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Traffic Cams Co-opted for Surveillance
Aardpig writes "The Register has a brief piece reporting that some traffic-monitoring CCTV cameras in London are offline today, for "operational reasons so that maintenance can be performed". Coincidentally, or not, the offline cameras happen to lie along the route of today's May Day demonstrations. As The Reg points out, the same happened earlier this year, during two of the anti-war demonstrations which took place in the capital. The UK is already one of the most monitored states in the world, as far as CCTV monitoring goes. Does this bode ill for our future privacy, or is this a necessary measure to maintain safety at large protests?"
If your not a tape, the government can't use their face reconition software to pick you out of the crowd and put you in a database of know terrorists.
If you're in public and you're doing something, it's not a matter of privacy. It is by definition impossible to have privacy when everybody else is there, too.
So if the government wants to preempt the use of a surveillance camera to keep tabs on a public location, I see no problem with that.
Now, if the government turned one of those cameras toward my bedroom window, I might get a little miffed.
They'll be used for the new hit sexy movie, The Real London Mayday Parade.
"I only speak the truth"
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FOr good or bad, whatever. THe interesting bit is, every time they have a parade/demonstration in the us, they get their pictures taken by chinese guys i vans with high quality camera.
THey just had one of their members, a U.S. CITIZEN arrested in china, getting off the plane to visit his family. Basically he was arrested for something he did in this country. THE Skylarov case comes to mind. I like how the us and uk are emulating china in their policies.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
Legal interpretation will need to be modified to take into better account the simplistic and inaccurate nature of this old canard. There is a qualifiable difference between someone observing you briefly in a public place with their eyes or their other senses, and a camera recording your image for posterity, or encapsulating the salient features of your visage and comparing it with a database of others so as to identify you. The only expectation I have in public is that I will be observed by other HUMANS, limited by their human capabilities. I don't have, and will never accept, the expectation that aspects of my appearance will be forever preserved and analyzed by non-human systems.
police in many cities worldwide do video surviellence of major demonstrations/protests/etc - but as part of their own defense. Some protest groups, for whatever reason, are quick to say there was undue police force involved if they get arrested, deny things like resisting arrest, etc. The tapes are used to counter those arguments.
Think I'm off my rocker? Guess what - protest groups bring their own cameras to do their own surveillence of the police. It's used both ways to keep everyone (protesters and police) in check.
The One Rule Of Chess You'll Ever Need: Don't play someone who carries a kit in their bookbag.
If it is, you dont get out much, do you? Thats why the cops are there, to keep things quiet. NOT to protect you.
All Troll + "offtopic" mods are meta moderated as "Unfair", because you abused the system.
It may not be a coincidence, but that still doesn't make it a big deal. Since there may be a lack of traffic along the parade route, it seems to me that it would be a good time to take the system down for maintenance. There probably won't be a big need for it.
...then let them go out en-mass armed with vaseline and ski masks. Smear the vaseline over the lenses (or paint-ball) and they will become useless. As long as you don't damage the camera, you haven't really hurt anything irreparably.
Is this at all surprising? How many other rights have been taken away in the name of protecting the public. Do you feel safer now that the (law abiding) population is disarmed and you no longer have a right to self defence? (gee... the criminals didn't bother to obey the law and crime is skyrocketing!! Imagine that!)
What did you expect them to use the cameras for?
When will the public wake up and realize the the only way to stop the crime is to start punishing the real criminals and stop treating citizens like criminals. (homeowners who shoot intruders should be given medals, not thrown in prison.)
I've videotaped public demonstrations here in Los Angeles (on both the pro and anti-war side) and had no problems with the police or others[*]. The police will film protesters for exactly the reasons cited previously.
It is a fact that even when the police are just doing their job, they look like the heavies. I've seen many cases of protesters deliberately trying to provoke the police, relying on the fact that the cops automatically look like villains.
D
[*] I have been mildly assaulted (hit with no injuries) a few times by anti-war people when I've mentioned my pro-war views during anti-war events, but that has nothing to do with my videotaping the events.
My friend, if I've got a swarm of people with Vaseline and ski masks at the ready, we're probably not going to be too concerned about going outside to screw up CCTV cameras. ;)
Hey Taco! Looks like you're using the "infinite monkeys and typewriters" scheme to generate Ask Slashdots again...
