Slashdot Mirror
Southeast To Start Video Monitoring Flights
NormalVisual writes "According to this article, Southeast Airlines will begin digitally recording everything that goes on during one of their flights. Moreover, they have said they will be retaining the recorded video for up to 10 years. The privacy implications here are worrying, and this sets a bad precedent, IMO." (Southeast is a charter company, not a big scheduled carrier.)
When I was a kid, they used to have cameras on our school busses. Nobody was really sure whether they were 'on' or not. The bus drives used to use it as leverage so we didn't screw around.
- tom -
Actually, you're not even in public on their planes. It's their property, they can tape whatever they want (as long as they tell you). Don't like it, don't fly their airline.
Yeah and swimming halls can freely put cameras in the showers?
Just because they are providing the service, doesn't mean that they can do anything with your private information.
Why the hell not? Wouldn't you want to know if John Q. Public is packing something in one of his turds? Drugs are sometimes smuggled this way. Couldn't a crude weapon be smuggled on board the airplane in this fashion?
Also, a bathroom is a great place to prepare for an attack, since you have the privacy in which to do it.
Every time I see an article like this, I'm reminded of another work I consider a landmark - The Transparent Society.
I find it quite amazing that this work in 1996 highlighted so many issues now coming to bear - such as this one - and the article is clearly written.
Here's the first thing I'd change - All audio and video collected by any police organization should be public record 14 days after it was first recorded.
Access to the video in realtime as suggested by the above article (You did READ it, didn't you?) can be used to tactical advantage by criminal organizations - but the 14 day delay would have the same effect of keeping the cops honest without surrendering any meaningful tactical information.
Then, we could expand out from there.
I have no problem with your religion until you decide it's reason to deprive others of the truth.
The mythical private corporate world you posit doesn't exist. The computer monitor in front of you is wrapped in more safety regulations and standards than anyone here could enumerate and it pales in comparison to the body of law around the airline industry. Such a black/white perspectve on reality might make it more digestible for you, but ease of conceptualization has no relevance to accuracy.
The problem is airline security doesn't think like someone who is in the business of getting something done. I don't think I have ever been through any kind of general security checkpoint that could have kept me from getting weapons or anything else in if I so desired. True, it is impossible to account for EVERYTHING someone might try, but instead of putting more and more useless security checkpoints and provisions in place that aren't going to stop anyone with the will and the know how to f something up, how about hiring some completely whacked at security guys (and I _know_ some completely whacked out in the head security guys, those kids ain't right) to plan for the kind of situations that anyone who is serious about terror is going to do.
Sure, it is the airline's aircraft, the airline can do what it wants, and if you don't like it, don't fly on that airline.
And were the airline merely recording the flight, holding the recording a couple of days or so, then scrubbing it, I personally would not have a problem with it - there are many cases of air rage, gross stupidity, and so on that could best be handled with a tape ("You claim the flight attendants were needlessly violent in denying you your drink? Well, let's roll tape... Hmmm, seems you took a swing at them first. CASE DISMISSED!")
But while it is one thing to hold the video for a couple of days, to allow for any complaints or issues a chance to come out, it is quite another to hold the video for TEN YEARS! What possible logic would require a video to be held for ten years in the absence of a complaint?
What, do they expect some flight attendant to remember, after 8 years, "Oh yeah, that Mr. Tuttle in 3A pinched me, made lewd comments, and tried to steal the headphones - let's go get the tape and bust him!"?
www.eFax.com are spammers
if someone does commit a big crime on a plane it's likely that everyone will see it anyways.
if they're terrorists they're probally going to kill themselves anyways.
sure it might help get id on those people, but does it really HELP?
seems a little pointless...
That used to be the stock-in-trade of the National Enquirer and similar papers. When a large airplane crashed, the whole paper would be taken up by grisly shots of firemen scooping body remnants out of the wreckage; car accidents that produced a decapitation or an impalement would get a single shot.
Their revenues were pretty limited in those days because the papers were only sold at the grubby newsstand downtown next to the bus station, along with the jerkoff books. The business was revolutionized when some mobbed-up guys bought the papers and switched to the current format to get them into grocery stores.
rj
On private property? Like resteraunts, department stores, grocery stores, malls, corporate sites, auditoriums, floral shops, bistros, banquet halls, movie theaters, amusement parks, art galleries, car dealerships, arcades, hospital clinics, everybody elses plot of land, and even the appartment building that one may rent to temporarily use? Looks our designated Free Speech zones are getting kind of cramped don't you think?
Or treating first class (sorry, BUSINESS class) passengers more leaniant security-wise. Come on, real security professionals know that terrorists fly first class. Nobody expects a well groomed man in a $3000 suit sipping champagne to pull out a knife, or try to explode his shoes.