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Surveillance Cameras in Britain Not Effective?
zymurgy_cat writes "An interesting piece in The Christian Science Monitor questions whether or not the 4 million plus cameras in Britain are effective in deterring crime. It touches upon the usual issues of privacy, who has access to the tapes, and so forth. Despite this, people still seem to prefer the cameras."
Surveillance cameras are essential in solving crimes.
The owls are not what they seem
I'm not a big fan of the thought of cameras on street corners watching my actions. In fact, the thought alone gives me the jibblies. However, the recent arrest of the Carlie Brucia kidnapper at least gives some credence to the usefulness of these things. So, if they can be put to good use, I'll deal with the jibblies and pray that the next such kidnapping case doesn't end in such tragedy.
they don't prevent crime, you only get to watch it afterwards.
Oh, no. Not the "I have nothing to hide" argument.The idea that only criminlas need be concerned about this sort of thing is dangerously complacent. We all need to ask whether or not giving up some of our privacy is worth it. We need to look at the costs and benefits, and the benefits seem to be unclear.
Mod parent up!
Does anybody expect privacy in public places? You can be watched and photographed by anybody legally in public. Does this surveillance cameras change anything?
Save the bandwidth. Don't use sigs!
I don't know if this is the same study, but I recently read that having decent street lighting is more effective than cameras. In addition near where I live they put CCTV on a main busy shopping road. The amount of crime on the road decreased, but all that happened is that it increased in the ajoining side roads.
Back in the old days, you had to give the common person power less they rebel against you and cause all sorts of problems for the ruling class. I'm afraid that's all quickly coming to an end. Governments and heads of state will have such powerful technological tools at their disposal to nip any rebellion in the bud. Keylogging tools, surveillance cameras, etc. may all be benign in a democratic, but what about in a 100 years when we are bound to live in a very different kind of world? They very well could become the tools of oppression so many people fear.
I don't like this trend in technology and I don't trust it.
---Technology will liberate us if it doesn't enslave us first.
This works reasonably well enough up until the time walking to the store at 10 P.M. is considered probable cause, or even criminal.
But by then it's too late to turn back.
KFG
It's actually the "why do I give a shit?" argument. I used to live in a town of 6000 and they had 3 cameras up along the high street there. I walked down that street maybe 8 times a week for 3 years, and didn't have my life impacted one iota by the cameras present. In fact, the first week after they were constructed, I'd forgotten they were even there.
You tell me I lost privacy there - surely I also lose privacy on any street in the world I walk down that has anybody else walking down it at the same time. The whole point of public is that it is open to all. I'm also sure I don't need to remind you that public is the opposite of private.
Sunday you're Thinking Different, Monday you're a huge tool, paying too much and waiting to think like everyone else.
Well, I think the crux was they deter some crime (some evidence of displacement, some evidence of removal) - those crimes are more thought through, but they don't stop drunken violence (more than 50% of assaults in the UK are committed by drunk people) or crack addicts as these people are less rational. But even if they don't stop many crimes they make it easier to identify the culprit (as pointed out above).
No, what's next is mandatory DNA sampling and fingerprinting upon demand of law enforcement for whatever reason (whether you're under arrest or not). Actually hell, the U.K. may already have that. I forgot you don't have a written Constitution that prevents such invasions of privacy and self-incrimination. I guess you don't mind if the police just casually look around your flat everytime they're in the neighborhood just to make sure you're not doing anything wrong. Afterall, you have nothing to hide. Where does it stop? Before you say America is turning into the same thing, yes, and we're bitching about it here just as much. The AmeriNazi government under Shrub is destroying our rights without constitutional authority.
This is why "tough" anti-crime policies will always be more common than "liberal" ones. The latter may be more effective, but the former (cameras, mandatory minimum sentences etc.) get the votes.
Mod parent up!
Personally I think that people like Barry Hugill of the organisation "Liberty", who say things like "CCTV is spying. It's monitoring your every move" should be locked up in mental hospitals and have their severe paranoia treated. If someone wants to watch me walking down the street with my shopping, scratching my arse and picking my nose, then that's entirely fine by me, although I would suggest they find a more productive use of their time. I tend to avoid doing illegal things in public, because anyone could be watching, not necessarily over CCTV.
