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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.
Prohibition and the "War on Drugs" have pretty much killed the 4th Amendment for those in their cars and just walking on the street. The "War on Terror" will kill the 4th Amendment protection while you are in your home.
I read the Salon piece, and I thought about it all.
Well since Amazon and Borders and everyone else is prbly selling records of what you buy to marketers, and if you buy with a credit card or debit card theres a record that can be sold or gotten by a court, is this news?
I'm trying to be paranoid here, but for craps sake, all these records are already tossed out in the public domain. Now the Feds are getting involved, that will last until it makes it to the Supreme Court, and in a more conservative court, this will get slapped down just like the IR survilance of dwellings did last year.
I just can't get upset about it. But then I don't buy my High Times or 2600 or booze related books and mags with plastic. The whole thing about not leaving a record for the Man is to use cash.
Military History, computer books, Car that's all plastic-able, "sensitive" things are for cash.
Having closed-circuit cameras all over hell is possibly the greatest threat to our (American citizens) freedom I can imagine. At least as bad as tracking what books you check out. Oh wait, they're doing that. (shakes head) How come we're letting the police have so much power over our lives? I don't care about the arguments that say we need these things in order to protect ourselves against terrorists. A few cameras around public monuments, fine, these are crediblly threatened. It sounds like they want to setup a system similar to the ones in Britain. Have you seen how ubiquitious cameras are over there? You can barely fart without it being noticed. Yet people think they're being protected. I say it's tantamount to a dictatorship. 1984, if you will. I certainly hope the midwest never gets this crazy.
--- Think of it as evolution in action ---
I would also add that the book purchases are collected only under a subpoena. If the government was collecting information about your purchasing habits without a subpoena than that would definitely be a privacy issue.
One of the biggest things the framers of the constitution left out was a check of how far the police can go to enforce the law. Judges don't seem to sufficiently Check the Police power at times. I doubt they intended anyone to monitored 24-7 when they used the phrase "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness".
I found this new article on Salon.com about how feds are subpoenaing book-purchasing records.
Actually, the article says the records have not been turned over after more than 2 years because lawyers got involved. According to the article, "Through the years, the protections accorded materials covered by the First Amendment, such as books and newspapers, have evolved to protect the institutions that provide those materials as well."
I think this article is more about how the rights are being successfully upheld rather than taken away.
I Heart Sorting Networks
The surveillance is bad enough; but, with the current political climate it will probably be hard to stop the implementation. What needs to be pushed for is open access to the surveillance.
Surveillance of itself is not good or evil. But when only the government has access to the surveillance video then a small group of people get to decided on what to keep and what to discard and peoples' motives should always be suspect.
If law enforcement wants surveillance on every street corner then fine let it be. However, the citizens need to DEMAND free access to the surveilance cameras and not just after the costly legal process of a subpoena (i.e. display the images over the web). This technology already exists, the infastructure can be installed right along with the cameras. Then every citizen can see unadulterated the actual events taking place in a location and draw their own conclusions and not have to rely on the molested interpretation of the involved parties.
If law enforcment can surveil the citizens, the citizens should be able to surveil law enforcment.
Well, its pretty easy to get around this thing ... :) *Steal Books* instead of buying them.
Religion is a gateway psychosis. -- Dave Foley
the problem with subpoenaing book orders is ... how do you know I didn't get that book on terrorist methods so I could know my enemy? how do you know I didn't get a book on breaking into phone companies so I could protect my billing servers? an American should never have to defend their reading habits.
remember the secret service agent that wasn't allowed on the plane cuz he was middle eastern? the part about that story that really got me: The flight attendant rifled through his bag after he was escorted off the aircraft. in it, she found a book on middle eastern history... and he had to defend the nature of the book publicly. that is wrong.
Imagine if you weren't allowed to use roads because a bus company complained about your driving 3 times. --skunkpussy
Sorry but you just violated the Home security amendment that forbids concealment of your identity. Please stand against the wall with your hands inside the circles until law encforcement arrives to retrieve you and place you in a re-training facility.
You bitch about other's speech, yet you use that same part of the constitution....
