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Downtown Baltimore To Get Massive Surveillance Network
An anonymous reader writes "The Baltimore Sun has an article on the new 24-hour security cameras to be installed downtown and in the Inner Harbor. 'Under the Inner Harbor plan, the cameras would be able to transmit images to helicopters and, eventually, police cruisers....' How long until that ability is either abused or hijacked?"
If this is paid for by public funds, the video feeds should be available to everyone. In fact, we should also have a network of cameras monitoring the interiors of police stations, so that we (their employers) can monitor their performance. Same for elected officials.
Seriously, though, can anyone document a case in which surveillance cameras resulted in a terrorist attack being stopped? I presume that most airports have surveillance systems; they certainly didn't stop the 9/11 hijackers. So exactly what kind of activity are these cameras supposed to detect and stop? Unauthorized assemblies? Hmmmm, sounds like a dubious exercise of authority to me.
And here's the justification:
"We're at war," Schrader said.
Sounds more like a war on privacy to me. Of course, I suppose I could be wrong, and Baltimore's Inner Harbor area could be a strategic target for terrorists. These cameras will no doubt capture great images of an airliner crashing into a populated area, or a car bomb going off. We will be able to do a great job of locking the barn door after the horse has fled to the next county.
I remember your eyes, on the twelfth of July...
"How long until that ability is either abused or hijacked?"
Maybe it will, and maybe it won't. How long till it helps catch criminals? Very quickly most likely.
Anyway, you are in a public place, there is no privacy.
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I think deep down we all know where this is going. Orwell
What do I have to do to get a sig around here?! www.bearscanfly.org
Living under a rock is looking better and better.
I live in BB capital of the world, the UK. There's 4 million cameras here for 60 million people.
I've never heard of a single instance of someone suborning CCTV for their own ends, and it has to be said, I'm a lot happier that someone is keeping an eye on my mother as she goes shopping, walks through "underpasses" etc.
Everything's a balance, people.
The Slashdot Paradox: "100% Overrated"
He said cameras infringe on privacy rights and...
To be fair, you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the street in downtown Baltimore.
This article is a rather scathing condemnation of the camera operation.
While I don't agree with the author's statement that it is part of a class war, I do think one of the article snippets provides humorous insight:
During my time in the control room, from 9 p.m. to midnight, I experienced firsthand a phenomenon that critics of CCTV surveillance have often described: when you put a group of bored, unsupervised men in front of live video screens and allow them to zoom in on whatever happens to catch their eyes, they tend to spend a fair amount of time leering at women. "What catches the eye is groups of young men and attractive, young women," I was told by Clive Norris, the Hull criminologist. "It's what we call a sense of the obvious." There are plenty of stories of video voyeurism: a control room in the Midlands, for example, took close-up shots of women with large breasts and taped them up on the walls. In Hull, this temptation is magnified by the fact that part of the operators' job is to keep an eye on prostitutes. As it got late, though, there weren't enough prostitutes to keep us entertained, so we kept ourselves awake by scanning the streets in search of the purely consensual activities of boyfriends and girlfriends making out in cars. "She had her legs wrapped around his waist a minute ago," one of the operators said appreciatively as we watched two teenagers go at it. "You'll be able to do an article on how reserved the British are, won't you?" he joked.
Have you Meta Moderated t
It's interesting that on Slashdot we criticize organizations like the RIAA for wanting to shut down technology like P2P because the RIAA fears that the technology will be abused, yet we are the ones who complain about the use of technologies such as video camera networks (and RFID, etc.) -- because we fear that they will be abused.
I don't see what the big deal about this is.
The American people have overwhelmingly voiced their willingness to sacrifice freedom and liberty for security. So if the government is trying to give them more security and take away some liberty, what is the big deal? It's what the public wants.
It's nice to maintain ideals like "freedom" and "privacy", but come on - you're not going to get that with the babyboomer, social security, medicare, government cheese, mtv generations.