It's about catching the people who do the crimes AFTER the crime has taken place. I know alot of people (mainly Americans) start saying "Big Brother" at having cameras watching you, but it's really not anything you think about, the people watching you are watching about 30 other screens, and what are they going to see you doing? Walking? Ouch. Now imagine you're walking and you get mugged, now you'll be glad about the cameras who can now have an idea of what the mugger looks like and there's a much greater chance of them being caught. Video surveilance usage is monitored, it's not like the govt is spying on you and keeping tabs trying to get you to part with your tinfoil hat.
--- any post that takes longer than 20 seconds to write, isn't worth writing
let us put it that way, if you have camera every corner, and with face recognition (and amit for a second it has a good enough sucess rate), how can you then be "gainst" your governement , make an alternate party, make civil protest, or manifest, strike, and do whatever else can be construed as public disturbance ? That is right you cannot anymore.
And thus even those which have a lawful life but disliked for some reason by the govt can be monitored and the info used against themselves. Do you repsect law but have a mistress or are you homosexual ? well bad luck now camera can see that, and with face recognition signal to an operator he found the position of one of the person on its list, operator which then promptly make anotation of your activity on a memo.
Is this scenario far eteched ? Well with the price of a CCTV , and the price of computer now, I think the only true obstacle to this scenario is that face recognition isn't that good. But it might be in the future. And as the past leaner, if a govt official can abuse its position , it will. So the above scenario is LIKELY. In such view having nothing to hide [by that I mean being lawful] isn't a protection anymore.
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Widespread surveillance can also be used to prove your innocence. If you are unfairly accused of a crime, it would come in real handy if the police can pull up a video of wherever you were at the time. :P
I, for one, couldn't care less if people film me, have nothing to hide, and nothing to fear. You can put cameras in all the rooms of my house and watch me 24/7, if it turns you on. I barely leave the computer anyway, but I might put on a show just for you
One additional danger, in particular in countries like the US where criminal juries are primarily composed of non-experts, is that weird coincidences become much more likely to be observerved in a surveillance state. Can you be sure that you never have used the same plane as a 9/11 suspect? That you don't have common acquaintances? That something you sold in a garage sale has not been used by a criminal? Once large enough data bases are in place, police will be able to find suspects for any crime that might have happened or that someone wants to pretend has happened.
It might surprise you that I am currently trying to get surveillance cameras installed at a local school. However, here the purpose is not total surveillance, but to increase the physical security of the kids and to decrease vandalism. Ordinary people are not affected since they have no business on the school campus anyway.
I lived in the UK during the 1990s when the installation of these things really took off. It always amazed me that at the time, that the idea of photos on driver's licenses was anathema (and was resisted when it was introduced) but people took relatively little umbrage at the notion of surveillance cameras. Once they were installed, people pointed to the benefits, but I seem to recall news reports over the years to the effect that they merely tended to drive street crime to areas without the cameras i.e. they were effective to a point, but sometimes displaced crime rather than reducing it.
I've finally got around to changing my sig
Manditory DNA testing is invasive. You own your body cells, so even if its just discarded material found on your tooth brush or fingernail clippings, its invasive.
:-) Along the same lines, if its in the street, I shouldn't be allowed to get arrested for pointing a light at something. Civil liberties goes both ways...
Fingerprinting requires that you be detained -- in effect under arrest. Without a crime, it is considered in most of the world false imprisonment (if not legally, morally).
So, self-incrimination??? I don't get it. If you cut yourself while axing someone, do you get to complain that the blood found is self-incriminating. Bullshit.
Survlance in a public street is and should be legitimate. The minute they start pointing their cameras into my home -- using infrared or other privacy invading technologies, I might get upset. The fact that someone can see you as you walk down the streets is fine with me. I get annoyed when cops follow me -- that is a threatening physical form of intimidation, but cameras? Either you are an idiot or a criminal, or a combination of both if you think this effects you in any way.
Having said that, I still enjoy f'ing with these things with my laser pointer
Go here and tell me that actual poster of the metro police isn't the creepiest thing you've seen in a while.
