Ubiquitous Surveillance

lightray writes: "The New York Times is running an article titled A Cautionary Tale for a New Age of Surveillance which gives an alarming view of America's possible future -- and Britain's present." Excellent article, just excellent. (The author has also written a good book on privacy recently.) "And rather than thwarting serious crime, the cameras are being used to enforce social conformity in ways that Americans may prefer to avoid."

Comments

Great...

[JoeLinux]

Looks like a little while before we have a camera in every household. That will be doubleplusungood. We are still at war with Oceana, right? We've always been at war with them. Unless the Spies of Goldberg have been acting on us again.

JoeLinux

uk resident...

[jamesidm]

well I live in the UK, and when my girlfriend was hit by a car those cameras came in very useful. They are only in PUBLIC places (and only high streets for that matter). If you want to do private stuff, do it in a private place, it's that simple. The paranoia against cameras seems unjustified to me but hey I live with them and have not been arrested or stopped yet :P

festering criminal underground

[perdida]

Of course, protecting airports is only one aspect of homeland security: a terrorist could be lurking on any corner in America. In the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, Howard Safir, the former New York police commissioner, recommended the installation of 100 biometric surveillance cameras in Times Square to scan the faces of pedestrians and compare them with a database of suspected terrorists. Atick told me that since the attacks he has been approached by local and federal authorities from across the country about the possibility of installing biometric surveillance cameras in stadiums and subway systems and near national monuments. ''The Office of Homeland Security might be the overall umbrella that will coordinate with local police forces'' to install cameras linked to a biometric network throughout American cities, Atick told me. ''How can we be alerted when someone is entering the subway? How can we be sure when someone is entering Madison Square Garden? How can we protect monuments? We need to create an invisible fence, an invisible shield.''

Most of the criminals are mostly low tech.

Even the terrorists were pretty low tech, with their box cutters and library Internet use.

If we want high tech criminals we should do something like this.

Then we will have an onslaught of mask wearing in public streets, and disguises will become common.

It will also become common not to trust your fellow man. The "lawful" person has many reasons to wish to hide from the eye of public surveillance.

We may not catch many terrorists, but we will catch petty criminals and philanderers (in some countries) using this technology.

It will "blow-back" us to Kingdom Come. Do we really want to walk around distrusting our fellow citizens, every second of the day?

Oh, wait.. we already do.

public places

[johnjones]

hey they can stick cameras in public places as far as I am concerned because well if you do something in a public place then you are doing it to the public and can be recorded by the man walking the dog as well as the police

I have no problems with them taping me walking home but if they want to see inside my house or tape what I say to friends then that's a different matter

regards

john jones

what i dont understand....

[jeffy124]

... is why this is such a big issue. I would prefer wanted criminals be caught through a technique like this. They're dangerous to our society and dont belong on the streets.

I know a lot of people are worried that a system like this can be abused by authorities to track people. I have two uncles that are former police officers (one now is in the Secret Service, other died). Let me explain the point of view of the current SS agent:

There is so much work that a police dept in a major city like NY or Tampa that has to be done that there is no room to abuse a system like an automated facial recognizer. If someone were to abuse it, his/her overall job performance would go down because they would be tracking innocent people instead of catching wanted suspects.

I also have an example of a situation where this would work. I live in Philadelphia. About 2 years there was a serial murderer and rapist in Center City, and got dubbed the name Center City Rapist. A picture of the guy was found and wanted signs appeared all over town, on lampposts, park benches, etc. Also on those signs were how he attacks and how he targets single women who live alone. But the guy got away.

Last month his DNA was found on a rape & murder victim in Denver, Colorado.

If FaceIt were running on Denver and have the Center City Rapist's photo in the db, that guy would have been caught because of his high profile from Philly and perhaps one young woman would still be alive today because of FaceIt.

The murderer and rapist is still on the run.

Re:what i dont understand....

[Wesley Everest]

Ok, now, think of the largest, positive social changes in the last 200 years or so. In every case, the current powers-that-be used any tools at their disposal to try to stop the changes. Meanwhile, many of the people resposible for those changes had to break or bend existing laws, or at least to use anonymity and a bit of stealth at times to avoid the unlawful acts of the authorities.

Imagine the night after the Boston Tea Party, all of the patriots that participated are dragged out of bed by the British authorities after being identified by hidden cameras and matched in a large database.

Imagine everyone involved in the underground railroad -- people risking their lives to bring runaway slaves to freedom -- imagine them all being identified and arrested (killed if they are black).

Imagine when advocating birth-control was illegal and feminists went to prison trying to educate other women -- now imagine an all-encompassing system of cameras and databases being used to effectively eliminate this whole crime by identifying all of the "criminals".

The problem with the argument about totalitarian security eliminating all sorts of nasty crimes is that it rarely works that way in practice. Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia both had quite of lot of extreme security measures in place, yet crime by citizens were not eliminated -- I would doubt if they decreased at all. And at the same time, the crimes of the authorities greatly increased -- that's how it works. You give them a new tool to hunt down rapists and murderers and they use it instead to hunt down people who would take away the tool, as well as anyone else who might threaten their power. As they abuse their power more and more, the population has less ability to restrict their power.

And of course they will abuse their power -- that is the nature of power. Power corrupts. The ability for citizens to freely challenge the government's power, and ultimately, to overthrow it, is the one thing that can keep a government in check.

It is a shame that after the cold war ended, so did the need to differentiate between the U.S. and a totalitarian state like the Soviet Union. I remember liberals and conservatives, even Ronald Reagan, George Bush, and Rush Limbaugh going on and on about how evil the Soviet Union was for spying on its citizens. After the wall came down, U.S. journalists toured secret police offices filled with TV monitors and expressed horror at the thought of living in such a society. Everyone celebrated the closing down of these security offices. And damn it, they were right. It was evil.