Before everyone starts quoting 1984...
Why should anyone have a problem being seen on camera while in public? It just confirms that you are in public, and if you didn't want to be seen, then you wouldn't be in public anyhow. If it's hijacked so what? Somone who wasn't suppoed to see you say you, but since you were in public, why should you care?(barring the case of a tech savvy stalker..... but just waiting outside of your house would probably be more useful for them)
CCTV in the UK is massively useful, and shown to be a useful tool and deterent when dealing with crime.
This will in no way deter "terrorists" form blowing up buildings.
Imagine for a second that you plan to undertake such an assignment. Would you go to the target site and sit around for a while to let people know your intents?
I think the far more likely scenario is the further development of an Orwellian police state we are already seeing materialize.
Let's quit talking about security for a while and assess the situation. Have we or the terrorists won? I can't help but think that self imposed restrictions we have put in place, the limitations on freedom and justice, are in fact what terrorism is designed to accomplish.
Jingoistic speech can only get us so far. Start to think for yourself - you'll be amazed what you see.
"We're at war," Schrader said.
The instant I see this being used to justify observing your own people, I call bullshit. At war with who? Ourselves? Have we ALWAYS been at war with ourselves? With eastasia?
No, I'm sorry. If that's you're justification, you haven't got justification. If you are basically saying that your are just as much at war with your own citizens as with the people you're supposedly really at war with, there's a serious problem. Tear them down (if they actually go up), throw the bums out who supported it. There are plenty of good reasons to do this sort of thing. This is not one of them.
I might remind everyone that the biggest problem with a dystopian society is that the people who live in it usually don't recognize it as such until it's way too late...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
And who'll guard the cameras?? ;)
"Cameras will only observe and record that which a police officer or private citizen could legally see."
So, why not let the public "watch" the network as well? Arguments that this could be used to allow criminals to get away with crimes are ridiculous -- if the police are watching, then they have a responsibility to respond.
Or better yet, let the public watch the watchers -- set up a facility (television channel) so that folks could see what is currently being monitored.
The other thing that bugs me -- the whole concept that "you're in a public place, you have no privacy." Okay, so my actions are not private, but my identity should be.
Finally, the whole concept of "we're at war" -- we have lost the war on terrorism. We have allowed our fundamental freedoms to be sacrificed in the name of "security". Monitoring the actions of innocent Americans equates to surveilance, which is worse than living scared. Being watched all the time inhibits action, free thinking, and most importantly -- dissent.
The biggest problem is that folks like me and you -- the average Slashdot reader -- have enabled this. WE are the ones that have designed the tools to allow this to happen. We should have known better.
The American people have overwhelmingly voiced their willingness to sacrifice freedom and liberty for security. So if the government is trying to give them more security and take away some liberty, what is the big deal? It's what the public wants.
It's only the vocal minority who has clearly voiced such a willingness. Then you have joe sixpack, who isn't necessarily in favor of shit like this, but he's too lazy, apathetic, and ignorant to: A. care, B. voice his opinion.
Which is why it's important for the "Slashdot Tinfoil Hat Brigade" to continue to voice *their* opinion as loudly and clearly as possible... most perceptions of what "public opinion" is are based on a ridiculously small (and probably non-representative) sample of the general public.
It wouldn't take many people on "our side" stepping up and being a little more vocal, to change that perception.
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
How long until that ability is either abused or hijacked?
It's very existance is an abuse. Yeah, I know that regular beat cops could be watching instead and I know this isn't directly covered in the constitution, but if regular citizens consider it to be intrusive, and they do, then the government should back the fuck off.
TW
You know, that phrase is really getting on my nerves. Reasonable to WHOM? I have no 'reasonable' expectation that I will be invisible on a downtown street, no. I DO have a 'reasonable' expectation that every move I make and word I utter outside of my own damn bathroom is not going to be recorded and analyzed. Just because the technology used isn't as invasive as a person following you around all the time taking notes makes the end result of constant surveillance no less distasteful.
