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1984 Comes To Boston
walmass writes "In preparation for the DNC in Boston, 75 cameras monitored by the Federal government will be operating around the downtown Boston location. There are also an unspecified number of state police cameras, and 100 cameras owned by the Metro Boston Transit Authority. Quote: 'And it's here to stay: Boston police say the 30 or so cameras installed for the convention will be used throughout the city once the event is over. "We own them now," said police Superintendent Robert Dunford. "We're certainly not going to put them in a closet."'"
The idea was to use facial recognition software in order to identify any potential threats. After the system failed to identify a single problematic person or otherwise do much good, it was cancelled.
not Metro Boston....
get it right or pay the price!
Is it really? Every 6 months or so, someone breaks into one of the cars in my building's parking lot. Despite being caught on several cameras, the perpetrator is never pursued nor apprehended.
And FYI, by law, you're entitled to access any CCTV footage that contains your image, so exercise your right.
What law is this? This doesn't sound plausible.
Certainly any government-owned camera should make everything it captures available to the public. But we are moving away from, not towards, this level of freedom.
Not only are there cameras, but:
. Random searches on public transportation
. Restrictions on what you can carry
. Restrictions on where you can go
. Restrictions on when you can go
. Major road closings
. Just about every ATF and FDA dog in the country will be in town
Not only will we be the most watched, but also the most controlled. Except for some protests in the past few weeks, Bostonians seem to be the most cowed and beaten people I've met. I'm amazed, simply amazed. We've truely traded our feedom for a false sense of security. When the next terrorist attack comes (which most likely won't be in Boston), hopefully we'll open our eyes to this. If not, we will only give the terrorists more power over us.
RM
}#q NO CARRIER
Yep. For your own good.
Only following orders. We had to destroy the village in order to save it.
Protect and Serve, with fries on the side. Don't film the cops, however, they HATE that.
Those who give up essential liberty for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty, nor safety.
I wonder how Paul Revere and the Sons Of Liberty would like it if the "lawful government" of Boston had been able to watch their every move...
The mighty American constitutional republic lasted, what, 4 score and 7 years? Naa, not even that long.
All hail the great Empire of the United States! Unfortunately, the wonderful article "America's Empire of Bases", Freedom Daily, April 2004, is not yet online. It will be, and you will be able to read it here:
http://www.fff.org/toc/fr04.asp
As the US governments do to others, we find they also do to Americans. And it sucks.
But don't blame me, I vote Libertarian.
Bob-
The Ludwig von Mises Institute. The reasoning individuals economics
Actually, it's Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority. Almost noone gets it right, even native Bostonians...
Yes, but IIRC that was more along the lines of "This guy keeps walking up to cars, giving them an all-round inspection, peering in the window, [... etc] so he's probably a thief" (whereas a normal car owner would just walk up to their car, get in, drive off). It's not "That gate matches 'Fingers' MacDougal - get him, boys!"
Dictionary definitions are an existential statement - if one of the definition fits, then the word itself does. The degree to which it fits can usually be measured inversely to the index of the definition being used. The first definition here is the one most fitting to societies, whereas #2 and, especially, #3 are directed more towards an individual.
If you make a Nazi or 1984 reference, you lose.
Wrong.
Godwin's law, as originally stated, was (approximately) that any discussion thread on usenet (and similar systems), if it did not die first, would eventually warp into something that would provoke a mention of NAZIs - and that the NAZI reference indicated that it had wandered from interesting topics to topics that had been rehashed so many times that they were no longer interesting - at least to old hands (such as Godwin) who had other things to spend their time and internet access on.
Of course, this was quicky misstated into the "Folk Godwins Law" - warped forms like "Mention NAZIs and the thread is dead. You can all drop the discussion and go home now." or "First one to mention NAZIs loses." These forms have been used to systematically shut down debate, whenever someone makes a posting propagating any totalitarian meme that happens to have been used by the NAZIs and someone else points out how the meme had been used to aid oppression.
Such misuse is not merely misinformed, but dangerous. It leads to the increased spread of totalitarian memes and the suppression of counter-memes in the form of historical evidence of the memes' horrendous effects. "Those who do not understand history are condemed to repeat it." And this misstatement of Godwin's law is a prime example of an enabling meme - which selects against learning history and promotes "improved" cover-versions of its worst disasters.
Godwin himself has pointed out the misstatement. But he also asserts that his original law holds - because discussions of the downside of the Folk version (such as this one), though they point out the misuse, do NOT put the thread back on the subject - instead diverting it down the rathole of discussing the misstatement of Godwin's law. So the damaage due to the misuse still occurs.
But venues like Slashdot allow branching. This can take asides aside - so the main thread can continue.
Since you have been so nice as to make the Folk Godwin's Law posting as the FIRST (still above threshold) post, perhaps we can pull that discussion aside RIGHT HERE, and head off repeated Folk Godwin cites in the rest of the comments.
