime?
Clearly, we have a lot to learn from the Aussies.
Government that tries to do everything does nothing well. I don't want or need my government to "protect" me from anyone or myself. If you are so concerned for my safety in a public place, then make "shall issue" concealed carry permits for handguns a reality. Just because cameras are installed doesn't mean that hoodlums are going to become angels. In the time it takes for the security drone to see that I'm being stabbed and robbed and get the single motor neuron firing fast enough to dispatch a cop, I'll be laying in the street bleeding. The idea that being "caught" on camera doesn't deter crime - if being caught (either on or off camera) deterred crime, the jails and courts wouldn't be overflowing. The only thing that deters (non-heat-of-passion) crime such as rapes, robberies, and assaults is the idea that your "victim" just might end up maiming or killing you.
I once caught a hoodlum attempting to break into my car and proceeded to beat that scumbag to within an inch of his life - the cop said I wasn't in trouble because I left the guy breathing. Luckily, it was while I was in the navy - most military police (military personnel in general, and navy personnel in particular, due to large amounts of people living in too-close proximity) feel that being a thieving bastard is just as bad as being a murderer.
Unfortunately, in your precious England, the majority of the time, the victims are the ones to blame, not the criminal - I'm referring to the recent case where a farmer shot two dirtbags attempting to enter his house to rob, beat or do who knows what to him. The judge ruled that he was guilty of a crime for shooting them. As far as I am concerned (as is the majority of intelligent, common-sense, non-sheeple Americans), the act of defending onesself, ones family or ones property is always a non-criminal act, regardless of whether or not you kill or maim the assailant.
Similarly, there was a recent case here where a Continental Airlines ticket-taker broke his neck in a scuffle with a customer, after he shoved the man's wife as she attempted to corral their child which took off down the jetway. The jury found the man not guilty of a crime. One of the jurors stated that just because his neck was broken was no reason to automatically assume the defendant was guilty of doing it. More importantly, what was not said, but implied was - if you lay a hand on someone else's wife (especially a violent hand), prepare to be dealt with.
Would cameras have prevented these types of acts? Probably not. Would they have prevented these acts in a crowded place, probably not.
What people fail to realise is that in large enough crowds, cameras are not going to be able to identify someone doing something illegal - there are just too many people - a sea of (in)humanity.
Actually, you don't need cameras ANYWHERE public, anyway - that is why there are these things in court called witnesses, see...
The only place cameras should be used are in sensitive, security-controlled areas or in private institutions. These include banks, kwikee-marts, and military installations. Cameras for "social engineering the populace to be good little drones" should never be installed in a public area. I would consider it the duty of a citizen to promptly render said camers inoperable.
In general, modern problems have medieval solutions...
Of course there is a big argument over the ability of the cops to beat people. I agree that they should not be allowed to beat citizens. However, that being said, the local beat cops *know* who the hoodlums are - people who commit petty street crimes. In the US, at least, the cops know it is futile because they will be out of jail almost before the ink dries on the arrest report. Letting these cops calibrate these petty criminals is fine.
In general, modern problems have medieval solutions...
I'll tell you what the difference is: Without cameras, there is no record to be held against you - if for some reason there is a court case, it is your word, the other party's word, and the word of witnesses.
Unfortunately, the fact that a record of some sort exists means that someone, somewhere, will exploit it and use it in a manner it shouldn't be.
Plus there is always a double standard, when it comes to the interests of private citizens and the government.
Recently the 9th Circuit Court (U.S.) ruled that it was ok for anti-abortion activists to post the names and addresses of doctors who perform abortions on a website, knowing full well the intent is to allow violent anti-abortion activists the ability to target these doctors. This same court is trying a case against Jim Bell - who posts the addresses of federal agents. You tell me - what is the difference?
So - by this same logic, it would be ok to have cameras in public areas only so long as the cameras are recording private citizens and not government personnel? It is ok to record a man and woman smooching on the street corner, but not ok to record that city council session where they are discussing illegal (or bordeline illegal) activities under cover of secrecy?
Luckily (at least in Florida), the state recognized this and made the "Sunshine Law" which mandates that various activities must be public - it is illegal to engage in "Star Chamber" activities.
In general, modern problems have medieval solutions...
