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Virginia Beach Goes For Facial Recognition
Raven42rac writes "
It appears that my hometown, Virginia Beach, after summarily rejecting those ridiculous facial recognition cameras, has recently become the second city in the nation to use them. (Yay we're number 2, pun intended.) Citing the ubiquitous 'everything is different now after 9-11' defense that has become ever popular in yanking away our rights and liberties. The whole shebang is explained in this article from my local newspaper's website, and unlike some online newspapers, this one is completely free, and no registration is required."
Yeah this seems to be a disturbing trend since 911. Our borders are wide open for people to come in (I'm not saying that's good or bad) and goverment control of everyday citizens is all that they can come up with.
The Patriot Act is one of the most stifling pieces of legislation I've ever seen. From a conservative standpoint, I feel the Republican party has completely 180'ed in the last year. Government control will not help. Mr. Bush, who I am not happy to say I voted for, has either kept or enlarged pretty much every fluffy program Clinton created. I'm not saying that they're all bad (they're irrelevant to my point), but the bicameral support promised after 9/11 has turned into the entire government encroaching on civil liberties. In fact, I hope that some Democrats may even agree with me here.
We have to learn that there are people in this world that will do some pretty destructive things, and that we're never wholly secure. The EU, Canada, and the US are all providing security at the cost of our freedom. Don't do it--it's a bad deal. And when and if the next attack comes, their solution will be even more tempting. Don't accept their FUD. People in other parts of the world live in much more hostile environments.
Sorry if this is somewhat of a rant, or possibly sounding a bit too much like FUD, but I'm hearing what's in store for computers and DRM, coupled with what's in store for our rights and privacy (namely the elimination therein), and I'm not liking the world that the next generation will grow up in.
Slashdot: Where people pretend to be twice as smart as they really are by behaving like children.
So now, people with outstanding felony warrants will no longer saunter down city streets and peruse the shopping malls in broad daylight. What a relief.
So how long until this wasteful tech spending becomes re-justified by using it instead to harass folks with outstanding parking tickets?
I think the point that hasn't come across yet is that while the Patriot Act doesn't really present the government with new and unyielding power, it does weaken the check-and-balance system in place for its existing power. The provisions of wiretapping and surveillance are a pretty clear example of this. Yes, the government has always had the power to do this, but the requirements for doing so have been reduced. Another example is student data -- data which was formerly held in strict confidence is now readily available for surveillance use.
The powers haven't changed, but the ability to use them has. I can now be wiretapped without reasonable suspect (section 206) -- while this power was available to the government in 1986, a warrant was needed. With 206 in place, there is no such need. This appears to be a violation of the 4th Amendment - not because the government has gained any new power...they've just got a new way to use it.
Virginia Beach police in general tend to be overzealous; because it's the location of the state police acadamy a lot of their police officers are new to the job. I'm sorry to say that I don't trust the Virginia Beach police to not misuse this monitoring system.
That's kind of a straw man argument. What is being said here is not that the FBI should be unable to do things in public, it is that the FBI should not be able to act with impunity in absence of a crime as they did in the COINTELPRO days.
In answer to your question look at the EFF's executive summary here.
"First it allows ISPs to voluntarily hand over all "non-content" information to law enforcement with no need for any court order or subpoena. sec. 212. Second, it expands the records that the government may seek with a simple subpoena (no court review required) to include records of session times and durations, temporarily assigned network (I.P.) addresses; means and source of payments, including credit card or bank account numbers. secs. 210, 211." -- Sec 1.C
You can also take a look at the case of Jose Padilla (here and here) an American Citizen who is being denied his constitutional right to due process.
My girlfriend and I went to Virginia Beach on the weekend of July 13th to see Dave Matthews Band, the very weekend that the cameras were scheduled to be turned on. If I had known about the cameras prior to making hotel reservations and acquiring tickets, I probably would have skipped the trip. But having made a financial committment to going, I wasn't about to back out. But I did let them know that I wasn't happy.
First, I called their tourism bureau (1-800-VA BEACH) in an attempt to determine where the cameras would be, such that I could avoid that area. The woman had no idea, and asked why I wanted to know. I explained -- without getting into lots of details about privacy -- that I was not comfortable having the cameras watching me, despite the fact that I was not, to my knowledge, wanted by any police department. And, as a matter of fact, I was on the verge of cancelling my trip, I told her. The woman was troubled, and directed me to call the police department.
That went about as well as you could imagine. I talked to a cop there that figured that anybody that didn't want to be on their cameras was obviously a law-breaker. But, hey, he told me the streets that the cameras were on, and I told him that I would certainly not be patronizing businesses along that stretch.
Did I make a difference? I have no idea. If one person calls, they'll think he's crazy. And if two, two people call...they'll think they're queer. But, friends, can you imagine three -- three people -- walking in, sitting down, and humming a bar of Alice's Restaurant? Friends, we'd have a movement -- the Virginia Beach Massacree. [1]
-Waldo Jaquith
[1] "Alice's Restaurant," Arlo Guthrie