"Gold still represents the ultimate form of payment in the world." - Alan Greenspan, 1999
not lack of surveilance cameras.
We seem to be obsessed with treating symptoms instead of causes.
All this amounts to is the theft of millions of dollars from you and I to pay for a worthless toy.
I would disagree; it is more fair to say that one would have a lesser degree of privacy in a public place. This would not include allowing automated tracking of everybody. There should be an existing reason (involving criminal activity) for the authorities to track anyone.
Given the last 5000 years or so of governments and their behaviours, one can reasonably conclude that any measure which they can abuse will be abused. They have demonstrated not that government is good, but that, at best, it is better than no government.
Great minds think alike; fools seldom differ.
Camera's saw the Oklahoma truck bomb, but it still blew up.
Camera's saw the 9/11 hijackers at the airports boarding the planes, but they still hit their targets.
Camera's aren't going to prevent a strike in its exocution phase or someone willing to die to carry out an attack.
That's true. However, you do have a reasonable expectation that the government doesn't have its eyes on you every step you take. Monitoring and surveying your own people as a governing body is not the same as me seeing you walking toward me as another pedestrian.
The problem is the difference in motivation. What's the motivation here? It seems to be that this is necessary because "We're at war" as a quote in the article says. The suggestion, then, is that anybody in the area may well be an enemy. The only way to effectively utilize this tool in that context is to monitor EVERYONE in the area.
Now, here's a question for you: if they have reason to believe that there are "ter'rists" in the Inner Harbor area, why aren't they handling it with a law enforcement group like the FBI? If they have reason to believe ter'rists might try to come into Inner Harbor, why aren't they looking into the people who are trying to get in? If they don't have reason to believe either of these, why are they putting up the cameras anyway?
Something is seriously wrong here. There's no good reason to be putting these up, because the only purpose they're going to serve is to watch normal citizens.
Something is very, very wrong here...
Alito: A vote for Alito is a punch in the eye to put that bitch back in her place!
To be fair, you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the street in downtown Baltimore.
And I've got a great new idea - allow the police to force you to strip naked in the street to check that you're not holding any dangerous weaponary, secret terrorist plans, etc. It's fine because you don't expect any privacy in a 'public' place, right?
Shouldn't there be a minimum level of personal privacy in virtually *ANY* place in a civilized society? Honest question.
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
Just think about all the non-criminal actions that people don't want made public. Imagine you're 35, and still read comics or watch cartoons or play with legos. (This shouldn't be too hard for most slashdotters). Do you really want to have to justify your hobby to just anyone? Cops are trained to be suspicious. What happens if they see you buying comics, and they're looking for a paedophile? Those comics could be bait, right? Now you're on a list.
Or you buy liquor, and one of those retired cops or students watching you goes to the same temperance beliving church, and somehow word gets around.
Or you break a law, but it's one that is either trivial or generally not enforced. For example, in my locale, there's a running track adjacent to a civic center. The whole facility closes at 9:00 PM on weekends, so technically, people aren't supposed to be out there walking after 9:00 PM, but the police will pragmatically warn people that it's simply something they do at their own risk. Most people know that that city ordenance is there to protect the city against lawsuits rather than to be rigorously applied. With public cameras, does the society end up with a zero-tolerance policy for jay-walking? And is it a good thing to be able to boast "We may not have solved all the murders that we had last year, but we have 100% convictions on jay-walking.".
Who is John Cabal?
As a Baltimore native, believe me, I have absolutely NO expectation of safety whenever I go downtown.
This should be an interesting experiment. To what extent will the citizens feel safer, and how much safer will they actually be? Most criminals don't expect to get caught when the commit a crime. So will criminals alter their behavior? Will (or can) they move beyond the reach of cameras? It isn't yes or no, black or white. Instead I think it will be an experiment to find where the balance is. What amount of privacy are citizens willing to give up for perceived and actual improvements in safety? I've been to other cities outside of the U.S. and never felt violated by their surveillence networks, but I can't imagine that American culture will react the same way as other cultures. I must admit that I am relieved this is happening in Baltimore, not my home city.