As an aside, it is unfortunate that the intention of our laws has been bastardized and abused by scumbag lawyers and stupid litigious sheeple who won't take personal responsibility for themselves and believe that their own stupidity is somehow someone *elses's* fault. Ever wonder why there are stupid-people warnings on stuff you buy? It is because some moron sued somebody after injuring themselves using the product in a manner which was clearly stupid.
In general, modern problems have medieval solutions...
A computer, that's who. Do you really think that Pedagog actually plans to hire thousands of workers to scan the footage from these cameras? No, which is why cameras don't actually prevent crime. But what they can do is hook a supercomputer up to all of these video feeds and pick out faces.
No-one wants to know where you are all the time.
Let's see:
- Government (you might be a criminal, so we better make sure we know where you are)
- Buisness (DoubleClick in real life)
- Private citizens (Is your boy/girlfriend cheating on you? Monitor him/her!)
Surely they could draw a picture of you and show it to someone!No, this is more like having someone following you and charting where you go on a map. Even though you are in a public place, this person could easily tell what private places you have visited. Oh yeah, and this information is personally identifiable too, so this mysterious cartographer knows where Joe Blatz was on Apr 3, 2010 at 9:36 PM. Now, how would you cope?
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100,000 pairs of eyes connected to one head and it kills freedom wherever it is seen.
"Those who would trade freedom for security deserve neither freedom nor security."
- Benjamin Franklin
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Is Watching You.
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
What happens if they see someone pointing, with a cellphone in the other hand, and think they're directing terrorist activity, as in the case of 2600's Shapeshifter? There isn't even audio on these cameras, naturally. So how do they know that the people they're seeing pointing at a bank aren't just stretching?
Aciel
aciel@speakeasy.net
They only reviewed the tapes WHEN a crime occurred. It doubt (and hope) they don't waste money employing people to keep watch 24/7 (that would be far more unsettling).
"You know you don't act like a scientist, you're more like a game show host." Dana Barret
Since cameras are routinely used for this purpose in the U.S. A Google search on the words "demonstration surveillance camera" will yield numerous reports of this practice. Put yourself in the shoes of the police and politicians. Would you be able to resist the temptation to use this flow of information to keep tabs on your enemies?
CEE5210S The signal SIGHUP was received.
Neither your argument nor the parent post to which you replied contains much in the way of factual statement. Both are laden with meaningless rhetoric such as: The world we live now in is inherently more violent than the one we lived in 20 years ago. The same will probably be true in 20 years time too. If you had an argument in here, I missed it entirely. The only demonstrable fact in here is that our privacy is being attacked, for the dubious purpose of reducing crime.
Since there is no control group mentioned in your argument, indeed no reputable research or experimentation demonstrated at all, I will continue to assume that the only purpose of the exercise described in the article is to sell more cameras which can be easily used for nefarious purposes, but have not been demonstrated in any satisfactory way to serve their stated purpose, that of reducing crime.
How about more cameras *and* more guns? That way, when you smoke some junkie who was about to do you and yours harm for your pocket change, it'll be on tape and there won't be a shred of doubt that it was necessary, so no more civil suits when the scumbag's family tries to crawl out of the woodwork and sue you.
AND you'll still be alive to collect when FOX airs it on "When Filthy Fucking Criminals Get What They Deserve."
~Philly
First the United States is HUGE compared to England. 300 Million spent in England would be how much. US land area = 9,365,290 mi^2. UK land area = 94,247 mi^2. Infoplease
The US is almost 100 times bigger. So if the same % of cameras were placed in the US it would equal 300 * 100 = 30 Billion or 30,000 Million. I know UK billion and millions are different. I know the obvious comeback will bet that the US is not as densly populated so Let's be generous HALF of 30 Billion is STILL 15 Billion dollars. Try gettin that through Congress and watch them laugh at you.
The only problem still is local areas installing the cameras but those will get sued and be in the courts for years. We here in the US can relax a little for now.
Arathres
I love my iBook. I use it to run Linux!
stainless steel
How about mounting guns on the cameras? If surveillance officers see a crime in progress, they waist the offender. Then the innocent would-be victims smile and wave to the camera and say "thanks mr. camera" before continuing merrily on their way.
"My mother works for Microsoft now. A whole other cult."
While I'm a privacy advocate myself, I don't see anything wrong with having cameras in public areas. We all know we are on camera in a gas station, or elevator, I don't see why the same type of observation in public streets is such a concern as long as private areas like homes, offices, etc. aren't violated.
