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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?"
I think thispart is a good idea, I like the idea of a mixed group watching, not just the police: At a surveillance center in the Atrium Building on Howard Street, 13 to 15 retired police officers or criminal justice college students will monitor images, said Elliot Schlanger, Baltimore's chief information officer.
ARthur Spitzer from the ACLU: He said cameras infringe on privacy rights and are ineffective in fighting either crime or terrorism. I don't know about that...I think it probably does help. We may not know that it deters because what terrorist is going to call in and say, "I was going to blow up a building but those damned cameras have changed my mind."
Well, we do live in interesting times.
Happy Trails!
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
How long until that ability is either abused or hijacked?
Good point. If it can be abused or hijacked, we can't do it. Thank GOD the internet can only be used for good, otherwise we'd need to shut it down.
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.
Read reviews of shopping cart software
Living in Maryland, I can see the need for cameras everywhere in the downtown area of Baltimore (not so much the inner harbor.
But what happens when most of the citizens in downtown baltimore have shiny new closed circuit video cameras in their house they liberated from poles on the street?
schild
editor, f13.net
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"
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
Yeah.. let the college students run that system, I can see it now...
Student 1: Oh, dude... check this chick out! If you zoom in close enough you can see her nipples!
Student 2: Yeah, I think she's in my History class. Look at that fine ass!
All the while the Bank of Baltimore is getting robbed across the street.
This whole thing sounds like a way Baltimore can keep their grants from the US Governmetn. It's very comparable to the construction industry in every local city and state. If they don't use up ALL of the funds for that FY (and even request more) then there's a high chance that next FY it will be reduced.
Even Baltimore's city council president was concerned about this very thing saying "she was concerned that the federal grants would eventually run out and the city would be stuck with the bill.."
But the mayor says:
I'm sorry Martin O'Malley, but there are many other ways that you can prevent crime and terrorism than by setting up a 24-hour surveillance network in the city. How about increasing a police force in the city so that a presence is seen? Wouldn't residents feel a bit more comfortable having an actual person than a camera?
You could hire more police officers and increase the workforce. But, instead you are going to pay retired police officers and college kids to sit on their ass and wait for somethign to happen. Plain stupid.
Hmmm.
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.
If these cameras are simply used as evidence in trials and to watch out for trouble at night then sure, go ahead.
.... I'd have think about it.
However if at some future date they are rigged into an international face recognition system to monitor out every movement along with cell phone emissions, fingerprints, DNA , satelite tracking, phone tapping, voice recognition, RFID and trained molemen in the sewers equipped with microphones and nerve darts so that governments can _KNOW ALL_, then
May the Maths Be with you!
Yeah, I have to admit that while I'm visiting here in London right now, it makes me feel safer that there are cameras there. But guess what, last night I saw a kid chasing two black guys down a well-lit street who had stolen his bag.
So the cameras do nothing, but give the impression of protection, all the while invading our privacy.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
You must be new here, huh?
Hmmm.
This is one of the few 1984 style measures that I support.
Removing people's privacy when they volunteer to enter public places can be used to ensure freedom and SAFE mobility.
Of course this makes proper checks and balances even more important. I'd imagine that the loudest opposers of this loss of privacy are merely those that seek to hide from bad laws.
I call them cowards.
We should be free enough to be proud of everything we partake in. If we are going to hide from laws and do the unlawful behavior anyway this means that these are bad laws and they should be striken from the books.
These are placed in public areas, right? In public, you have no expectation of privacy. Admittedly, it sounds like the threat of terrorism is being used to justify the cameras, which is stupid as hell, but the reality is that these are more likely to catch smaller crimes and such, and will probably be used in that way.
And as far as that goes, I see no reason why they should broadcast an unencrypted signal that anybody at all can watch. They're in public locations, they're paid for with the public dollar, the public should be able to see what they see. Open it up.
You want privacy? Go home. Until they start putting cameras in your apartment, at which point I'll understand your complaining.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
http://cai.gouv.qc.ca/06_documentation/01_pdf/new_ rules_2004.pdf
Maybe interesting to read regarding this subject...
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.
If they did this in my home town. Sure, criminal activities will no longer take place under the watchful eye of the camera. They will just take place elsewhere. But these cameras interfere with my right to go wherever I goddamn please without someone knowing where I went, and where I went from there, and what I did while there, etc etc. Now it's criminal activities, next time the tapes will be used to monitor people who are suspected of other unpleasant activities, after which someone will manage to get the tapes to prove a case of adultery. Privacy IS important, because it means having the right to live life like you want it to (I know- criminals want privacy too, I don't pretend to have the ideal solution here), even though we do not always realize the countless ways in which we are giving it up. Hell, we shouldn't even be posting here, Google has our number :)
----- One learns to itch where one can scratch.
There are cameras everywhere in the UK.
The funny thing is that if you point this out to people, they say there isn't or that they hadn't noticed, until you point them out that is. And then they don't seem to see it as an issue.