Crime in London has skyrocketed in the past few years, pretty much because it's illegal to defend yourself with any conviction over there, with any weapon. The state will keep you safe, they say- except they can't.
You're six times more likely to be mugged in London than New York City.
The cameras are a joke on the populus- they live under constant survellience because of the promise it will make them safer, yet there aren't- and can never be- enough police to act on what occurs on and off camera. It's a way for the government and the police to say they're doing something about the crime, instead of actually going out and putting boot to ass- their cops aren't even armed. But the biggest problem is that the citizens are not armed.
The Government of the United Kingdom evidently thinks it's people are an untrustworthy bunch of morons, uncapable of wielding deadly force in a just manner. So they remove every lawful means of defending oneself and one's property, saying they'll protect you instead. Except they can't. They often don't even come afterwards to file the paperwork.
If criminals were made to fear for their lives when they plied their trade, you might see a big drop in crime. But crooks are the only ones with guns, and have nothing to fear from the people they rob- unlike the United States, where in several states, a crook breaking into an occupied home has a good chance of meeting a violent, immediate end, for example.
The cameras are not a panacea, they aren't even a band-aid. The people of the UK are fucked- sheep left to the slaughter of criminals. Good luck over there.
Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms should be the name of a store, not a government agency.
I agree with your response to the other post, but then you say this:
Either you are an idiot or a criminal, or a combination of both if you think this effects you in any way.
Is objectivity a thing of the past? Are you OK with not considering the arguments of your opposition in any way whatsoever?
Relying on the trustworthiness of surveillance in public places means relying on the trustworthiness of "the government". This would be a fairly easy decision to make if the government was, say, one or two guys. You'd look at the guys, what they've said, how they've behaved, and you'd either trust them or you wouldn't. The government, however, is made up of thousands of people, all of whom now have access to some pretty personal information about you.
What personal information? Well, if there's a camera on every public street, you can pretty easily be tracked at every location you go to. Tuesday 6:15 - you go to the grocery store. 6:45 - you go out to dinner. At the same restaurant you usually frequent. 7:30 - you hit your favorite local bar (you appear to be an alcoholic). 1:15 A.M. - head home. You appear to walk through a dark alley to get from your car to your apartment.
Do you want hundreds or thousands of people to know your exact routine? Doesn't that freak you out AT ALL? Like I said, you don't have to be an idiot to think this is a bad situation - all you have to believe is that the government employs a percentage of sociopaths who would misuse this information that is comparable to the general populace.
Are you implying the US constitution prevents such things? It no longer does, and hasn't for quite some time.
Patriot act? Drug war? Internment camps? Communist trials? Witch burnings? It goes back forever.
Those in power manage to convince the people that some violations of the constitution are for their own good, and anyone who speaks out about it is a bad guy.
You can say "Oh well the supreme court can eventually overturn it.."
Guess what. In places like Britain, they may do some things you think the constitution would prevent. They can also much more easily STOP doing those things... it's more rational.
As a councillor who participates in decisions about deploying these cameras ...
The deterrent effect is debated. However there are some effects which are for real and not open to debate:
(1) When a perp is caught on camera they are more likely to plead guilty and save lots of time and money in the court system. (This is why the court system puts up some of the cost of the cameras.)
(2) People who have been suspected of an offence have been proved not to be guilty by camera footage, thus eliminating the possibility of a miscarriage of justice.
(3) The people like the cameras and keep asking for more of them.
And the main benefit:
(4) Fear of crime is reduced.
It's not the level of actual crime that makes little old ladies to frightened to leave their houses in the evening to go to the bingo, it's fear of crime. Sticking up cameras does not reduce the number of little old ladies who are mugged on their way to bingo (because this crime is pretty well non-existent to start with) but it does make the old ladies feel confident to go out, which is a significant improvement in their quality of life.
Surveillance cameras are essential in solving crimes.
Surveillance cameras may be helpful in solving crimes, but they are hardly essential. Or do you seriously suggest that before the introduction of CCTV no crimes were solved?
I walked down that street maybe 8 times a week for 3 years, and didn't have my life impacted one iota by the cameras present.