Online, we are supposed to be anonymous... That's why doubleclick's tracking was such an outrage. Not to mention that they were doing it secretly.
I know what it's like to be followed around. I know what it's like to be a teenager today. If you walk into a store, you must planning to steal something, so you are followed.
Many people are followed around by cameras. The best example would have to be las vegas where there are so many casino's with their own cameras that anything that happens on the street is captured and giving to the police.
"They're bloody everywhere in England,"
"bloody" huh...
He sounds British... he must know what he is talking about then...
One Bourbon
One Scotch
and One Beer
All those street cameras do is help prosecutors put a face to a [ legally | humanely | morally ] reprehensible act, so that an otherwise powerless legal system can have some evidence to show at the trial. Street cameras do not prevent crime, they only provide a visual evidence of the event after the fact.
Sreet cameras will not prevent some starving narcomaniac from mugging you so It can get your wallet and buy more dope. All it will do is ensure the prosecutors can assert who mugged you after you endured the bruises and seering pain!
I've said it before and will say it again now, the only thing that prevents crime is more policemen walking the streets and being physically present wherever crime is happening to stop it first hand.
--
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
I worked for a large credit union, and we considered implementing a drive-thru cam and a lobby cam so that members could log on and see how busy the Credit Union was before they came in. We had the technology in place and the capabilities to do it, but the idea never made it out of the meeting. Why?
Let's look at this from another angle. They are pitching this to come up with other reasons besides law enforcement to have cameras. *BUT* if everyone can see just how busy a store/bank/eatery etc is, or if they can see pictures of the eatery, they are going to know several things:
- A map of the place
- Regular traffic peaks and patterns
- Positioning of employees
- How much traffic is there *right now*
This just helps the criminals to case the place without ever having to step foot inside of it.We have, here in Tampa, cameras all over Ybor City (and the Super Bowl, for those who remember). There was the typical public outcry at first, but it is now an acceptable part of the area, and it does help people like firefighters, paramedics, and police see and react to situations faster then people on cell phones could tell them.
<tangent>For those of you who have never been involved with emergency services, people on cell phones are generally very difficult. We have no way of tracking their location (They call 911, "Help me!", "Ok, sir, where are you at right now, and what is going on?", "I don't know, just help!"), they sometimes give misinformation (if I had a dollar for every false house fire call we've gone on because of a cell phone caller), and, they aren't trained emergency service personnel. So it is difficult for them to describe the exact situation.
Generally speaking, though, we are glad to have them. But it is nice to be able to get a 911 call, swing a camera to the situation, and have our dispatch relay to us exactly what is going on, ESPECIALLY in Ybor City.</tangent>
So, as long as the cameras are for public areas that have difficulties getting emergency service personnel to them, or may be hard for the average Joe Cop to see from his patrol car or regular route, I am all for cameras. But if an area has not shown a need for those cameras, regardless of how 'nice' it might be to have them there, we should not put them there.
Random Musings
hoping your rules and wisdom choke you, since 1976
This is practically unrelated, but I'm having fun:
From CNN!
The USENET flaming comes at a task-critical time in U.S.-China relations. Bush, the incompetent dictator, is due to release a patch Real Soon Now(TM) whether to approve a Taiwanese chmod for the United States to multi-task it with advanced development environments and firewalls, as well as, scalable SMP platforms, since Taiwan only has two Linux boxes, both being used to play "Quake" with Chinese friends on Red Flag, made further difficult as they are on kernel 2.2.14. Beijing has warned that the open sourcing of such weapons could loop formation of a runtime pointer error resulting in a cross-straits nuking and DoS attack.
So as not to be marked off topic, I'd like to point out I'm spying on you.
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
Who meta-moderates the meta-moderators?
Who meta-meta-moderates the meta-moderators?
Who meta-meta-meta-moderates the meta-meta-moderators?
Who is up for volleyball?
"Yeah...it was the numbers that were irrational, not the murderous cult of vegetarians...." -- Hippasus of Metapontum
This is an outright violation of privacy by any means. Suppose if I wanted to have a romantic kiss with my wife, should I be subjected to someone watching me? Its my own right to kiss her, and not against the law, and although I wouldn't go public with strong displays of affection, I should retain the right to my privacy. The main street has a direct view to my yard, suppose I had a pool party, should my guests be subjected to the views of a camera misplaced, or placed without my consent for anyone to view the privacy of my own yard?