Isn't it possible that they picked this day for the maintenance because they knew there wouldn't be any traffic to monitor? I'm not saying that this is necessarily the case but it's just as good an explanation as the government taking control for surveillance purposes. Let's not get too paranoid when there are obvious injustices right out in the open.
There never has been a Constitutional right to privacy in the U.S.; they take away what we never had. I do not know about the United Kingdom though.
You can lead a horse to water,but Rember what a wet horse smells like (Red Skelton 1963)
During that peaceful pro-democracy protest, Chinese officials that _weren't_ beating and murdering uncooperative students were setting up video cameras to record the rest. Those faces were broadcast on state television, and almost ALL the protesters were turned in by "loyal patriots".
In the USA we have freedom of speech and freedom to assemble. When you get down to it, most of our rights exist only because somebody hasn't figured out how to take them away yet. A good example of this was the key escrow scheme that was supposed to be inside all encryption in the USA, granting government the ability to read all encryption (luckily defeated.) The government was going to make damned sure that if you used your right to communication and your right to privacy, that it could be circumvented. When someone invented better privacy, the government made it illegal.
The point here is that there used to be safety in numbers. Police couldn't round up, beat up or arrest everyone, so freedom of assembly was a de facto protected right simply because they couldn't stop you. Well, if you put cameras everywhere, you can catch everyone. There goes your freedom of assembly.
So, we have a bunch of roads which are full of marching people instead of essentially stationary cars. What admin worth his pay check *isn't* going to seize the chance to take the system off line and perform any routine maintenance and upgrades that this allows. Plus of course, if there had been a serious incident, you could have simply refused any requests for pictures you can't provide with "sorry, the system was off" and avoid any potential legal/PR quagmire of having the data altogether.
Seriously, if the security forces in the UK wanted more up to date photos of the more militant members of the crowds, do you think they'd need to co-opt traffic cameras?
UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
So the UK has a few cameras that note what you do IN PUBLIC. They help catch CRIMINALS you know. When there's a camera in my house then I'll worry.
I'm tired of Slashdot YRO advocates painting the UK as a police state.
Sometimes a coincidence is just a coincidence.
Off topic? Seems more like "funny" to me... I should be allowed to moderate every day...
Recently the RCMP was admonished for this same type of behaviour. A camera in a clock tower in kelona, BC pointing towards a public park. Canada's Privacy Commissioner investigated and found was in voilation of Part 4 of our Privacy Act ..."Personal information is defined in the Privacy Act as any "information about an identifiable individual that is recorded in any form". An individual caught within the visual range of a video surveillance camera can, in theory, be identified. The captured image reveals information about the individual (such as the individual's whereabouts and behaviour). When the picture is recorded, there is a collection of personal information within the meaning of the Act.
Section 4 of the Privacy Act states that "no personal information shall be collected by a government institution unless it relates directly to an operating program or activity of the institution". ....."
See http://www.privcom.gc.ca/cf-dc/02_05_b_011004_e.as p for more info
Well, if they habitually take down the cameras along a protest route for "maintence" before each protest then actual terrorists just need to wait for the next planned protest and move stuff into place when those cameras shut down. Chuckle.
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- - You can't take something off the Internet! That's like trying to take pee out of a swimming pool.
It took me a long time to realize the game of the anti-activist squad. There is a certain cost in time and possible bad publicity (the latter turning into internal pressure on the person responsible inside the organization) for 'taking out' an activist.
So, the goal is to find those who are organisers, who get other people to attend and generally make things happen- but who do not have the economic or political resources to defend themselves effectively.
This is ultimately the danger of modern surveillance. In the past taking people out has been risky because you might get the 'wrong' guy. I have personally seen cops plant crack on a protest organiser who turned out to be a very bad choice for them. He was straight edge, studying to be a catholic priest, and his dad was CEO of a major bank. Oops.
...this sort of problem. If a govt official takes action that is deemed to be clearly against the interests of public, or if he takes some action found to be clearly illegal, we should publicly execute him, after a fair trial in a recognized court of law.
Public service as a politician or high appointed official is supposed to be public service, and just like those who serve in the armed forces are sometimes required to give up their lives, so too should other govt workers such as politicians be forced to give up their lives if they transgress.
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Navy nuke sub lifestyle?