Even though morons like you use the Anon coward right and abuse it, I support it fully and will fight to keep it there.
remember WE are fighting for your right to be an asshole... isnt that great?
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
Because what I consider wrong, and what the law considers wrong are sometimes at odds, the law frequently changes, so what isn't wrong today might be wrong tomorrow, and because what I consider wrong and what the public at large considers wrong are more frequently at odds.
If I want to buy books about growing pot or what the LSD experience is like or how to pilot a 777, it's nobody's goddamn business. If I use that information to do something illegal, then and only then does it become anyone else's business. I don't need to be harassed because I am interested in out-of-the mainstream activities, and that interest is no one's business unless it leads to lawbreaking behavior.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
I've never done drugs other than alcohol and caffeine.
I think drug use should be decriminalized. Marijuana is the largest cash crop in North America. I think Philip Morris (Oops, "Altria!") could make a fscking fortune growing and selling pot, and I think the IRS and state governments could make just as big a fscking fortune taxing the sale thereof.
I also think that both the federal and state governments could save a fscking fortune by not having to house potheads and crackheads in jail. Bust the ones who drive while impaired and who get aggressive. DWI's still a crime, so's assault.
Note that I'm talking about saving taxpayer dollars by lightening the load on prisons, not downsizing law enforcement.
I'd feel safer walking the streets at night if I knew that (a) I was unlikely to be mugged for $10 in my pocket, because drugs were affordable (due to increased supply), and (b) it was more likely there'd be a cop on the street to kick the guy's ass anyways (due to cops having more free time).
More importantly, I'd also feel a hell of a lot safer getting on a plane if I knew that (c) the law enforcement effort currently targeted against drug use were channeled into securing our borders and our transportation networks against terrorists.
Legalize drugs and you generate billions in tax revenues, save billions on prison expenses, eliminate the motivation for most gang violence, and simultaneously free up the resources of a million cops to secure their communities against other criminals such as sexual predators and terrorists. Everybody wins, even the cops.
The War on Drugs is obsolete; it's a WOMBAT: a Waste Of Money, Brains, And Time. Our tax dollars can be better spent elsewhere.
I think it's obvious that these systems aren't meant to catch the criminals. They are meant to keep tabs on what the intelligence agencies consider to be enemies of the state, which include:
1) terrorists
2) anti-globalisation protesters
and
3) anybody else who gets too in the way of big business
I know where I live, anti-globalisation protests have been filmed by the police, not because of any potential of violence, but most likely to have these peoples' faces on record.
Once a person is on tape, that recording can be kept on supercomputer. Think about what this means, and how the intelligence agencies can use face-recognition technology matched up with drivers license photos and the like.
American middle class is filed, stamped mutilated.
"The man" knows everything: where you live,
phone number, credit history, health condition,
what you buy, where you went to school. Meanwhile,
illegal immigrants smash jetliners into buildings.
"The man" needs a kick in the teeth.
"During a raid of a methamphetamine lab in a trailer park in suburban Denver, authorities had found an empty Tattered Cover shipping envelope addressed to one of the suspects in an outside trashcan, and two nearly new books, "Advanced Techniques of Clandestine Psychedelic and Amphetamine Manufacture," by Uncle Fester, and "The Construction and Operation of Clandestine Drug Laboratories," by Jack B. Nimble, inside the trailer. "
And I gotta ask myself: are we picking our fights wisely?
Seeking information about everyone who bought a certain thing is wrong. Seeking information about everything a certain person bought is wrong. But getting a warrant to confirm a single, relevant purchase by a certain individual under investigation? I'm not sure it's wrong. I'm sensitive to the slippery slope argument. But this alleged dillhole allegedly ordered a couple of books on amking meth THROUGH THE MAIL and then used them to allegedly set up an alleged meth lab.
I mean, the purpose of search warrants is to selectively restrict 4th amendment rights. Whether the combined evidence of the shipping envelope and the "almost new" books constitutes credible evidence for their purchase is up to a judge to decide, but I don't agree with the blanket assumption that authorites should not ever make the attempt to determine someone's consumption of media, provided it is sufficiently relevant.