For such a so called great thing it only seems to be a good thing in the eyes of officials.
And the icing on the cake...
Instead of installing these cameras, they should take any financing for a program such as this, and put it into community centers to assist people in high crime areas. Show them there is more, and show them you are willing to help them change, as opposed to building more prisons, installing cameras all over the place, spending money on weapons and military related garbage.
Better yet here's a solution. Build a steel door in front of the house of every American citizen, then on a timed basis lock everyone in their homes. Will this be a politicians next pitch?
U.S' secret war with Japan
360 degrees of Karma
Now suppose that along every major strip there were cameras everywhere, with the US already with 2% of its own population in jail, the criminal ustice system would be overloaded with criminals.
Lets look at the way the justice system works now, we can say the Rockerfeller laws are a joke that need to seriously be revamped, for one.
Lets have officers arrest people for things that they would normally turn away from at times in big cities per se... Disorderly Conduct, a man and woman arguing, someone horseplaying, someone fixing a flat where their not supposed to. And don't dare say it doesn't happen, recently an 8 year old was arrested for pointing a paper gun and classmate while horseplaying. So don't think the law wouldn't stoop so low to just conduct sweeps for stupid actions, e.g., political race heats up, "Lets use the cameras and go after everyone."
Thats the harsh reality of it all. Those concerned with putting in cameras are not going to monitor who views what, and what should or shouldn't be viewed, and in the fairness of justice someone jaywalking (although not a crime that can do much) should be equally treated as breaking the law as any other law breaker. You can't it a single sided issue.
So if cameras were to go up, try arguing that in a court of law, "Your honor my client was caught on top urinating somewhere, but on the camera you could clearly see the officers turn a blind eye to 30 jaywalkers." Is it fair? No
Now what would happen is, criminals (hardcore) would take greater risks to avoid getting caught which is more likely to signal they'd adapt and perform sneakier, possibly even more dangerous crimes.
George Bush's dirty secret
360 degrees of Karma
I think we're all to quick to simply say that having cameras on the streets is a bad idea because the government could watch us, but in today's world of huge companys that like to invade our privacy, what's to say the government wouldn't sell access to the cameras to do everything from tracking the movement of certian demographics for advertisement placement purposes to just plain watching our habits to see what we drink, eat, wear, ect. This IMHO is just putting us one step closer to a world with a real Big Brother.
Keep Austin Weird!
This discussion could go on forever. Neither of us is wrong per se, but this is because the facts being presented to us aren't always black and white.
1) "US Crime and violence has not increased. In fact it is at it's lowest levels in reporting history. See: http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/cvict.htm Yep. The US Department of Justice's statistics."
True, the DOJ statistics do seem to show a decline in violent crime year on year but consider how these figures are being reported.
First of all, the DOJ's figures are adjusted, showing crimes per 1,000 people aged 12 and over have declined from around 50 to 35 between 1980 and 1999. But over that same period, the population has increased, it has got older (people aged 12 and over make up a greater proportion of the population) and more violent crimes go unreported. Also, the DOJ's methodology for gathering this data changed in 1993, which makes a true comparison of the imformation before and after that date more difficult.
These figures also bunch together different types of crime and do not take into account their varying degrees of severity. Muggings and assaults are treated the same as rapes and murders even though the former are by definition less violent than the latter.
I'm not saying that you're wrong, and that overall crime hasn't decreased, just that these massaged figures by themselves aren't exactly the best evidence for you case. Like I said before, there are lies, damned lies and statistics. Give a statistician enough data and he'll be able to prove just about anything.
2) "I'm sorry. Where's the evidence? I didn't realize Britain had so many problems with terrorism. And didn't Britain put cameras in banks long before this? So why has bank robberies decreased all of a sudden? And pickpocketing and car theft? What? A good pickpocket isn't going to be deterred by a camera. Their techniques can be done in broad daylight on a busy street with nobody knowing. Car thefts? In the US property crimes (such as theft) have been going down as well, all without the aid of cameras everywhere.
Perhaps you haven't heard of the IRA? The terrorist group responsible for the murder of hundreds of British citizens in Northern Ireland and the mainland including soldiers, policemen, politicians, members of the royal family and ordinary members of the public? Or about extremist Islamic groups that occasionally decide to wage their war against Israel on foreign soil?
