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World Sousveillance Day
Sousveillance Cyborg writes: "Sousveillance is inverse surveillance, and a worldwide community of cyborgs is promoting sousveillance as a way toward more privacy and less secrecy.
Today is World Sousveillance Day (WSD).
See http://wearcam.org/wsd.htm. Transmitting live from around the world at noon (moving with time zone)."
I certainly would not be doing this in an airport.
:)
For that matter, shooting photographs of security stuff in general may be a bad idea. You could easily get arrested for such stuff, even if it is an invasion of privacy.
But, as always there's an alternate.. there's the middle finger.
.
We don't need no Net Explorer We don't need no Thought control
Check out the FAQ at wearcam.org. Its a pretty interesting read. Why dont we have a World Subjectrights Day everyday?!?! This is something that shouldnt be ignored and should have more attention givin to it. Too many people/companies dont take accountability for there actions and this has to stop!
Given the current craze about security it seems to me that taking pictures of surveillance cams and the personnel operating it is a sure-fire way to get questioned and maybe jailed for a night.
Might be just me though. Maybe it helps to wear a "I am not a terrorist" t-shirt. Maybe not.
+++ath0
-In your car, in case of an accident or traffic stop.
-Hidden in your cellphone, to record in all those forbidden places. What do casinos and department stores have to hide?
I think Dec. 24 is one of the worst days they could have chosen to do this. Why?
Just about anybody that celebrates Christmas is busy on Christmas Eve. Mom's gotta clean the house, Dad's gotta find a Turboman actionfigure for Young Jimmy, Highly Paid IT Businessman is busy partying, Joe Homeless is busy begging.
The only people that are going to have no problem doing this on Dec. 24 are people that don't celebrate Christmas at all. Typically these would include various racial groups which the US has declared war on right now....
So, would it be a great idea to have lots of people that (dumb) Yankees would consider to look like terrorists running around, taking pictures of things and getting security all riled up?
I think this WSD should be on a more relaxed time of year. Maybe some time in April or something.
This is actually a puckish wrapper around how things should be run daily anyway. There is nothing wrong with cameras mounted on streets and stores filming whomever might be around, but at the same time there is nothing wrong with cameras being held by people filming whatever they may see. The fact is that cameras create accountability (and generate raw information) no matter where and how they're used. Whether that accountability is acted upon and acted upon in a correct manner is a seperate subject that doesn't really involve the cameras themselves.
As Brinn said, there is no stopping the spread of cameras now, but why would anyone want to stop them anyway? People need to simply accept the cameras and use them instead of fighting them every step of the way, missing out on the great things that cameras can provide average citizens.
What's your point? Did you even read the article? no? That's what I thought. Why don't you go read the article and come back later.
I did however read it and there are a few scary points brought out. What do I think? I think I want a "Federal Government Comment Card".
Here's a link to some interesting things about the governemt that most people don't know.
You can't legislate goodness. Let each to his own destiny, by will of his freely made choices.
Those who are able to arrange things so they are rarely watched.
The point was that if they want people to participate in this, they should give them some advance notice. I would have gone out and done this, but since I didn't find out about it until 5 hours after it had started, I can't.
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Maybe I have a limited imagination, but I have trouble seeing how exactly the average citizen can "use" these cameras. It is likely that if we did find a way to use cameras which don't belong to us that we would be prosecuted for it.
What I can imagine, though, is a scenario where once the system is in place, the scope of its use is gradually increased until it is being used not only in ways that are unacceptable, but also in ways we were specifically told it wouldn't be in the beginning.
An example of this would be the "anti-terrorist" cameras installed all over London. These are now being used to detect and prosecute all sorts of lesser crimes. Of course, many people don't have a problem with that, but you have to be extremely careful where the lower bound gets set. Is that a nudie magazine in your pocket, visible in frames 237-512 when you crossed Market Street?
Maybe you can't imagine any activites/liberties you presently indulge in which the government might eventually decide are nonsat, but my paranoia meter jumps a couple of clicks every time this stuff makes the news.