Camera's saw the Oklahoma truck bomb, but it still blew up.
:P
Camera's saw the 9/11 hijackers at the airports boarding the planes, but they still hit their targets.
Camera's aren't going to prevent a strike in its exocution phase or someone willing to die to carry out an attack.
Yeah, but they'll make great visuals for local news during Sweeps.
Mod Karma -1: I sed bad wurds. If I cep my mouf shut, I wud be at riyses.
My question is, whatever happened to the old "constible on patrol"? I mean if there is a part of town that is notoriously dangerous, take all the money that would go into the camera system and put extra cops on the streets. I can guarantee you that a camera on a lightpost won't deter crime, but a cop leaning against it will. And before people moan about a police state, realize that this presence worked for a long time before the move to putting all cops in cars and spreading them out hopelessly did away with any real contact between the people and the police. There was a time when cops walked beats around cities, they chatted with the local business owners, they helped the kids who were lost, they probably even lived there themselves, in short they knew their beat, and knew when anything was out of place.
Nowadays, the only time most people see cops out of their cars are when they have a radar gun in their hands. I take that back, I have heard great things abot what the mounted patrols have done to clean up Central Park in New York. I haven't personally witnessed it, but reports are that making the police presence obvious and non-intimidating there has made the park somewhere you can go and feal a whole lot safer than you would have 10 years ago. The same can be said of downtown Dallas, there is an area known as the West End which has a lot of outdoor restaurants, shopping, and general nightlife. Back when I was in High School I went there maybe twice, and each time had to pay off a homeless guy to make sure my car was still there when I got back. Now Dallas has put ina light rail line that goes right by the West End, increased the number of cops who wander around the area, and I have happily and safely taken my whole family (4 year old included) down there several times this past year. It's amazing how much good this has done for the area and it doesn't take much, money or manpowerwise.
Has anyone else seen this same kind of thing in place in their hometowns, and how well has it worked? As much as I am in favor of technology,sometimes you just can't beat that human touch.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -RAH
Perhaps I'm just paranoid but I think this is abuse. I don't think this type of technology should be used by the government. What makes us free is the choice. I don't have to follow the law, I have the right to break it. Just as every American has the right to me being prosecuted for breaking that law, there is still a choice.
Seat Belts are a good example, how can the government fine me for not wearing one? Who am I endangering? How many old ladies are killed every year by someone flying through their windshield and striking them? Once cars start alerting the local police that my car is in motion and my Seat Belt is not engaged, we might as well start using the American flag as our floor mats.
Freedom means "free to do", or NOT do. I get really scared when government impliments new systems to streamline the process of watching or detecting. Will this new system grab some child molesters? Probably, and a few murderers, maybe a few drug dealers, but maybe 10 years from now you get a ticket in the mail for Jay-Walking.
Systems like these are VERY dangerous. Not because of their implementation, or their intended use. They are dangerous for what they could become, and for what they open the door to.
Anyone remember government, or Constituional law from High School/College? Remember that the goal of the document was to keep government so tied up in it's own tentacles that it could never do anything? Our founding fathers were so affraid of situations like this arising that they created a system of government that really couldn't do anything. (Que animal farm, 1984 and Brave New World references...)
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Look, I understand what you're saying, but we live in a country (more or less) guided by laws. And the way our laws are set up right now, "reasonable expectation of privacy" is a binary thing -- either you've got it or you don't. If you're out on the street, our laws say you don't. That means that undercover police, or a private investigator, or your nosy girlfriend, or some satellite in space has the legal right to record and anaylze any word you utter and to track every step you take (in public). So they've stepped it up a notch by making it easier for investigators to do that. But whether it's an in-the-flesh cop or a retired cop watching a screen, your rights have not changed because of this system. If you don't like the fact that your every move can be tracked and your every word recorded, it's not the cameras you should be pissed about. Work to get the laws changed, because that's what really matters.