However, I think the attitude is understandable to an extent because the UK has a history of hundreds of years of fairly benevolent government and policing. The Btits I'm sure are the most spied on people in the world and the UK has one of the biggest "intelligence" operations in the world relative to the country's size, but people are unaware and/or unconcerned about it because it rarely if ever affects the man in the street.
The only time the average Brit sees evidence of the dark side of their country is when some public figure has an accident or commits suicide at a very opportunistic moment for the country.
The Norwegian Personal Data Act (Chapter VII) and the statute to the Personal Data Act (Chapter VIII) allow for video surveillance as long as a certain set of rules are followed, including where you're allowed to set up the cameras, disclosure of images, and notification that surveillance is being carried out (for example with a sign).
People say I'm crazy, I got diamonds on the soles of my shoes...
Nevertheless, I am tired of always feeling like I have 'eyes on me'. The store, the highway, a stoplight, etc. not that I wan't to do anything outrageous, but being constantly observed IMO causes an individual to stiffle or otherwise bottle up things they may have done otherwise.
Now this may not be bad in every instance, but can you imagine people walking around who are forced not to engage in activities (through cameras), eventually those bottled up activities will explode as opposed to being released gradually.
People need avenues to release emotions, whether they are good bad or indifferent. If we force them to only release in their own homes, there will be no peer related checks and balances on them and people will gravitate towards every individual having their own (different) moral compass.
Among the 207 cities with population of 100,000 or more, Baltimore's violent crime rate ranked as the eighth most violent.
When Baltimore's 1998 property crime rates are compared among the 30 most populous cities, Baltimore had the fifth highest property crime rate. When ranked by individual UCR crime, Baltimore ranked:
Baltimore has remained extremely consistent in maintaining high rates of over 300 murders for the last ten years. Much focus continues to be placed on the City's homicide totals. Murder is the most egregious of crimes and viewed by many as symptomatic of crime in general. Baltimore's homicide rate in 1998 was 5.1% higher than in 1990, bucking the national trend in which homicide rates declined 36.2% over the same period. Currently, Baltimore's murder rate is over seven times the national average.
Homicide rate per 100,000 in baltimore (1999) 43.2 In New york city it was 9.1.
"I don't think it's selfish, to eat defenseless shellfish." -NOFX
How many more times will this tired, worn out, old-and-busted, COMPLETELY FALSE excuse be used to implement draconian measures such as this before idiot Americans wake up and say "enough"?
Oh, well. One more reason to avoid Baltimore (the main reason being, it's Baltimore.)
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
"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.
this is the most blatantly obvious violation of privacy i have ever heard of. if they combine this with that face recognition crap (which you know they will) they can effectively track every US citizen at all times. this is total bullcrap. im sorry, but i just don't trust that this will be used just for terrorism. i hope that after an extended spat of these "retired police officers and college students" peering through bedroom windows that this BS will get the smack-down it deserves. the worst part is it's being paid for by my taxes. what a freaking waste of money. Maybe i should just wear a hoodie from now on.....
sometimes, i wonder if i'm the only conservative on teh intarweb. ah well, back to mah hogs and warmongerin'....
Recently, three immigrant children were decapitated in a northern Baltimore apartment. There has been a lot of speculation that it was part of an illegal immigration scheme. The mayor himself visited the crime scene. I live nearby, and have friends who live on that block. Baltimore is a huge melting pot of a city, and, I suppose, an ideal target for terrorist cells. We are the farthest inland sea port, close to DC, etc. and the mayor completely flipped after 911 about security. But I don't really see how these big brother cameras will make a difference one way or the other. I guess is something blew up in the inner harbor, "they" might now about it a few seconds earlier than they would have without them.
This definitely feeds the "Culture of Fear" that this current administration has worked so hard to foster.
We must surveil all tara-ists and evildoers! The President told me so! He also said my kids were gonna get blowed up good. So I'm'a vote for him come November! Hyuck!
Oh well. Back to watching NASCAR, drinking Miller High Life, making fun of Mexicans, beating my wife, and letting the grass in front of my tailer grow long enough to cover the late-model Ford Mustang up on cinderblocks in my front yard.
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
What people tend to forget is that abuse goes both ways. If it's hackable, then it can be abused by the bad guys. Imagine non-government entities that can watch your every move. At least with the government, you have a thin veil of protection, at least there are SOME people who are anal enough to Do The Right Thing. But just lest some 15 year old get ahold of it and watch out...
The same kind of system has been installed in Monrtéal (Québec, Canada) corner st-Denis and st-Catherine, to prevent (monitor) "massive drug deals and prostitution".
I guess the policemens looking at these images will have a good time trying to judge which girl is a prostitute and which one is just inspired by Christina Aguilera or some other pop or rap artist.
They should do a kind of hot or not concept with that.
"I can not bring myself to believe that if knowledge presents danger, the solution is ignorance." Isaac Asimov
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2071397.stm
p df
Far far far cheaper and more effective way of reducing crime is simply better lighting.
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hors251.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Cape Town and Johannesburg have had this for a while and it has significantly had an impact on the crime rates in those cities. Cameras Reduce Johannesburg Crime.
