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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."'"
If you make a Nazi or 1984 reference, you lose.
Is it even possible to live free and untracked anymore? Is this just the price we pay for living in a civilized society?
I'm considering going to cash for most everything. Has anyone experimented with that lately, and what difficulties did you face?
Support the ACLU and the EFF. Those are the people fighting these battles for you. The guy in the article who says "''I definitely think it's good for safety reasons," said Chris Bellomo, a 55-year-old teacher from Cheshire, Conn. ''I feel more comfortable [knowing] that, if something bad happens, more people are going to be watching and aware of it, and that help will be there if it is needed." forgets that freedom has a cost, and I'm willing to live with a little danger in exchange for being beholden to no man other than myself. As Penn & Teller say, these cameras are "Bullshit!".
Please bid on this Karmann Ghia! Please pleas
The difference between that and modern day NYC is? Take a look around Washington Sq. park if you're in the area...
Me email iz skyewalkerluke at microsoft's free email service.
"will be able to zoom in from their work stations to gather details of facial descriptions or read license plates""
Somehow this tells me the terrorists won
who | grep -i blond | date cd ~; unzip; touch; strip; finger; mount; gasp; yes; uptime; umount; sleep
They're only cameras.. they're in public places.. What do you expect? Why do you care? Are you planning on doing something you shouldn't? If so, that's why the cameras are there. And FYI, by law, you're entitled to access any CCTV footage that contains your image, so exercise your right.
Think of it this way: in the near-distant future everyone will have full movie-studio digital video / still camera features in their mobile personal computers (which is what cell phones are turning into). Minaturisation means you could be being filmed or recorded anywhere at any time. This will have a chilling effect.
Somehow I don't think he was just talking about the cameras...
London has it, Monaco has it. The question you have to ask, is "Are you entitled to privacy in the middle of a public street?"
Noname3 loses.
"Are you planning on doing something you shouldn't?"
Indeed. Only those who've done something wrong, or are misidentified, have anything to fear... and no-one should be worried about a mere few years spent in Cuba because they were misidentified as a criminal. Of course what's legal today might be 'wrong' tomorrow, like, say, trying to cross the border to Canada in order to avoid being drafted to die in Iran or Syria, but as long as you're docile little sheep who do whatever the government tells you to do (and don't get misidentified), you'll probably be OK.
What rights are in question?
People do NOT have a right of privacy in public. This is nothing new. This is NOT 1984! 1984 is government cameras in your home. This shrill scream of "1984" all time just weakens it's real meaning.
Yeah. Still, you cannot reserve a hotel room or rent a car with cash.
And don't even THINK about trying to buy an airline ticket with cash, unless you ENJOY body cavity searches and long vacations in Guantanimo.
Please bid on this Karmann Ghia! Please pleas
It isn't the 'terrorists' we need to worry about - it's those who would 'save' us from them.
Who really poses a bigger threat to your well being on a day to day basis?
A) Osama 'been bombin'
B) The local police force
Uhmm...hmmm...let's see.... 'B'!
This isnt about freedom, you don't have cameras in your home or microchips in your arm. If you don't like cameras then move out of the city and move to the country where you'll have more privacy. When they start putting cameras in my house or start using satelites to spy on what I'm doing inside my private area thats when its a violation of my right to privacy.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Maybe if Boston bars were open later than 1:30, this would apply. But Since we're a puritanical blue-law-happy city, our subway shuts down at 12:30 and our bars close at 2, latest.
New York City, now there's a city where public urination is possible!
Reason, free market capitalism, and individualism
> "We own them now," said police Superintendent Robert Dunford.
Hmmm, if I own a puppy and that puppy destroys some property or harms someone, I'm liable. Does that mean that the police will go to jail if a Bostonian commits murder? After all, they own Bostonians.;-)
Uh, when you're out in public everything you do is subject to observation by the public. That's why it's called public.
This is NOT 1984! They are installing extreme security measures in preparation for the DNC because of what the DHS tells them is a considerable threat from terrorists. Then, once the DNC is over, they don't want to just throw everything away. If this were 1984, they'd be installing the cameras in your house and Micheal Moore would vaporize.
If nothing else, we've seen that (on the whole) it's morbidly inefficient for a single authority to try and use cameras to monitor a large area for an extended period of time.
So far, every attempt at installing cameras to monitor the public by the government has been a huge FUBAR because people destroy the cameras, and the software that tries to automate the surveylance process sucks. So take off your tinfoil hat and stop hassling the local food store to order more spam for the compound.
This is NOT a evil gubmint attempt to take over your life, it's an attempt to stop a potential attack on the DNC.
Who will watch the watchmen? The watched!