Am I the only one that feels like I'm living in some cheesy sci-fi show where everyone's mind has been wiped clean? If, in the end, the Soviet Union was right, and citizens have no need for privacy and freedom, then what the hell was the whole Cold War for? Why did countless people have to be killed in wars in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Nicaragua, etc.?

Re:as an American living in the Uk

[Reality Master 101]

The damn cameras (which where on that street) didn't pick up anything useful that the police could use to find the person that did it.

On other words, what you're saying is that if it had been a GOOD camera, they would have caught the criminals. What I see in these complaints (and the ones in the article) is that putting phony crap cameras doesn't do any good. Well, duh.

If you're going to put in cameras, make sure they are very good ones that can do some good.

View from the UK

[doghouse41]

I live inthe UK, so it was interesting to read the article about "big brother" and CCTV in the UK.

The subject is not really as controversial here as it might seem. I know that my local town council (Wokingham) has been pressing to get funding to install CCTV in the twon centre for some time. The argument for CCTV is made every time there is a ram-raiding incident, or some other such crime where someone drives a 4x4 (SUV to Americans ;-) into the front of a shop.

I personally think that the sheer amount of data collected from CCTV cameras is so great that any general surveillance and control of the population at large would be very difficult. I would assume that most CCTV cameras do not have a pair of human eye-balls watching them. It's only really worth digging through mountains of material when a serious crime has been committed, ususally murder (which is pretty uncommon in this country).

Personally I feel more reassured than threatened by CCTV, I'm do nothing that I want to hide (but then I'm not an anti-globalisation eco-nutter!), but there is a reasonable chance that CCTV might catch anyone committing a crime against me - which works for me!

Avoid social conformity?

[FFFish]

Sorry, but whoever wrote that greatly underestimates how desperately America strives for social conformity.

You don't get kids kicked out of school for wearing Pepsi T-Shirts during a Coca-Cola employment drive day, if you don't love conformity.

You don't get Jerry Falwell if you don't love conformity. My god, if there's a man and his masses who would love everyone to conform, it's that gang of hoodlums.

You don't get Sikhs going turbanless this month in a country that doesn't threaten their lives for not conforming.

And you certainly don't get Brittany Spears and the other kiddy bands if conformity isn't desired.

Cameras to enforce conformity? Hell, yes! It's the American Way!

David Brin's suggestion

[gbnewby]

In "The Transparent Society" (highly recommended) sci-fi author and physicist David Brin talks about a future society where cameras are everywhere. I'm starting to think this part of his vision is inevitable. In the US, where the 4th amendment protects against some forms of surveillance, it's mostly been interpreted to only protect things we do in our homes. The streets, and the workplace, are open game for nearly any type of surveillance.

The important part: Brin wanted ANYONE to be able to tap into the cameras, ANY TIME. He also wanted cameras watching the watchers: we should be able to turn into our local police station, and make sure they're doing their job properly. This is the part that's missing from current proposals in the US and current practice in the UK, yet it would clearly be beneficial:

• More watchers, including the public
• We would know when the cameras are being abused (e.g., zooming in on the pretty girls in the mall...)
• Accountability for law enforcement. If the cameras are there, we want to make sure they're i the right locations, and functional, and being used properly.
• Tangential benefits, such as having better network infrastructure for live video multicasting.

In a world where surveillance seems impossible to avoid, I can only wish that Brin's vision had a better chance of becoming reality.

Re:The Flip Side...

[Chasing Amy]

> You need to also work out at what point "public display of affection" becomes
> "causing an obstruction" (or worst, e.g. if the PDA's are causing such an
> obstruction that pedestrians are placed at risk of being run over to avoid them.)

??? "Causing an obstruction"? Like, causes you to get constipated? A bowel obstruction of some sort?

I think you mean "causes a distraction" or "causes a disruption" or some such. In any event, no, I don't need to work that out, because that's not what we're debating here. We're debating the efficacy and propriety of placing cameras everywhere, not "how far is too far" when it comes to public displays of affection.

And how would pedestrians be "placed at risk of being run over to avoid" PDA? If someone chooses to walk in the middle of the road rather than walk within a few feet of a couple who happens to be kissing, then that person surely deserves to have his stodgy Puritan bum run over. One less extremist Xtian moralizer in the world doesn't sound like a bad thing. ;-)

But people do tend to exercise common sense whenever they stop in public places. Much like a person will usually sit off to the curb or on a bench or otherwise off to the side, rather than sitting down in the middle of the sidewalk, so anyone kissing in a public place will probably have the sense to move off to the side rather than stop in the middle of the sidewalk and stand there with lips locked. A good general rule is, if it's an appropriate place to sit or to stand out of the main flow of foot traffic, and it isn't someplace dreadfully inappropriate like a schoolyard or such, then it's an appropriate place to express a bit of modest affection. Kissing, hugging, no fondling. Save the fondling for private places, or at least public places which are unoccupied and will be for a while...

I have a great story about getting caught going a bit too far in a public place we *thought* was secluded, but if I told it the mods would have a field day with that Off-Topic pulldown. ;-)

The most important part of my post, however, was the long paragraph at the end about cameras interfering with our Constitutional right to peaceably assemble to petition the government for redress of grievances. It's an explicit right under the Constitution, and with biometrics-fueled cameras scanning the crowd and matching protesters with IDs, it would have a chilling effect on this right. The FBI has historically harassed people who have done nothing illegal, but piss them off for being political dissidents or holding unpopuklar or progressive views and values. Local police departments vary from very trustworthy to absolutely criminal. So we can't let ourselves be constantly watched when the watchmen are known abusers.