Not yet you didnt - now I am just being hypothecial here...
1. 12 photos of you picking your nose are posted to a website
2. 5 photos and one 14 second video posted of you scratching your ass
3. Evidence that you left work early 30 minutes on the 15th of May 2005 to go and pick up some dry cleaning - why you didnt record this on your timesheet?
4. Who was that woman you were talking to on the 18th of November. This isnt a criminal matter of course, but your wife is now interested.
5. You spent 45 minutes in a competitors shop, and walked out with 2 shopping bags - nothing criminal here, but how does this look to your boss?
I could go on, but basically there *are* issues with 24/7 camera monitoring which affect peoples privacy. I certainly see the benefits of them (catching the kidnappers/murderers/rapists), but I dont think you should say "I didn't do anything wrong so I've got nothing to hide" - people are basically petty, and can often use the stupidest things against you.
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
I live in a British town that pioneered public CCTV. We were the first at pilot a scheme back in the 80s, and I know a of the people around here, a few council members and some coppers and what their views on this are.
The biggest problem is COST. Some of the cameras are now almost 20 years old, and are starting to show their age. The original 8 million to install them is now 30 or 40 million to replace them all.
Over the years the cost of staffing the monitors, archiving and erasing tapes and so on has also added a huge cost.
So what are the benefits? Well for the most part an increase in solved crimes (convictions). But the argument that you solve more crime by being aware of more crime is an odd one. Largely its petty vandalism, common assault (street fights) and crap like that. Their value in combatting serious crime or terrorism is very low, in 20 years I cannot a single serious crime solved in this town directly due to CCTV evidence - I might be wrong, but surely I would remember _one_.
When the cameras first went up the town was very split over it. Many cameras were smashed and crime _against_the_cameras_ actualy went up for a while. After that people kinda got used to them. The truth is that very few of them are actually switched in anymore, you can see from the rusty water bleeding from their sides and the fact that no LEDs are active on them anymore.
The network is slowly falling apart. I see the same job for 'surveilence observer' at $6/hour offered every week and no takers.
It was an interesting experiment. For a while we all felt safer and petty street crime fell, but now we are left with a dilapidated system that will cost millions to update/replace and very few
real convictions as a result of it.
Spending that money on putting some more coppers on the street would have been a lot better.
It is like saying because crimes were solved before DNA it is now not an essential tool for the justice system.
In fact these new technologies are becoming more essential as we are less willing to convict people because they are the wrong color. Sure we could just fry the closest black to a rape or murder again but I prefer that we use DNA profiling and CCTV to catch the real criminals.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You're going to claim absolute ownership of all of your discarded skin cells, hair cells, etc. for all of the years of your life? Give me a break... But in any case, manditory DNA testing is no more invasive than manditory fingerprinting.
Fingerprinting requires that you be detained -- in effect under arrest. Without a crime, it is considered in most of the world false imprisonment (if not legally, morally).
Fingerprinting no longer (in the US) requires that you be under arrest. Non-US citizens who enter the country (at least on some flights) will be photographed and fingerprinted... without being arrested or even accused of any crime. It's only a matter of time before this gets applied to all people entering the country, and eventually to everyone (on demand).
I get annoyed when cops follow me -- that is a threatening physical form of intimidation, but cameras?
In my opinion, there are two problems with being followed by cops. First, as you said, it is a threatening physical form of intimidation. However, perhaps even more importantly, you most likely haven't done anything wrong. The cop is simply following you while he performs a license plate check, and/or hoping that you will do something wrong so he can pull you over. And why is he following you? It could be something as simple as having an out-of-state license plate, or weaving a little bit, or being the "wrong"/"right" color/gender. This focused attention for trivial reasons can be abused.
Either you are an idiot or a criminal, or a combination of both if you think this effects you in any way.
You are naive if you think that this can't affect you. You complain about cops following you, but if they have cameras installed everywhere, the cops can be tracking you on a continual basis. And as above, this can be for trivial or circumstantial reasons: perhaps your brother is linked to drug dealers who have just been raided, or your girlfriend's brother's friend gave money to an islamic charity that turned out to be a front for a "terrorist" organization, or you're a woman and some creep who has access to the surveillance cameras decides to stalk you... The main point is that this much power to track people will be abused.