So, here we another installment of the Citizens Against the [supposed] Big Brother, a "watchdog" group of paranoiaphiles dedicated to overthrowing whoever-it-is we're at odds with. The group promotes reverse surveillance (sousveillance!) and encourages people to generally reverse monitor various monolithic entities though such *coughing* ingenious methods as using the 1-800 how's-my-driving numbers, etc. While I'm sure that there are legitament reasons for "sousveillance," this is little more than another group of schizoid people who are convinced that every time you use an ATM, you're selling out to the Antichrist, and that yes, in fact, your neighbor's satellite dish actually is just a device that the FBI is using to watch your every move in your house.
Give me a break, this type of paranoia is so vogue it's disgusting. There are real threats to civil liberties, but "sousveillance" isn't going to counteract them. Though the group claims they're turning the wheels of democracy, they would be more appropriately observed to be a factional group.
Even if they're right, nobody in the paranoid realm has ever given me a good answer to the question, "Why should the government even care what you're doing?" If you pay your taxes, walk the dog, and tune into Must-See-TV on Thursdays, you're in line with the rest of society, and the government could really care less what you're doing. Even if you *gasp* use Linux or program computers, the government really isn't interested at all in what brand of toothpaste you buy from the grocery store.
In related thoughts, there needs to be a Godwin's Law for 1984 references, such that a reference to "Big Brother" or other Orwellian terminology immediately invalidates what you're saying.
If you're gathering evidence that relies on tone of voice to document wrongdoing there's nothing like a tape recorder. And if you're gathering evidence that relies on gesture and facial expression to document wrongdoing there's nothing like a pinhole camera.
In fact, digital video cameras is how the human rights abuses of the Taliban were first documented by RAWA .
But pick your battles, carefully, kids. This isn't a contest to see who can be the most annoying to security people who are doing their jobs honorably.
I think wearcam.org should send someone down the street knocking on people's doors, asking why their peepholes only work one way.
Come on, guys. It's simple economics. If a store wants to reduce losses due to theft, they install cameras. Or they install domes that look like cameras. If you're going to be insulted about that, why aren't you insulted that you can't leave without going through the registers, or that they lock the door after hours, or that the "Employees Only" areas are only for employees? Why not require retailers to move their entire stock outside under a large awning, and turn their backs to us to show how much they trust their customers?
Come on, dude, you're living in a paranoiac techno-Robin-Hood fantasy that would have been only moderately tolerated even before 9/11. Now, your implication that the security guys in Wal-Mart are worse than the terrorists who blew up WTC, makes your opinion worth less than sludge.
Willson's essays on depleted uranium and "alternative" medicine are barking mad, and put a huge question mark above all his other essays.
The essays may be "interesting", but that doesn't mean there is any more truth to them than the X-Files.
Rats...
You're using her as bait, Master!
It may well, however, require a small fee. This is defined in the DPA as a maximum of £10.
Go to a shop (only do this in big chains, no-one wants to hurt independents). Go when it's busy. Very busy. Make sure they have plenty of CCTV cameras. Make sure you get in as many of them as possible. This increases your impact.
Then, go to an employee. Under the DPR's `Code of Practice,' `All staff should be aware of individuals' rights.' If not, ask to see the `Data Protection Controller' or, the Manager.
You may well need to fill out a Data Protection Subject Access form, or write a letter with proof of identity to the Shop's Data Controller.
You are entitled:
to be told if any personal data are held about you AND, if so:
to be given a description of the data;
to be told for what purposes the data are processed and
To be told the recipients or the classes of recipients to whom the data may have been disclosed.
Also:
to be given a copy of the information with any unintelligible terms explained;
to be given any information available to the controller about the source of the data;
So, they'll be required to give you copies of information they hold about you. You probably don't want this, but the administrative burden is the aim here.
If they don't provide the said details with 40 days, complain to the DPR and they will be likely to be fined.
You post the question "Where's the accountability?" — anonymously?
Did you see the Sousveillance video? He's not doing exposés of concealed cameras in dressing rooms; he's strolling through department stores, asking employees idiotic questions about the "mysterious dark domes" in the ceiling as if they were part some massive coverup, and none of the poor idiots (non-University of Toronto CE students) around him were totally unaware that they were being watched in a department store. It inspires no social change (except perhaps more stores banning video cameras), and has no effect outside of feeding his overinflated ego. This is nothing more than stupid camera tricks posing as citizen activism.
