Surveillance in Washington DC And At Bookstores

dioscaido writes: "From reuters: 'Washington police are building what will be the nation's biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor shopping areas, streets, monuments and other public places in the U.S. capital, a move that worries civil liberties groups, The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.'" Aragorn_2002 writes "I found this new article on Salon.com about how feds are subpoenaing book-purchasing records. Just imaging if they start to use DMCA and the new Anti-terrorist bill to subpoena someone buying books on breaking encryption." If you've ever ordered from Amazon, this might concern you. Update: 02/13 21:30 GMT by M : The full WSJ article is available on MSNBC.

Comments

Re:Living in Britain

[Muad'Dave]

I guess You've not read this article in the current Issue of Scientific American. I block-quote the following for your perusal (emphasis mine):

In the camera-filled U.K., the London borough of Newham claimed its pilot scheme produced a 21 percent drop in crimes "against the person" and unprecedented decreases in criminal property damage, vehicle-related crime, and burglary. In August 2001 the U.K. approved a further £79 million (about $114 million) for 250 new CCTV systems. Simon Davies, a fellow at the London School of Economics and the founder and director of Privacy International, estimates that the country has at least 1.5 million CCTV cameras now in place.

Jason Ditton, professor of law at the University of Sheffield in England and director of the Scottish Center for Criminology in Glasgow, is one of the few academic sources of CCTV information. His research, funded by the government's Scottish Office, shows that the cameras are not cost-effective and that they reduce neither crime nor the fear of crime. His 1999 study of CCTV in Glasgow's city center revealed that although crime fell in the areas covered by the cameras, the drop was insignificant once general crime trends were taken into account. Even worse results were in Sydney, Australia, where a $1-million system accounted for an average of one arrest every 160 daysa quarter of the Glasgow rate, which Ditton thought was poor.

Moreover, it is not clear how much of a role the displacement effectthe shifting of crime from one area to anotherplays. A Sydney city council's report indicates that the cameras probably displaced some crime to areas outside the lens's view. And therein lies a fundamental design conflict. For the cameras to be an effective deterrent, everyone has to know they're there; however, to be effective in spotting criminals they need to be covert.

It's article 12

[jeti]

I wasn't sure if privacy is really mentioned in the
human rights. To safe others the work of looking it
up:

Article 12.

No one shall be subjected to arbitrary interference with his privacy, family, home or correspondence, nor to attacks upon his honour and reputation. Everyone has the right to the protection of the law against such interference or attacks.

Re:Jack B. Nimble is better than Uncle Fester

[renehollan]

You miss the point.

The titles of those two books are now associated, with you, the reader. That could be construed as reasonable suspicion to arrest you for drug dealing and confiscate all your property under the asset forfeiture laws.

No, you don't get your property back if you're innocent.