A choice quote:
"crime rates have dropped an astonishing 80 percent since Business Against Crime erected 200 surveillance cameras to assist an under-staffed police force monitor and track criminals"
This has had the benefit of making the streets safer and boosting tourism. As far as I know, noone has abused this system for their own purposes.
There is a simple check to help balance this:
Put cameras IN the monitoring room, watching the controllers.
Put the video feeds from both the cameras they are watching and from the cameras watching them online.
Now, when Officer OverSexed is zooming in on a helpless, attractive citizen, he knows he has a chance of being caught in the act!
Who watches the watchers?
www.eFax.com are spammers
What is all this talk about these violating people's privacy? How is your privacy being violated by someone monitoring you while you are in a public area?
Dude, wake up and smell the coffee. All it takes is a few of these cameras in a few different places, some facial recognition software (or human intervention), linking of the systems in multiple cities, and boom... the government can track your movements from city to city. That sort of power, they do not need.
You are guaranteed limited privacy in your own home, yes. But not when you are walking down a public street.
Limited privacy in my own home? Fuck that... in my own home I have reason to expect damn near 100% privacy if I choose. It's on the streets that I have to accept "limited" privacy, by virtue of being out in public. But just going outside my home does not mean the government has the right to watch my movements and maintain surveillance on me.
Have those making references to "Big Brother" even read "1984"?
Have you? If so, are you really comfortable with the idea of being watched everywhere you go? See, these camera installations are only going to continue to spread and grow.. and make no mistake, they will eventually be linked together, to provide a central method of monitoring people nationwide... it's just a matter of time (if it hasn't already happened). More power for the Federal government...
// TODO: Insert Cool Sig
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...)
I boycott signatures
Because there isn't much evidence that CCTV *actually* makes you safer. The massive Manchester CCTV system has singularly failed to reduce crime significantly despite spending millions on it. In fact, the crime rates have increased since the system was installed in 2001.
s s -releases-2003/liberty-winss-key-cctv-case.shtml
"I've never heard of a single instance of someone suborning CCTV for their own ends"
CCTV is *entertainment*. I have seen instances on television of people suborning CCTV for their own ends. Where do you think the footage comes from? There was a recent case of one bloke who tried to commit suicide. It was caught on CCTV, the video of which was then sold to a TV company for broadcast.
http://www.legal500.com/devs/uk/it/ukit_130.htm
http://www.liberty-human-rights.org.uk/press/pre
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
We're putting in the cameras because "we are at war"? To be blunt, what the hell does war have to do with cameras on city streets?
When was the last time a surveillance camera operated by a local government caught someone related to the ongoing war or terrorism?
Let's stop swallowing the party line and be honest about what we're doing, or at least stop deceiving ourselves. The cameras may reduce crime, sure. That is the justification for cameras. But war? Does anyone think before speaking any more?
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.
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
"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.
- 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.It gets so tiring watching these knee jerk reactions to everything posted here on slashdot.
Anthony Papillion
Advanced Data Concepts, Inc.
"Quality Custom Software and IT Services"
The ones who really need cameras are the police. Not cameras they can turn off or walk away from, but worn cameras that record audio and video the entire time they are on duty, with exceptionally stiff penalties for blocking or disabling the camera.
This would protect the public from illegal searches, threats, breaking of your property, and general unprofessionalism (all of which I've personally seen from the police). It would protect the police by establishing a record of just what the cop saw- truly what the situation looked like from their perpspective.
Of course, there would have be ironclad safeguards, such as complete access all footage by the public, etc.
Perhaps some of you remember some time ago an area of Tampa, FL called Ybor City had a camera system installed on the "main strip," 7th Ave. This was very soon after 9/11 and our community was rabid for anything they could spend their tax dollars on to make them feel safe. Reactionary politicians in their haste decided to make Ybor City, Tampa's nightclub district, an example of new "terrorist recognition software." Captured images from cameras installed on the light poles on 7th Ave would compare face shots of the people milling around in our Bourbon Street-esque party district with wanted criminals and terrorists alike.
As time went on, the project cost more than it was worth in the number of people it actually helped bring in. If my memory serves me correctly, exactly 0 terror suspects and 0 criminals were recognized by the system. I suppose criminals and terrorists alike are smart enough to know that there are much darker and more dangerous places in Tampa to do their dirty deeds and could conduct their business and themselves elsewhere.
I think the point here is, every area of the country, and indeed the world, react differently to this idea. South Africa has been under oppression for decades. America has been "free" since it's inception. Britian is under rule of a "monotariat" as I like to call it, a figurehead ruler with a parliament (please don't argue that point, it's my opinion, and I'm entitled). Each government, thus each culture, are completely different in their determination and their beliefs as to what their rights actually are. Certainly, PRIVACY is not something that is enjoyed by all cultures, and is given to the people in varying degrees depending on where you live. It even varies from city to city in the US.
The camera system has now been removed from 7th Ave. It was effectively replaced by none other than more cops. So be it!