I know god exists. I read it on the internet, so it must be true.
"Why should I care who's watching me if I have nothing to hide? "
What a stupid argument.
What if you have a sexual orientation that might cause you problems at work or school?
What if you decided to join a political party that the government might feel is threatening?
What if you found out your boss was embezzling, and you needed to anonymously report him?
There are thousands of reasons why you might need privacy and anonymity.
Your argument is the argument of fools and knaves. I suppose you deserve whatever you get, unfortunately, we all have to live in the hell-hole you're constructing, so your ideas and visions have to be stopped.
And when you point your camera back at the surveillance cameras, what happens then?
Bring enough money for bail.
And why do only the commons need protection? Certain the President needs constant surveillance and a nation of witnesses? And certainly those who favor surveillance wouldn't mind their own specific cameras to keep them safe, and allow those of us who can take care of ourselves a little privacy?
The hypocrisy of the arguments for surveillance is a little short of disgusting when my own government keeps secrets from me.
In short, fuck you.
The article mentions one extreme case in wich CCTV solved the case and others here have mentioned more. There have also been several BBC programs wich showed CCTV in action and it looked like it was giving the police a lot of help when used properly, meaning used by cops in direct communication with cops on the beat.
Als lets face it in a country like england half a billion is peanuts. More is spend on practically any kind of goverment purchase.
So next time don't use a headline as the basis of your post. Read the article and learn that CCTV is still being tested out as to how it should be used and how effective it is.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
You are indeed more likely to get roughed up wandering around London's dark streets in the small hours than in New York. No argument there.
You are also more likely to get killed in New York than in London. You are FAR MORE LIKELY to get killed in the USA capital than in the UK capital. Lets compare like with like after all.
Your choice guys, but frankly I'd rather be roughed up than killed. Just like the USA, btw, the figures for outside the capital are not even vaguely related. There are still much better odds of survival in the UK than the USA.
Yeah I know, mod me down. Yadda yadda.
Simon.
Physicists get Hadrons!
Well, not everyone leads a boring life, and not every interesting life is criminal. For example, political activists are already closely monitored by the US government in legal and illegal ways. As a recent real-world example, I live in Connecticut and as you may have heard, we are having some problems with our governor accepting bribes, kickbacks, etc. Recently there was an open meeting of citizens seeking to hasten his removal from office, and a uniformed police officer showed up, gave his card to some activists whom he addressed by name (people who had certainly never met him), and generally spoke as much as possible, in an attempt to disrupt the meeting. Naturally, he was just trying to scare people by proving to them that they are being watched. But there is good reason for that to be scary, and it is likely that this information is being gathered for purposes beyond small-time intimidation tactics.
When the government knows what you're doing, even when it's legal, it can treat you differently for doing it, even when it's legal. This may take the form of petty harrassment, selective enforcement of commonly ignored laws, or something even more ominous. Obviously, you're right, we can't practically prevent the government from knowing about a certain amount of legal activity -- but we should not openly invite them to monitor all legal activity. Maybe that 10pm walk is to a political meeting; maybe it's to your gay lover's apartment; maybe it's to an AA meeting -- but if you're not breaking the law, it's none of the government's business.
But the things you describe here, are far more likely to occur with private/hidden camera's. A government camera cannot be used for posting pictures to a nosepicking fetish site or wathever.. Unless of course somebody is willing to sacrifice his job for this.. If such a thing were to happen, the media will jump on it! And their camera's are still more powerful than those puny surveillance camera's.
I generally think a lot of people get hysterical about these isues without thinking about it for a minute. There are plenty of things people got hysterical about in the past, and now we laugh at them.
"It's too bad that stupidity isn't painful." - Anton LaVey
Oh yeah, that great en loco parentis crap. The school has all the rights of a parent to subject children in their care to whatever bullshit privacy invasions they want, with none of the responsibility for the results of those invasions.