While we're on the subject, let's throw it out to the group—how would you like this guy to walk into your employer's business and start following you around with a camcorder? "Why do I have to have a password to use one of these computers? What are those weird white boxes with red lights in the corners of the ceiling? Why is the server room locked? Why did you call the police?" Seems pretty juvenile when you think about it.
Yes, you can get a limited view (10 or so) of a room through the distal end of a peephole, but it is essentially a one-way device.
In a similar manner, you can see through a one-way mirror by reducing ambient light as much as possible and placing a high-powered light flush against the surface of the mirror. See, if the guy at wearcam.org had constructed such a setup, with a rubber-gasketed camera and flash which he used to take pictures of the folk watching us in department-store dressing rooms, and filled a website with those photos (preferably alongside statements, denials, and changes of policy from the stores in question), then he'd be performing what would arguably be a public service.
As it is, he's filming camera domes as if they were UFO's and salespeople as if they were MIB's. For all his bravado, he isn't coming close to anything like a controversy.
Is this how I'm supposed to burn karma?
If you're going to do sousveillance on the Government, you might wind up like Jim Bell.
Does he have a valid concern? Yes, I think he does. I'm not thrilled with the pervasiveness of cameras either. But how does harrasing the clerk at the register change anything?
"It's not a war on drugs, it's a war on personal freedom. Keep that in mind at all times." Bill Hicks
Steve Mann's site doesn't even mention misuse of dressing-room video. His only mention of anything similar is in a spiel for his "art exhibit" which included a mocked-up anthrax decontamination facility, which he apparently thought would be an ideal place for getting lots of pr0n video. As such, my response was to his site and stated purpose, not to yours, no matter how noble yours might be.
When you say "department stores need cameras to protect their stock - but they need to do it in an accountable way," do you mean that if they misuse the video, they should be subject to lawsuits? Or are you saying that they should have a CorpWatch representative overseeing all videotape loading, unloading, and archiving? Does the corner 7/11 store need to hire one as well, since they have a camera behind the register? Where do you want to go with this?
"What recourse does the victim have?" The same recourse that they would have if a peeping tom videotaped them at home and posted mpeg's on the Internet—except that in the store's case, it would be much easire to prove liability, and to get a lucrative settlement. Which is why stores are very careful with such tapes, and only show them in the executive breakroom, where they belong.
"I posted anonymously because I don't have a login ID for slashdot, and I can't be bothered to get one." Yet you have the time to post anonymously ad nauseum? I'm simply dumbfounded by this statement.
Go in peace, my child.
All true, the question is "how much?"
How much surveilence is too much? How much privacy is too little? Is there a real benefit to this surveilence or am I "subject #23"
I have a name and I have a history, you can learn these things from me by asking. If I choose to invite you into that level of closeness/community with me, I will share these things. My objection is simply that I want to have some say/control over how much data is gathered and how it is used.
One of the big issues here is when is surveilence de-humanizing. In a small town, folks can know each others business and though there are busibodies, they are usually ignored by the population at large. Now we are dealing with semi-legal entities which want to know our business. A corporation is a piece of paper which is recognized by the courts as having standing as a 'person' humans in service of this 'person' want to watch us suspiciously.
I will live with people and I will submit to a certain ammount of friendly inquiry into my life. I'm not all that interested in being suspected of $NefariousThings and watched like the criminal I am suspected of being.
"The conduct of neither [party], if strictly examined, will be irreproachable." -Elizabeth Bennet
Hmm, that Willson boy seems to be quite well-informed... LOL...
I'm surprised I didn't see an essay on how NASA faked the moon landings on there.
-- "Ignorance more frequently begets confidence than does knowledge." (Charles Darwin)
Dunno where you live but in the United States cops are emphatically NOT
allowed to just start whupping somebody's ass.