"whatever happened to the old "constible on patrol"? "
Uhh, they were all gunned down in the 1930's by Tommy Guns. What century and city do you live in? We're not talking about Smalltown, Indiana here. We're talking about a major metropolis only a 30 minute drive from the murder capitol of the country. Do you have even the slightest idea as to how many cops died in Baltimore alone last year trying to protect the public safety?
Then again, maybe you're right. We could do it like China did with Hong Kong and have an officer armed with a shotgun or uzi at every street corner. That will definitely make people feel safe and no one would ever think of the words "police state" as they walked by trying to use the farthest point on the sidewalk away from the guy with the sub-automatic weapon.
Seriously people, we as americans put up cameras at our homes and our stores and arm ourselves and call it our patriotic right to protect ourselves from evil. But the moment the good folks hired by your CITY to protect the PUBLIC from evil decide to do the same thing in PUBLIC areas, it's "1984" and "Police State" and "Where will this invasion of PRIVACY end?". Everyone on slashdot right now go to dictionary.com and look up the words PUBLIC and PRIVATE. Apparently most of you will be shocked to learn that that expecting PRIVACY in a PUBLIC place is about as retarded as Caffiene Free Mountain Dew.
Send me an email when the police demand to install cameras in your home or business, then the concept of a public entity invading a private one will actually be real. This is just the public officials trying to keep your public places safe for you to use at your own free will. Of course, if your intended use is for criminal purposes, then I guess YOUR safety was just decreased....too f*cking bad!
I've dirtied my hands writing poetry, for the sake of seduction; that is, for the sake of a useful cause. --Dostoevsky
You are free to give up your freedoms, if you're naive enough to think you can trade liberty for security. You are not free to make that bargain with the devil on my behalf.
Want to aid law enforcement in catching people who pose a threat? Stop having them waste time chasing down drug users, prostitutes, and other people engaging in consensual activity. We'd have more law enforcement resources than we knew what to do with.
(In Baltimore, it would also help if we had police interested in catching bad guys, rather than arresting bicyclists for no reason. But that's beside the point.)
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
Seriously, has martial law been declared and we, as citizens are just out of luck?
Pretty much everything like this that is taking place is violating our rights. But if we are at war and martial law has been declared, what are we to do?
Sux to be a citizen these days. Fewer and fewer rights and freedoms. And they bill us for it.. ( taxes )
---- Booth was a patriot ----
This came up in Boston in the post-9/11 aftermath and one of the more intelligent suggestions were to construct surveillance networks along so-called "Safe Streets" in addition to various areas (Government buildings, etc) that needed extra security. The streets would have signs on lamposts denoting their "Safe Street" designation. Routes would be designed so that people worried about their safety could take a route along these roads. While it doesn't fix the knee-jerk reaction some of the Privacy buffs have it is a good compromise between safety and privacy. It provides a safer environment along those routes, and the signs would act as a deterrent and warning as well.
Something intelligent here.
And the non-PC side of me says, who gives a damn if they monitor a section of town I'd be too scared to walk through at night!!
Why are there only 19 people folding@home for slashdot?
Yes I have read 1984. The police state is not the problem here, just the unfortunate outcome of what we do here in the US. We don't address the problem, (crime and drugs) just put a bandaid on it to make people feel good. Haha! call it the war on drugs, make bs commercials that your doing something! Lie to us, we love it! The war on terror is used as the excuse to do so much harm to our personal freedoms, sometimes I wonder if we didnt blow up our own buildings..... Oh well we can always haxx0r the cameras and leer at boobs with the police.
{STM}+Marauder+
Maraud (merod),v, 1. To rove in quest of plunder; raid for booty
"We're not talking about Smalltown, Indiana here. We're talking about a major metropolis"
I'm not talking about Smalltown Indiana either, I'm talking New York City and Dallas, Texas. Both fairly significant cities. I would be willing to bet that other people on Slasdot have similar stories about their cities.
