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?"

Comments

This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[erick99]

Oh my gosh, what a can of worms this is. I really can see the need but I can see that this can lead to abuse and a "police state." I have a lot of faith in our country and I believe that this will probably be okay. Still, I hate to see quotes like this used to justify just about anything these days: "We're at war," Schrader said.

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

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[oiper]

I think deep down we all know where this is going. Orwell

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[jjjefff]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[cluckshot]

I believe that few people would object to the cameras being there if they were only to be used in support of Probable Cause investigation. This means that if the cameras were used if a Crime was reported to support the case to deal with it.

The problem is that it will become a case of "Vending Machine Justice" where you will be watched until an "Offense" happens and then you will be pounced on. The problem with this is that Probable Cause requires a real or imminent threat of real injury and not the usual brushing and bumping of daily life.

We all know that the eyes will be jaded towards catching the people who oppose those in power as opposed to just dealing with problems that citizens report. This is the whole problem with the security demands of today. They all arise from the disrespect of the citizens by the police etc rather than from the damage of the criminals.

On 9/11/2001 we got wonderful camera pictures of Mr. Atta and his gang as they went about their effort to destroy our country. At no point in the pictures did the cameras and the watchful eyes see anything of the horrific crimes going down. Nor could they have done so until the knives were used. All that we will get out of such thinking as is going on is the rise of a much worse terrorism by the State than was ever contemplated by the terrorists.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[missing000]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[psykocrime]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[thogard]

The cameras may increase crime.

Melbourne Australia has a large number of cameras in some parts of the downtown and they are not effective. Someone who worked for the city claims that people were not reporting crimes because they thought the cameras would catch the people. It turns out that after spending millions of dollars, they haven't been effective at catching criminals. This was recently in the news here so I'm sure more info is at google news. The result of a recent investigation is that the cameras aren't worth wath they cost and do nothing to help prevent crime and nothing in catching criminals but they are going to stay a while longer.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[thelexx]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[Mikkeles]

'To be fair, you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the street in downtown Baltimore.'

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[nakhla]

As a Baltimore native, believe me, I have absolutely NO expectation of safety whenever I go downtown. :) In fact, I think others who have been here probably feel the same way.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[spicyjeff]

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."

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[the_mad_poster]

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...

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[stecoop]

There was once either a federal ruling or states were trying to regulate the use of surveillance cameras; the recording of conversations is a federal violation under wire tapping regulations. Now some lawmakers were extending the use of recording people in the same sense as wire-tapping. Hmm, it seems to be all right to record crowds if you're a government entity. But if you record video of your front yard to see who's stealing your gas or which neighbor's dog is pooping on your yard then you may be considered a criminal.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[TWX]

"To be fair, you don't really have a reasonable expectation of privacy on the street in downtown Baltimore."

I'd maintain that unless you are in the presence of other people you have every reasonable expectation of privacy. Cameras are not people.

If you have a clothing problem in public, do you usually look for a semi-private nook or side area to make your adjustment? That's an expectation of privacy, even at a small level.

The entire point is that one should be able to go along and do as one wants without worry about others butting in. I personally believe in allowing people do do what they want as long as they don't infringe upon others. Obviously mugging is a form of infringement, but if they want to correct that they need to post people out there in dark blue uniforms with shiny stylized pieces of metal worn, not cameras. They need to allow the populace to defend itself without fear of legal action by a criminal who is injured in the act of committing a crime. Cameras don't prevent the mugger from attacking, and they don't necessarily do a very good job of identifying the suspect either, as all of those convenience store and bank cameras have demonstrated for decades.

Cameras have never made me feel more secure, except in one or two really weird situations, like a building fire alarm evacuation.

I don't support the idea of using cameras for direct traffic enforcement either. I would concede that using red-light-activated cameras isn't wrong, but should be used as supplimentary evidence to determine what happened in a car accident in an intersection. Otherwise, use the data collected to send a nice letter to the driver informing them that they'll be asked to enroll in a traffic school with penalty of license removal if they continue the practice. Don't use them for direct citations, don't use them for velocity.

Get cameras out of our society. Big Brother does not need to be watching us.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[jez9999]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[stilwebm]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[jhagler]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[Frymaster]

"How long until that ability is either abused or hijacked?"

i submit that the current implementation constitutes abuse.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[SpaceLifeForm]

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.

Well, the words were distorted due to the noise. It would help if you cut back on the broccoli.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[trezor]

• i submit that the current implementation constitutes abuse.

You mean it's developed by Diebold?

*w00t*

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[jjjefff]

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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[American AC in Paris]

I'd maintain that unless you are in the presence of other people you have every reasonable expectation of privacy.

Believe me, if you're walking around downtown Baltimore at night and you don't have a crowd of people around you, your personal privacy is going to be the absolute last thing on your mind.

In downtown Baltimore in 2002, there were:

• 2,275 reported cases of larceny
• 243 reported cases of robbery
• 213 reported cases of aggravated assault
• 136 stolen automobiles reported
• 5 reported cases of rape
• 5 reported murders

source

Privacy in public in downtown Baltimore is not something you'd want to seek out. It's just not smart. Downtown Baltimore can be a very dangerous place, and you can go from 'very safe place' to 'very dangerous place' in less than a city block.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[Mr. Slippery]

I *personally* am willing to give up what you would call "certain freedoms" and "public-privacy" to aid law enforcement if their plans/implementations of technologies are sound.

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.)

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[3terrabyte]

I sit pretty securely in the privacy/liberal/conspiracy range of the spectrum. And even I think cameras downtown is a good idea. I don't feel like my privacy is threatened when a police cruiser drives through my neigborhood, or my picture is taken at an ATM.

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!!