Many CCTV cameras installed in London are around prominent terrorist targets (the royal palaces, the Houses of Parliament, the City of London, the US Embassy) and have acted as a major deterrent to terrorist cells. Why risk planting a car bomb somewhere where you know you will be photographed? Similarly, the introduction of CCTV surveillance in Oxford Street (London's major shopping precinct) has reduced the number of street crimes reported there. And car parks that have cameras have less thefts of and from vehicles than those without. Evidence enough that CCTVs can help against crime?
And as for voting, opening a bank account, using your credit card, etc, my point was to show that there are methods of surveillance and spying that involve a camera. Just as cookies can track your browsing behaviour online, companies can track your movements and behaviour offline by examining when, where and what you purchase.
The whole concept that a CCTV in a public place is somehow an invasion of privacy is a complete joke. After all, if someone can see you, your hardly enjoying privacy are you?
The future potential downside of CCTVs must be weighed against their current proven upside. For now, I firmly believe that their use is justified. You obviously don't. Perhaps when someone suggests putting one in my own home "for my own safety" then I'll start to worry.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Talk about flame bait. Let's just examine your statements one by one shall we?
1) Recently the levels of violent crime in the streets of Britain have acheived (sic) record levels.
Gee, the level of violent crime is rising in Britain. Shock. Horror.
Perhaps I might point out that this has been the case throughout recorded history in every non-totalitarian society in the world? Britain, the US, France, Germany, Australia, and just about every place on the planet can share this dubious claim to fame, so why focus on just one nation? Ironically, Britain is far from the most violent society in the world - countries like the US and South Africa are the most notable overachievers in that category.
The world we live now in is inherently more violent than the one we lived in 20 years ago. The same will probably be true in 20 years time too.
As a famous politician once said "there are lies, damned lies and statistics" and you just proved the point.
Far more important than your groundbreaking discovery is what society does to try to halt and reverse this trend. Should it sit on its collective arse or should it take proactive measures to improve the situation. Gee, that's a real tough one...
2) The criminals don't care if there is surveillance video of their actions, successful prosecution requires more than just a grainy video.
Wrong again. CCTV footage has proven to be an effective deterrent against all forms of organised crime, from terrorism to bank robberies to pickpocketting to car theft.
What it hasn't been able to do is convince pissed up idiots that Saturday night isn't alright for fighting and that going home peacefully would be preferential to picking a pointless fight or smashing in a shop window. Mind you, few things do work in such circumstances, but at least a well placed CCTV can bring the police's attention to such incidents more rapidly than any phone call and also offer some evidence should criminal proceedings arise. Case in point: the high profile trial of Leeds' footballers currently in the balance.
3) Surveillance just allows greater control of the population at large, and will enable even more nefarious actions by various groups (both government and private) at a later date.
Just about everything of significance we do is recorded in some way, from registering to vote to opening a bank account to joining a library. I don't hear people advocating that we stop using credit cards because our card issuers might be tracking our purchases (which btw, is going on right now).
Perhaps societies like the US that permit gun ownership should clampdown on that too. After all, a handgun can be used for self-defence but it can also be used to perform "even more nefarious actions by various groups (both government and private) at a later date." Shock. Horror.
4) The /. community is well aware of the dangers of the misuse of technology, but the average public only cares about the perception of security.
The public only cares about the perception of security?
"Gee Martha, I'm not worried about my kids being shot in their classrooms or being mugged in the streets, I'm only worried about the perception of them being shot or mugged."
The public isn't worried about perceptions of security. It's worried about security. All the more so when politicians, beaurocrats and lawyers tell them they are safe when they clearly are not.
I could go on. Suffice to say that more people have had their lives saved or have been brought to justice by the use of CCTV footage than will ever read this thread.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The british public has not been convinced that these things prevent crime (we are not quite that slow). But that they allow us to catch the arse holes who commit crimes and bang them up in our all ready over crowded prisons.
Mark Hillary
Shoot me
Just how much privacy do you expect when you're out and about in public?
/. types probably think of Glasgow as a super-scary place with razor-gangs roaming the streets. Well not any more (mostly).