"Do you have even the slightest idea as to how many cops died in Baltimore alone last year trying to protect the public safety?"
Three. Yes it's sad that anyone died in the line of duty, but three out of 2000+ officers is a pretty low fatality rate.
And I'm not saying we need people with automatic weapons on every corner. I'm saying that your average thug isn't going to mug someone or break into a car or paint their name on a wall if there is even just a normal cop in the area. Plus the added sense of safety for the general populace will cause more people to be out on the streets enjoying their lives and that will reduce crime even further. I think that having a cop on the street is a) much less oppressive than having cameras everywhere recordig our every move and b) far more likely to actually deter crime.
As for your differentiation of public vs. private, the issue is nowhere near as black and white as you make it out to be. Yes, when we are in public we should not expect to have the level of privacy that we do in our own homes, however there are good reasons that we can't be approached by the police and ordered to show our papers and tell them why we are doing whatever we're doing and why we're here at this hour, and a thousand other questions without the police having a damn good reason. Yes it has happened on occasion, but the stink it raised has let it be known that it is unacceptable. For the thousands of cops in the US, you're going to have to expect that a few joined up purely for the authority, and they're going to abuse it. As long as this abuse isn't tolerated by the judges and higher ups I think we'll be OK.
Never underestimate the power of human stupidity -RAH
Privacy invasions like this cut both ways though. If the entire area is monitored 24x7, and such recordings are admissable in court, they can be used to demonstrate police brutality/misbehavior too. It all depends on the actual rules in place, and if I live in such a place and saw the surveillance as inevitable, I'd at least make sure that it was going to go both ways.
7 November 2006: The day Americans realized corruption and incompetence weren't addressing 11 September 2001
"keeply stampled?"
Oh dear...
If every citizen owned AND carried a firearm, there would be NO crime.
I disagree.
By "NO crime", I assume you mean "no violent crime" (as opposed to, say, white collar crime). If anything, I would argue that the incidence of violent crime would skyrocket. We couldn't assume that every American carried a weapon at all times, even if we mandated this by law (a law which, by the way, would be clearly unconstitutional).
As such, the temptation for some of our less intelligent citizens to settle scores via hot lead would be way to great. Your original argument assumes that everyone acts ethically and in their own best interest at all times -- and that, my friend, is a huge leap of faith.
and once one had a gun one would be given limited arrest privlages [sic] , essentially turing [sic] every american who own a gun into a police officer.
No thank you. While I don't care about gun ownership in general (wanna carry? whatever, enjoy yourself), this would turn America into a police state -- one where any citizen could be murdered on the whim of any one "loyal American". Give me a civil society based on the rule of law instead of arbitrary threats any day.
--- The American Way of Life is not a birthright. Hell, it's not even sustainable.
Yes, insofar as "has" is correct. Can you speak English?
- schitzophrenics who are taking their meds.
- How about crimes of passion?
- Do we get to have armed road rage now?
- Teens feel immortal and angry; will we have more columbines if they have easier access?
Anyway, there is no right answer. The second amendment was to keep the government from getting to uppity (wether it is the federal govt or any in general is still a matter of debate). Neither the state militias nor an armed population is any challange for the power of the federal government. The voting populace is much more of a threat.And the way our laws are set up right now, "reasonable expectation of privacy" is a binary thing -- either you've got it or you don't.
Totally wrong. It is not a "binary thing". If you take a dump in a public bathroom you don't lose your privacy rights just because its a public place. If two cops decide to stand in the same stall with you as you do your business, without any probable cause, they are violating your rights. Its harassment, and I can't think of a judge who would disagree.
This system effectively puts cops with notepads looking over everybody's shoulder. What next, speakers on the cameras so the cops can bark orders at you when you do something wrong? This system is as Orwellian as it gets.