The word "arbitrary" is so wide open that this is nearly a neutral statement obviously meant to appease those who don't know better.
Oh my, they might think you're violating the DMCA. At least then you get a trial and some meager apology if it's a mistake. Falsely accused terrorists, on the other hand, get four months of jail without trial before being released without a word from the government (or killed without apology as in Afghanistan in the last couple weeks). Not to mention that people have been already been denied flight simply because of the book they brought along to read (A college student going home brought along a book about populist farmer 'terrorist-esque' tactics in sabotaging corporate farms that had a picture of some sort of explosive device on the cover - after returning with a different book, a Harry Potter book in fact, he was denied flying once again). There is definitely a precident here in judging one's intended malice against the country based solely on the literature they read (indeed, people questioned by the secret service regarding anti-american activity are always asked whether they have pro-taliban, anti-US literature, etc). Giving the government access to our libraries will make this mental-profiling even easier.
I'd feel safer walking the streets at night if I knew that (a) I was unlikely to be mugged for $10 in my pocket, because drugs were affordable
How much more affordable can they get? $10 is less than a tank of gas, less than a movie ticket + popcorn & soda, about the price of lunch at a restaurant, etc. Make drugs ten times cheaper and some people will still go broke over them, because they can't think of anything else, just as they go broke over alcohol.
But I'm in favor of legalizing drugs too. Drug money finances organized crime and police corruption, just like illegal gambling and prostitution do. I'm in favor of legalizing anything that causes no harm to *innocent* people. If people want to destroy themselves, let them, as long as they cause no harm to unwilling third parties.
But you are being quite ridiculous if you say curtailing our rights somewhat does nothing to fight terror. Of course it does.
Please provide some small scrap of empirical evidence to prove your point. Otherwise this, and everything that follows, is nothing more than blowing hot air out your ass.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Someone needs to remind the DC police that all 19 of the Hijackers were taped walking into the airport (and some into a Wall Mart), Mc Veigh was videoed slowing down to light the fuse, and who knows how many robberies in the US are taped. Sure video can help AFTER the 3000 people are dead, not before. I'm willing to bet good ol fashioned forensics and already existing video (every store, ATM, and Joe on the street has a camera now) will do the same exact thing, without being anywhere near as creepy.
It's little more than an expensive feel good toy.
Burn Hollywood Burn
In response to your argument that privacy outside the home is meaningless, let me ask you a few questions that your "highly intelligent" discussion fails to touch upon.
Here's my first question. What happens when the police officer who's using the surveillance equipment doesn't have your best interests in mind? What happens if the person using the gear uses it for something less than the greater good of the public?
Your argument fails to consider corruption, which by my measure is a bit stupid.
Here's another question. What happens when the person using the system isn't authorized to use it? I know a fellow who works in a public office (I won't say which one to protect the guilty) who regularly looks up criminal records and DMV information on people he knows, even though it's illegal, because he can, not because he should. When the signals from these cameras is sent to police cars, what exactly guarantees that it can't be intercepted or otherwise compromised?
Your argument fails to consider invasion, which by my measure is a bit more stupid.
Here's a third question. How many terrorists would have been caught on September 11 if the systems that were already in place and in use were actually used correctly? The answer is turning out to be many of them. There are video pictures of two of the the terrorists walking through the metal detectors in the Maine airport en route to hijacking a plane with metal box cutters. How would more cameras have made any difference in how the terrorists that acted on 9/11 did their deeds?
Your argument fails to consider utilization, which by my measure is a lot more stupid.
Here's my last question. Since these systems are subject to corruption and error, and are underutilized in their present state, how exactly is adding to the system going to give me complete security? What is more likely is that it will make it easier for corruption and invasion to work against me, and under- and misutilization will prevent any effective increase in my security.
Your argument fails to consider escalation, which by my measure is truly stupid.
Virg
Wrong, not terrorists, they didn't go around killing civilians to further their cause. Nor did they espouse hatred that could be used for fanatical suicide bombers killing off civilians. They declared their independence from tyranny and fought against military targets to secure it. You are deluding yourself through ignorance of the true meaning of words in todays real world. I suggest you correct yourself before someone else does it for you.