Ordinary people ARE affected by cameras in schools because they train kids that cameras are OK. So a majority of those kids graduate with a predisposition towards accepting public surveilence and the next time some Ashcroftian power-hungry freak decides to push for cameras in the streets, these new adults will just meekly nod their heads in agreement and give up even more of their privacy to a controlling state.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
There seem to be a large number of people who consider CERTAIN laws to be an injustice against them. Note that emphasis on certain. These speeders seem to have no trouble with the law preventing me from driving my fleet of tractors side by side on the highway. Hell most get pretty upset when trucks dare to overtake each other.
Speed camera's exist because people do no obey the speed limit. Rememeber your childhood? "Mom I want to be threathed like a grownup." "Then act like one". Worse even are the people who think speed cameras are tax collectors. Taxes are unavoidable. Speed tickets are easy to avoid. Don't speed.
So on to CCTV. Why is it there? Because people just can't seem to behave when out on the street. When I grew up and you had to go to the toilet you went to the nearest store or goverment building and asked to use the toilet. If unavailable then you went to the park and INTO the bushed and peed there. YOU DID NOT PEE IN PUBLIC AGAINST THE DOOR OF A BUILDING.
We do not want to pay for police to be everywhere and another problem is that if as a citizen you say something about this you can easily end up dead. Several people who said something about misbehavious have ended up dead in holland alone and I do not think that is a local problem.
So we either all learn to behave or impose some really heavy penalties on badly raised people or learn to live with cameras. of course the alternative is living in a lawless unchecked society.
Civilization is a great number of people living together. We need rules to be able to handle that and tools to make sure the rules are obeyed. So far I never heard a single civil liberty fanboy give an alternative. Greenpeace I respect because they give alternatives, even funding the development of electric cars. Civil Liberty groups I detest because they are only ever against.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
1. There is not enough organisation between the people monitoring the cctvs and anyone who may or may not be interested in the content of the feeds for there to be any real risk of you being busted doing anything you, for what ever reason, shouldnt be.
2. Its a bit more than petty to bother to grab and post images and footage of people for no real reason, besides which the person who lifted the images/footage from the source are no doubt not permitted to do so in their terms of employment, in addition iirc its actually a criminal offence in the UK to do so without authority.
3. You are assuming that the feeds will be monitored constantly, or their their recordings of the feed, if the feeds are even being recorded at the time, at all often get looked at by anyone. In most cases the footage would only be looked at if there is a need to go back over the recordings. The manpower needed to do this on any large scale would quickly balloon to frightening levels as you would want people to constantly concentrate on single feeds on the off chance that something of import can be seen on it.
My other OS is also FreeBSD
...which basically spawned all the rights that were formalized in the USA's written one.
Unfortunately, both constitutions appear to be worth not much more than the paper they're written on. In the UK, the current socialist government is engaged in tearing up the "ancient rights of Englishmen", due to a complete incomprehension of their purpose -- and in the USA... well, PATRIOT act, need I say more.
Ask the government to protect you: ask the fox to guard the hen house.
Create a constitution: require the fox to promise on his honor to be good -- said promise to be enforced by the fox, at his sole discretion, upon himself.
I've talked about the general issue and reasons I disagree with this perspective, elsewhere in the thread. I will only add here that, although it may seem perverse, I would actually prefer that it be difficult to "keep crime in check despite increasing poverty". In general, when it is easier to stop crime by ever-more-powerful law enforcement than by ameliorating the social causes of crime, I anticipate evils far greater than common crime, and I fear any technology which brings us further into that world.
You have nothing to hide! And you have no reason to fear your benevolent government! Because America is the land of the free and so IT CAN'T HAPPEN HERE!
But it can't happen here!
But it can't happen here!
But it can't happen here!
But it can't happen here!
But it can't happen here!
But it can't happen here!
But it can't happen here!
But it can't happen here!
Oh, I guess it can happen here.
Maybe whatever you do, whoever you are by ideology, political association, ethnicity, nationality, sexual orientation isn't illegal now.
But that could all change tomorrow -- and it can happen here.
Opinions on the Twiddler2 hand-held keyboard?