Of course not, but I do happen to live in the United States, born and raised in
Washington DC and I can tell you quite assuredly that even tho cops are
NOT allowed to whup someone's ass, they can and often times
do. In my hometown of Washington DC, there have been several cases of police
brutality. I have witnessed with my own eyes, a person being assaulted by 2
police officers, and after about 15 minutes of being beaten, (not resisting,
mind you, the guy was basically huddled down in a doorway covering his head) he
started to fight back, more in an attempt to get away then to cause harm. This
resulted in about 15 cops arriving on the scene, standing shoulder to shoulder
obscuring the view, while 3 more cops proceeded to "whup his ass". When I made
my previous statement, I was referring to an incident where a couple of police
officers were assaulting a motorist. What made the incident memorable was that
one of the police officers had forgotten to turn off his dash camera (which
recorded part of the incident) and went back to turn it off. I can dig up the
incident if anyone wishes, I believe it happened in Florida. Check http://www.hrw.org/reports98/police/
for more reports of this nature. Sorry to have made such a lengthy post,
but it needed to be said.
Also see here
[http://www.copcrimes.com/] for more info.
SealBeater
-- Its survival of the fittest...and we got the fucking guns!!!
Excuse me, but there are plenty of other religions all over the world, plenty of which the US has no problem with. Not to mention all the people IN the United States who aren't Christian. Jews, Muslims, Buddists, Pagans, and Wiccans unite and smite down this ignorant fool. I'm not disputing that today was a poor choice for this event, but saying the other religions of the world are miniscule is slanderous.
You all seem to have either forgotten, or been unaware of, the fact that there have been numerous cases of security cameras pointed into dressing rooms at department stores. A department store's desire to prevent theft does not outweigh someone's to privacy while trying on clothes in a dressing room. A person should not have to worry about whether some security guard is getting his rocks off watching them dress/undress.
Every one of us has, at one time or another, scratched our a** or privates when we thought no one was looking. We've all had a finger up our nose at some point in our lives. Well, if I scratch my butt, it's not for the amusement of some Walmart rent-a-cop staring at monitors.
What happens when some law enforcement agency subsidizes the cameras at a local shopping mall in exchange for copies of all videos produced from them?
Stores should display privacy policies just like web sites do. Are the cameras manned or recorded? If they are recorded, how long are tapes stored and who maintains control of the tapes? Does the store guarantee that there are no cameras that can be pointed into dressing rooms and lavatories? Does the store have a policy that prohibits their employees from revealing non-criminal activity revealed by the cameras (e.g., public figure discreetly kissing someone other than spouse, man adjusting toupee, etc.)?
I'm an old-fashioned liberal. I think that people's rights are more important than businesses' profits. I'd rather see *mart make a few million dollars less this year than to have them invade the privacy of people who are doing nothing more criminal than adjusting their underwear.
Yeah, we should wait until Big Brother *exists* before we start doing something about it. Because raising the issues of freedom and rights only makes sense *after* you have been oppressed.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
I haven't been modded up for that comment; I start out with 2 points because I have high karma points.
Anyway, I wouldn't say that I *agree* with all the conspiracy theorists. (I happen to think that they have some valid concerns, but that's a different matter.) What I was trying to say was that you *can* take action to try to stop things before they've happened. And that's generally the preferred time to take action.
Why wait for 1984 to come true? Won't it be too late by that time?
And if it doesn't and never will or never can, as perhaps you seem to believe, then what harm is there in some crackpots wasting their energy rallying on about it? Doesn't it essentially become just another trekkie sideshow if Orwell's dark prophecy proves to bear no fruit?
One final correction... I wasn't sneering at anyone. If anything, I was smirking. Didn't mean to make you feel personally disrespected with my comment, there -- sorry.
You see? You see? Your stupid minds! Stupid! Stupid!
pretty much because you dont have the balls to do it.
They will attack you, they will steal your camera (use a throw away and have a second peron covertly photograph. Espically photograph you getting assulted by the security team.
It's a helluva rush, and it get the point across. I reccomend everyone doing it at lest once. if you have the guts.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
While I can't watch the video here and the political ramblings on the webpage sometimes wandered off into the slightly kookier side of the issue, I wouldn't completely discount the value of acting like a jerk. Such behavior is just a level of refinement away from the brilliant social satire done by Michael Moore, the genius behind "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth".