As a resident of Glasgow I am delighted to see cameras on every street corner and every road junction. Most of you
Many people have commented here that "the cameras don't prevent crime", showing a determined effort to neglect their power as a deterrent. Even Glasgow's most neanderthal bampots think twice about mugging Granny McShoogle in Argyle Street when they know they will be forced to watch the action replay on Her Majesty's telly.
We have a program on the telly here (I think it's called "Police, camera, action!"), which shows footage from surveillance cameras of cerebrally challenged criminals performing for our amuesment. Not only is this highly entertaining, it also gets the message across "don't jerk about in a public place unless you have a truly awesome disguise!"
If you want privacy then go somewhere private!
When you're out in public in Glasgow remember, Smile Please!
Nemo me impune lacessit
I'm sure I've heard of this happening many times from others, so I know it's nothing isolated. I just wonder, when is a good time for sending in a particular 'genre' of submission? Is paranoid conspiracy theory more likely to be posted in the late night than the light of day? Will M$ bashing articles achieve higher success rate between the hours of 2pm and 4pm?
Ah well, I'm tired, enough bitching for the night. Carry on.
I really don't think it's right for someone to have the ability to be able to interfere into someone's life like this. There are some things which just need to be left alone.
I know I certainly would not be comfortable knowing someone was watching everything I did, no matter whether it is illegal or not.
..It just moves it about. We have cameras all over my local highstreet now. No muggins but hey people deal drugs in the side streets.
My brothers is the subject of racist abuse and the police do nothing. Why? He is white and 3 cars chasing him on camera does count for much.
Speed cameras are all over the uk. no longer used to catch people speeding in danger areas like blind bends but to subcidise the police as tony blairs dictatorship (tm) is shit.
The british public is too dumb and the media to gagged to report on the RIP/Cameras/Anything that effects us.
2.n: Common misspelling of 'sarcasm.'
"Hardly used" will not fetch you a better price for your brain.
Despite this flaming and unfairly modding down my new account, I don't think people see my point. In the book 1984 cameras are placed all over and people are watched at all times by the police. When you begin to emulate parts of such a nightmarish story you see what it could lead to. Granted it could have many positive benefits, but even so people have a right to privacy. This is what I mostly meant by my first post. Why is was moded down I don't know.
There are lots of other examples of what happens when you obliterate the concept of personal privacy, like:
- Your employer wants to keep track of you, because they want to be warned if your personal life involves anything that might impair your ability to function at work. You show up one day and discover that an H.R. computer has decided that you should be fired because it is a matter of public record that you leave your house and go to a bar to socialize three nights per week, on average.
- You meet a girl in a bar. She uses a handy freeware application on her Palm Pilot to snap your picture digitally and run a background check. She finds that you have brought 19 women home from bars in the last six months, never seeing any one of them for more than one night. She also finds that you have been seen entering a reproductive health clinic three times in the last year. She snubs you.
- You run for public office, the news media runs a background check by data mining the video information that is public knowledge. They uncover that you used to attend meetings of a gay, lesbian and bisexual student union when you were in college. Your opponent attacks your sex life during the campaign.
- Thieves stake out your house simply by accessing public information and learning exactly who lives in your house. They run an automated monitoring system to wait until everybody that lives in your house is gone, and they break into your house while you are gone. They know exactly how much time they have to rob you, because they track you in realtime using public video information.
- An organized crime syndicate uses public monitoring information to track the location of law enforcement officers, allowing them to freely conduct crimes.
- Law enforcement uses the above example as an excuse to increase the amount of undercover surveillance. Eventually society is governed by a faceless secret police.
Does all of this really seem like a good idea? Having completely pervasive monitoring of an entire population and then making the information available to the public would radically shift our society to something entirely different than what we are accustomed to. I know that other cultures are different, but I think that most Americans would see this as a nightmare scenario, not as a good thing.-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
Imagine a world with cameras on every street corner, canvassing every public place, combined with high-banwidth data transfer and fast computers. Anybody with access to that camera data could use, say, a facial recognition system to track any given individual. Say you think that your boyfriend is cheating on you, and you have access to the needed camera data. You run a background process that looks for his face. He walks out of a cafe somewhere and your system catches him by recognizing his face, automatically archives the video of him walking around, down the street, around a corner, meeting up with his new girl.
This is a level of intrusion is not possible without hiring a private detective in the 'real world' without the cameras. If we allow the cameras, then this sort of thing will be very easy for anybody with access to the information. If the information is public, then you have just obliterated privacy in your entire society. If the information is guarded and used only by the government, then you have just created a very powerful tool for your government to use for opression.