What privacy do I give up when a camera is mounted in a public place? I figure, if I'm someplace where a cop has every right to walk by and scope out what I'm doing (e.g. a public street or a crowded shopping mall) I should have no expectation of my actions being private.
You want the truthiness? You can't handle the truthiness!
Freedoms are gradually taken away, great.. would you want to live in the world with the same freedoms of uncivilized times?
Yes and I'm still miffed that I lost my freedom to dump toxic waste in drinking water. Why can't I take guns on airlines? Why can't I have the freedom to molest young children?
There are lots of "freedoms" that should NOT be granted for the interest of society. This cameras sounds like a good one. Do people really have an expectation of privacy when they're on public streets?
I'd love to see national ID's, I don't even understand the privacy argument against it. It's simple the government needs a way to identify it's citizens. Licenses and SSN just don't work, since they weren't designed to be used as ID's.
I'd love to see black boxes in cars. It defends society, it defends me. When some jerk can't control his car and causes a freeway pileup. Guess what, they'll be able to see they're going 80 in the rain.
Hell I'd go so far to say everyone should have a tracking tag (RFID doesn't have the range) that goes into a database that can only be opened by subpoena. That'd be a real deterrent for crime if they can identify who's present when the crime occured. It'd also be great for medical purposes, with alerts if someone's biometrics go out of whack (heart attack etc)
Some people are so concerned with the rights of even the criminals that they can't think of the health of society as a whole.
I disagree, we don't put a rapist in a prison cell for revenge, or to comfort the victim, any more than we do it to deter other rapists. The main reason why we put people like that in prison is to make sure they don't harm society like that again. Maybe it feels like personal revenge to them, because they are in a shitty situation. Maybe the family feels comfort in that they know someone else won't suffer in that way, maybe other people see the consequences of his choices and decide not to do it. - All those are consequences of justice, not justice in and of itself. The justice comes from society being able to more effectively secure their freedoms from the choices of those who wish to take them away.
Confusing justice with revenge is dangerous, because justice and revenge tend to be mutually exclusive. Revenge is more focused on someone else suffering, justice is more focused on bad choices not being made again. Revenge tends to pass arround the problem, justice tends to get to the root of it. Although it may feel otherwise to people, the simple fact is justice never leads to revenge and revenge never leads to justice. Justice tends to revolve arround choices and facts, revenge tends to revolve arround feelings and subjective things. Justice tends to teach people to be more just, revenge tends to teach people to be more vengfull.
So if you want revenge, then fine. But please don't call it justice, that is really a slap in the face, and belittles the millions of people who have suffered from crimes, but never have had the comfort to know justice. That their loss was for a greater good other than just to see some looser squirm.
You just proved my point.
My point is that, despite the great document the US constitution is, it's terms are violated whenever those in power feel it's convenient.
You feel that constitutional violations are okay if it involves terrorists? Have I forgotten Sept 11th? Nope. Have you forgotten how many people are being imprisoned with no trial, no charges, no access to a lawyer, no nothing?
"If the tables were turned" is a shitty argument.. aren't you supposed to be BETTER than the other guy? What some foreign country would do is not justification for violating your own constitution.
My only point is that the constitution cannot be held over the world as a shining example of power of the people becaues it's effectively ignored for practical purposes all the time.
As to what I mean about laws being undone.. that was a poor choice of words. What I mean is this.
It seems to me that once something passes the "constitutionality" test... it's on the books, and it's bad form to question it. If the constitution says something isn't allowed, it's not supposed to be allowed.. and it's okay to question that vigorously.
Let's face it.. constitution aside, the problem we have with cameras in public places isn't crime prevention, but the other abuses that go along with it. WE don't really care if law enforcement can scour every database on earth for criminals.. but what we don't want is the other abuse that goes along with it.
In many other countries, it is easier for the government to do things tha twould be "unconstitutional" in the US, within a narrow law enforcement scope.. but very hard for them to go outside that scope without getting in deep shit.
"You feel that constitutional violations are okay if it involves terrorists? Have I forgotten Sept 11th? Nope. Have you forgotten how many people are being imprisoned with no trial, no charges, no access to a lawyer, no nothing?"
The constitution only grants rights to american
citizens.
Now go and post a retraction.