One such example of his behavior (from the first season of "The Awful Truth") was heading to the headquarters of an insurance company that had refused to pay for a life-saving liver transplant for one of their policy holders. The policy contained two conflicted clauses, and the company had chosen the least expensive option (rejecting the claim). Attempts to resolve the matter via traditional grievance procedures had failed, and the person in need of the liver wouldn't have survived the multiple years necessary for a court battle.
So Mr. Moore, with the man who needed the transplant, went to the office and gave out invitations to the man's inevitable funeral. He harassed employees. He made a pest of himself. He even held a mock funeral down in the street once getting thrown out. Obnoxious? Yes. Funny? Hell, yes. Effective? Well, the insurance company authorized the liver transplant, and the guy was in the audience (post transplant) for the host segment of the show.
The point is that sometimes the deck is stacked so heavily in favor of large companies that acting like a jerk is your only resort. The result is to (hopefully) focus a large amount of negative publicity at the company so that they can't ignore it. Anything else tends to get lost in the crowd. A company could care less if one person writes a letter complaining about their use of video surveilance. But if that one person sits in a store and videotapes the surveilance system, in clear view of all the other shoppers, it's suddenly an incident that must be addressed.
If that person then puts his/her videotape up on the web, you've just magnified that publicity. If that site gets slashdotted, kick the audience up another order of magnitude. If the footage is interesting enough (either via humor or insight) that you've get television coverage, your audience has skyrocketed, and the company is forced to respond.
Still, sometimes acting like a jerk is just plain obnoxiousness, but if done right, it's the key to humorously getting your point across.
Such behavior is just a level of refinement away from the brilliant social satire done by Michael Moore [imdb.com], the genius behind "TV Nation" and "The Awful Truth".
On the other hand, it's just a level away from the work of Tom Green, too, whom I won't dignify with a link.
Anybody can walk around with a camera and act like an asshole. Saying "I'm doing it for artistic reasons" doesn't make it art, unless you also think Yoko Ono scrawling "fuck" on a museum ceiling is art.
This guy has a valid point, but the only people who are going to listen long enough to hear it are those who already get it.
True enough. But I'm still trying to provide at least some validation for the technique. The post I replied to could be converted to the analogy of, "What's the point at smacking a little white ball around a big green field?" My reply, by citing someone who actually gets it right, is trying to show that sometimes that little white ball gets hit into the hole on the far side of the field. A lot more people appreciate golf (even if some people deride it as not being a sport) versus the number of people who at least appreciate what this guy's attempting to do.
Futhermore, there's at least some hope for the guy. Just as someone can get better at golf, this guy can hopefully learn from his mistakes and refine the process a bit. While I'm not going to automatically give him a gold star for effort, he does have some theoretical potential. Maybe he'll do some direct good. Maybe not. Either way, he's at least spawned an interesting Slashdot discussion.
You mean the guy responsible for an increased awareness about testicular cancer? While most of his antics are immature "look at me" stunts, he did use the attention people gave him to bring attention to a very serious problem. Admittedly, it was something that he had a personal stake in (just as Michael J. Fox has a personal stake in Parkinson's research and Christopher Reeve has one in spinal injury research), but he did do some societal good.
but he did do some societal good.
:-)
I don't recall saying he did no GOOD; I said he did no ART.
A sewer does societal good, too, but I ain't hanging what comes out the other end up on my wall.
Hell, some guy owes him a debt of gratitude for making Drew Barrymore all weepy and vulnerable, too.
As a Christian celebrating Christmass, I had the day off and a video camera in my hand. What was I capturing? Mundane details of family life in New Orleans. I saw nothing terrible, thank goodness. No one got riled up either. It's amazing where you can go with a smile. Had I heard of something terrible at a time and place where I was, I'd take a closer look at my tape. Sure, it would not be as good as a Rodney King tape, any picture is better than none. There I was, sousvailance, without knowing it. Surely, others were doing the same thing.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.
I'm not sure why there are so many negative comments here. It's like 50% of the posts say, "Slashdotters are paranoid weenies." Great, there's nothing like reading insults all day, except being so lifeless as to write them.
DMCA, Hollings, Palladium. What might have sounded like paranoia is now common sense.