Didn't anybody read "1984"?
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
-Keslin, the naked nerd girl
And I really don't see the problem, if you're a law abiding citizen. The only problem I can forsee is mis-identification. Apart from that, what's the problem?
Online image and video databases, face recognition, and other technologies make that really easy. Maybe your government doesn't have that now, but they will, soon.
- point-of-sales data
- ticket data
- toll both data
- cell phone location
- traffic cameras and license plate information
- public and private surveillance cameras
All that information will likely be stored in perpetuity in various databases, searchable and indexed.Once that information is on-line and on some kind of network, you can track most people's movements in real time, and get video footage about their whereabouts at any time in their lives. With automatic face recognition and automatic tracking technologies, you can even automate the process of finding people in individual shots, so that compiling a complete videography of someone's life during a particular time period will take little more than a single database query.
The potential for abuse by the government is enormous: blackmail of political opponents, selective enforcement by police, plea bargains by prosecutors involving the threat of disclosure of embarrassing video footage, etc. And since "normal" people have no access to that data and can't go on fishing expeditions, they will be severely disadvantaged when it comes to legal action.
There is a huge difference between the current collection of random cameras and a coherent surveillance system monitored in real time. People say that you're in public anyway, so what's the problem? Well, the problem is, you're never followed from place to place by anyone in the real world. If you did notice someone following you, you'd start to freak out. (This is used to great effect in thousands of movie scenes.) With a global police-run camera system, you're always being followed. The correlation of the independent cameras multiplies their power by orders of magnitude.
This is the exact same reason why people hate Doubleclick so much. It's no big deal if a few websites hand me random cookies. But if an organization uses a system of correlated cookies to track me everywhere I go on the web, then it becomes a big problem.
Do not underestimate the amplification of power enabled by a correlation system.
As cameras get smaller, smarter, and eventually mobile, privacy is simply going to evaperate. Wireless swarms of cameras the size of flies will be everywere (this technology is already being tested) recording your every movement.
Small surveillance Plane
Camera size of a quarter
6 inch flying camera
Even without trying, most people get on surveillance video a few times a day: the bank, the local 'quicky mart', the gas station.
The only way to preserve privacy is to make preserving privacy a top concern of your government. Many people seem eager to trade their privay for security, but this only works when the security is in the hands of someone you trust, who would never abuse that power. Of course, no western government would ever abuse its power, right? Just ask Steve Jackson.
People who are willing to trade their privacy and freedom to the government for security are abdicating their adulthood, and letting the government be their babysitter.
Anarchists never rule
You all sound like fucking x-files conspiracy freaks. it's not the government trying to steal your brain or something, it's just a legitimate way of attempting to control crime.
Someone tries to help you, and you just moan on about it like some spoilt little children who don't understand what's going on.
Just grow the fuck up.
It's not like there's a huge room with 1 person per camera, actually watching you, it's going to be about 20 cameras+ to one person, with that person simply looking at the picture on the screen. They're not taping it to take home and show the wife and kids, they're just surveilling the area and if something dodgy happens they'll have it on film.
It's midday here. You did remember that there are other countries in the world?
The price of freedom is eternal vigilance.
Do you mind people looking at you in the street? Surely they could draw a picture of you and show it to someone! How would you cope?
the Watchmen ??
now private eyes ,spooks,and stalkers
can keep suveillance on the targets
all from the comfort and conveniance
of their home or office!!!.
hooray@!!!
One of my favorite sci-fi writers, Robert Heinlein, wrote into a story once something like: 'If a society gets large enough to require ID cards it is time to leave, fortunatly space travel gives us the opportunity to go elswhere.' So where can I buy my ticket out of here? The Brits are obviously worse off than the US in this respect, despite however much we value privacy now, it seems inevitable that, one day, the pressures of a densly packed world will shift priorities. Make no mistake the US has it's own share of Mr. Goldstiens....
Smacks of Orwel`s Big Brother, mentality.
In my experience, cameras are a good, but intimidating thing. The whole of downtown Reykjavik is filled with them, and they have prevented me from, in a state of youthful drunkenness, climbing a statue and peeing on the president of Iceland's house (ie his residence).
Currere potes, sed oculare non potes.