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[jhagler]

"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.

Re:This will keep the ACLU folks busy

[elmegil]

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.

How long.....

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

The Point of This?

[Jorj X. McKie]

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.

Re:The Point of This?

[stinkyfingers]

I've spent a lot of time in the Baltimore area, and I can tell you that it is suzzy as hell with some of the worst crime rates in the country. See?

Unfortunately, plenty of jurisdictions in this country have taken to claiming Homeland Security funds to put in things that they couldn't afford before but can only get federal funds for by putting a terrorism face on it.

So, when you ask what kind of activity can these cameras detect? Rape, murder, robbery, assault/battery, and jaywalking. In this day and age, if you need funding for crime prevention, you can't get it, but if you call it terrorism prevention, you get some dough.

Re:The Point of This?

[Jorj X. McKie]

Yes, I think that you've hit the nail on the head:

The network is part of a comprehensive strategy in the Baltimore area to spend $25 million in homeland security grants this year and next...

I'm still not sure that it's justified, though, and the way that they talked about expanding the system seems misconceived. There would seem to be a limited number of areas in which this sort of thing would really be cost-effective. City centers and heavily urbanized areas would be about it.

It's hard to quantify the deterrent effect, as opposed to simply moving the crime out of range of the cameras. A few extra police officers on the ground could prevent crime, rather than just observing it, and would likely have a far greater deterrent effect. For the cost of the system and the people to monitor it, you could likely put 15 extra officers in the area. I think that would be a better tradeoff.

Re:The Point of This?

[Jorj X. McKie]

The principal is that, in general, police agencies are not supposed to collect information on citizens unless they have reason to believe that a crime has been committed. Body searches of random individuals are not permitted in public places. Your vehicle cannot be searched arbitrarily, even on a public highway. Now, it's not unreasonable to have enhanced security in some public venues, but this type of system implies that it's appropriate in all public places.

If you don't break the law, you will not have a problem.

The same could be said for any invasion of privacy. Camera inside your house or apartment? You're not committing a crime, why should you have a problem with it? That would be an extreme example, but this particular argument is specious.

Re:The Point of This?

[legoburner]

In the UK (london) in the late 90s, a man set off bombs in soho and brixton. They caught him because he was the only person who appeared on security cameras in both places around the time of the bombing. His house was filled with evidence and he was planning many more bombings which were halted because of the cameras. (of course this is from my distant tv-watching memory so I may be fuzzy if someone wants to verify. To help your googling, he was trying to start a 'race war').

The key to cameras is responsible laws governing their use. The UK's data protection act is key here and I cant believe the US is still without an equivelent. All footage (and data associated with a person) must be removed within 6 months unless there is either a continued relationship (in the case of a business) or legal request to maintain it. If you want to set up a camera to point at a public area, you must register it with the national list, and then anybody who requests any footage must be given a copy if it is available (for a reasonable fee). Any person in the UK can therefore get footage from any fixed camera in the UK that points at a public place if they want/need it. Any data associated with a person must be shared at their request (for a fee of up to 15GBP if desired) and they are allowed to change any data that is stored about them but is not correct.

Glass half empty

[m00nun1t]

"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.

Heh....

[schild]

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?

Erm, never?

[BenBenBen]

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.

Re:Erm, never?

[0123456]

Police walking the beat ready to arrest people who commit crimes is a deterrent. Police sitting in rooms eating donuts and oggling cute girls on a CCTV camera is not a deterrent.

Robberies in the town near where I work have gone _UP_ since police patrols were replaced with CCTV, since the robbers just use sophisticated 'ski mask' stealth technology to avoid being identified. Crooks care about the high risk of being caught by a cop on patrol when they commit a crime, not the minimal risk of being caught from a CCTV tape.

On the other hand, I hear that there's been a reduction in important crimes, like people pissing in the street on the way home from the pub.

Already happening in Minneapolis

[eltoyoboyo]

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.

Why??

[Mz6]

"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."

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:

"Mayor Martin O'Malley said the Downtown Partnership's use of cameras has been successful and residents want to know why the city does not use more cameras.

"You never want to have people operating cameras to look into windows," O'Malley said. "This is about being as proactive as you can be with the limited police resources you have."

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.

hypocritical thinking

[Gunzour]

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.

London

[Lord_Dweomer]

Anybody else notice how more and more of the US is becoming like London in regards to the cameras? Downtown Chicago has them now...and frankly its scary.

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.

What's the big deal?

[Otto]

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.

You are seen while in public

[TripleP]

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.

I'd be pretty pissed off

[InternationalCow]

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 :)

The UK already has this.

[pubjames]

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.

Baltimore does not have a crime problem - snarf!

[mcwop]

In 1998 - the latest year for which national statistics are available - among the 30 most populous cities, Baltimore ranked as the second-most violent city in America. When ranked by individual UCR crime, Baltimore ranked:

• 2nd in homicide;
• 8th in rape;
• 1st in robbery; and
• 3rd in aggravated assault.

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:

• 4th in burglary;
• 4th in larceny theft; and
• 15th in auto theft.

  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.

We've Always Been At War With...

[the_mad_poster]

"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...

Let the public have access to the network...

[tesmerjg]

"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.

Baltimore's Culture of Fear

[Lego-Lad]

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.

Thing is, cameras aren't very effective.

[Moderation abuser]

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/2071397.stm

Far far far cheaper and more effective way of reducing crime is simply better lighting.

http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hors251.p df

South Africa

[SnowWolf2003]

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.

Police State - Feel Good?

[(STM) Marauder]

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.

Re:Every American should own AND carry a gun...

[Anonymous Meoward]

we wouldn't even need cops if the 2 amendment wasn't keeply stampled on.

"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.