Perhaps that way we can ACTUALLY DEAL WITH the important business at hand: Defending freedom from yet another totalitarian encroachment.
So I STRONGLY suggest that anyone who has read this far STOP following this thread and GET BACK TO that more life-critical task.
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
"Metro Boston Transit Authority" wow. Its Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority
Where I live in city-centre Liverpool (England) there are CCTV cameras on all the main streets. If I walk out of my house, I'm on camera, and if I walk into the town centre nearly every step of the way I'm on camera. The aim is to have around 240 cameras around the city centre monitoring millions of square metres as part for the Liverpool CitySafe Initiative.
And you know what? When I'm walking back from town at night I'm extremely glad of it. When you've been assaulted and most of your friends who live nearby have been mugged then perhaps you'll understand why. I'm normally extremely libertarian in my views but when you and your partners safety are in question then it sadly pays to be pragmatic. The Guardian newspaper featured an interesting article on CCTV in Liverpool and it's privacy implications, but the fact remains that surveys show that 93% of people are in favour. It works, too, because crime has been cut quite dramatically as part of the initiative.
Of course, were are more accustomed to CCTV cameras in Britain. We have the highest ratio of CCTV cameras per population of any country - something like 4m (or one for every 13 people). There are traffic cameras on many roads capable of snapping speeding drivers or those that jump red lights. It is estimated that each person in Britain is caught on camera 300 times a day. The implications are worrying, and the situation needs to be carefully monitored, but when I'm walking back from the pub at night I can't help but feel a little more reassured.
Canada still remains a functioning democracy to a large degree, so when ombudsmen like the privacy commissioner castigate the government, public pressure often forces a change in policy.
If that doesn't work, like the Americans, you can always sue.
I don't think anyone has ever suggested permanently disabling the CCDs, which may not be possible with non-dangerous lasers. What if you miss while fine tuning your aim with binoculars, and blind a baby? Even I wouldn't do that. Rather, disable it temporarily with an eye-safe laser, but leave the damn thing bolted there with the correct aim.
This means:
1) No chance of accidentally blinding someone, yourself included.
2) No chance of damaging the camera permanently, which is probably more illegal than blinding it.
3) They don't replace it tomorrow, when you're not there to blind it again.
That's not that many cameras in Boston. There's something like TWO ORDERS of magnitude more public monitoring cameras in London!
London Underground subway ALONE is reported to have over 6000 monitoring cameras now, being increased to 9000 source link. When including CCTV cameras elsewhere, there's well OVER 10,000 CAMERAS monitoring you.
Although, apparently, most Londoners doesn't seem to mind. As long as they're only pointed to public areas.
Current security at the location of the DNC is pretty lax (to put it mildly). The pictures were taken by someone who appears to have had full, unchallenged access on their "unencumbered tour".
No he didn't. There were various ways in which the Florida votes might have been recounted. Limited number of counties, vs. all counties, and under-votes only vs. under-votes and over-votes. On most of the scenarios Bush would have won (including all of the scenarios that had been proposed in court). On one scenario Gore might have won if the counting had gone his way (and this was a scenario that was not proposed in court). Details are here.
You have very little real freedom left.
That is a vast overstatement. The freedoms that have been chipped away are on the fringe. It hasn't been a big deal because 99.99% of people haven't felt the tinest bit of difference.
With the DMCA
That's a joke to include in the list. This is a minor issue. It's not like having the DMCA has put us on par with North Korea.
surveilence cameras
Again, minor. In public places you have no expectation of privacy.
a state that locks people up without charges and detains them indefintely
Funny thing happened. The wheels of justice turned and that has been ruled a no-no.
media so powerful they won't even let you share your films with your own friends over the internet
That is false. What they try to prevent you from doing is sharing *thier* films over the Internet. Theirs != yours.
about all you have left is freedom of speech - and even that is in doubt
No, really, it's not.
Check your trousers, I think someone has pickpocketed your freedom while you were all busy buying the next big piece of crap that the marketeers have been selling you
No, actually not. Life has changed very little.
You *had* freedom, that's for sure, but it's been eroded over the last few decades. You need to act now if you want to preserve what you have left. Let's face it, you can't even show a bit of tit on your TV during the superbowl, just exactly what sort of freedom are you talking about?
Let's see here. You can show anything you want on TV. You cannot broadcast indecency over public airwaves. Big difference.
I don't know any serious atheists who go around painting "God is dead" on things.
At the risk of being serious here, let me point out two things.
First, atheists don't believe God is dead. We believe there is not and never has/have been mythological beings.
Second, the "God is dead" statement, made IIRC by Nietzche, was intended as an observation that religion was no longer useful or functional in the roles under which it came into being.
https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw