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)."

Comments

Bad Date

[talonyx]

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.

Re:As a followup...

[Tsar]

It's not about harassing Wal-Mart guards,

That's good, because he's just harassing salespeople from the looks of things.

1) Why exactly don't they want me videotaping them, but they can videotape me?

Because it's their store, and they're responsible to the owner to make sure that, though anyone can come in and freely handle millions of dollars' worth of goods that doesn't (yet) belong to them, the employees won't let too much of it walk out unpaid for. Just because someone works in a place that uses video security doesn't mean they want, or deserve, to see themselves on a 'gotcha!' website.

And conversely, if this fellow posts his videotape of Sears employees, does that make it okay for Sears employees to post whatever tape they have of him, or of any of us?

2) In what other ways am I being watched/monitored/tracked? Should I care? (GPS enabled cell phones, anyone? M$Passport anyone?)

He could make a better case for this by attacking these issues directly, rather than claiming that storecams are akin to terrorism. Now more than ever, that sort of rhetoric will lose credibility for his 'cause' quicker than anything.

3) How much is enough rights to give up for the sake of security?

Store cameras aren't about giving up rights, any more than my home security system limits your freedom of movement. If you don't want to go in, just don't go in. Our society is free to bankrupt companies with unpopular business practices simply by denying them our trade. Simple, isn't it? But before you ask how we get everyone to boycott Wal-Mart, let me suggest that nobody really cares that they're videotaping. In December 2001, it's just not that big an issue.

Someday we may have to accept the fact that if nobody else seems concerned about our cause, it may indicate that our cause is only important to us, and not that everyone else is an idiot.

This guy is just a jerk. This isn't a story.

[Silver222]

Watch the video. This guy is just acting like a jerk, and the people he talks to pretty much just laugh at him. Like a lot of people who frequent Slashdot, he had some good ideas, but he is too much of an ass to get them across in an effective way.

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?