People.... this can be a good thing. The rich, powerful or corrupt have always had the power to invade your privacy because its just an illusion and will alway be so. Privacy laws just protect the powerful from being watched by the masses.
Instead of fighting a lossing battle to stop this technology we need to ensure that it will be available to everyone and that the feeds will be open to the public. Put cameras on the streets, in the police stations and in government buildings. I don't mind being watched as long as I can watch everyone else. Imagine a world were everyone is equipped with their own personal cameras and recorders... with so many eyes spreading their light everywhere the world might become a more peaceful and happy place.
Oh, for fuck's sake, people, this is not about our right to privacy; it's about the government's right to monitor its (presumably innocent) citizens.
Do we want a government powerful enough to track us wherever we go? I don't. They *don't* need this power to do their jobs of attempting to protect us. (Nobody can "protect" us, they can only *try* to protect us.)
Liberty is not only about our rights as citizens, but more about our rights to be free of a government that feels free to track and control us. That's why "free speech zones" are an abomination, and this surveillance is a slap in the face.
If we allow our government to control us instead of us controlling it, we are no longer a democracy. (Are we a democracy?)
Microsoft is to software what Budweiser is to beer.
Cameras in public are not the issue. You are in public, what you do can be watched. It's when the cameras are installed in the bedrooms that it's time to worry.
No, the important stomping of civil rights and liberties goes back a couple of years. Those 'free speech zones'. Areas where you are allowed to protest. Guess what, there's a real big damned free speech zone; it's called the United States of America. Shame that most of the sheep in this country don't get too pissed off about that, yet tin foil beanie types get all worked up over cameras.
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
Originally Mike Godwin called it "Godwin's Rule". I'm not sure at what point it morphed into a law.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Do you really think the Boston police are going to abuse this technology to try to 'root out' political opponents? Is the English language going to slowly shrink into a Newspeak-like oppressive-thought system?
No. Its not.
Yes. It is and will.
Charges dropped against two Bush protestors who were arrested for wearing anti-bush T-shirts
and lets not forget about the special "protesting zones" set up for anti-Bush protestors, far far away from Bush, but pro-Bush supporters are allowed to come in and make it look as if everyone is in support of Bush to the media.
Orwell's work is timeless and applies to any concept of government. If you actually read and understood it, you would see that. (Orwell never mentions the British government in his book - the story is fictional based on his observarions of people and governments everywhere).
Are we in 1984 yet? No. We are a long way off. However, I do believe we are slowly getting there and I welcome anyone who wants to makes comparisons.
The book is about a government controlling the whereabouts of their citicens.
Things like installing camera's in public places, wiretapping without court order, demanding things like creditcard information for x-referencing when entering a country (1) and so f***ing on.
Like a terrorist will have just one suspicious crecitcard. -DUH-
Privacy is terrorism.
Yes, my first post sucked. It was karma whoring at its basest. I've read your entire post and nodded my head. Your post, this article, AndroidCat's reply, and this article have made this teenager slightly less ignorant. Thank you. (I'll be willing to put that in writing if you want.)
Now, here's why I think this article is dangerous, sans my contorted view of Godwin's Rule.
Rather than discuss the negative ramnfications of recording people in public, the ACLU director Barry Steinhardt is quoted as saying "What this demonstrates is that '1984' is now technologically possible."
The problems with this I have are that 75 cameras viewing the public does not demonstrate that 1984's millions of cameras in home and in public are feasable. It does not discuss the negative effects of cameras in public. It stirs fear by using a book as reference, a book that includes torture as a punishment for thought crime.Plus, references to 1984 are almost as done to death as references to Nazis.
Hmmm? I thought so.
It's amazing how just a little juxtaposition could change everything.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
Secondly, the linguistics of the first clause are not restrictive. They are explanitory. If I said, "since it is necessary for you to drink orange juice to get your intake of vitamin C, no one shall deny anyone the right to have an orange juice", would you argue that I only intend to protect YOUR right to drink OJ, and not those of other individuals? It does provide some rationale as to WHY they wanted "the rights of the people to keep and bear arms" to not be infringed upon.
Furthermore, your interpretation makes absolutely no sense. Why would the government need to grant any army the right to have arms? Plus, using your interpretation, the 2nd ammendment is a grant of power to the government, instead of a guarantor of individual rights, which would make it completely out of character for the Bill of Rights, which is all about limiting what the governemnt is allowed to do. Logically that interpretation makes no sense and is out of line with what the founders intended.
If the anti-gun lobby were honest they would say that the second ammendment is a "dangerous anachronism" that needs to be repealed, instead of trying to pretend that it doesn't say what it clearly says. At least that would be intellectually honest. Then we could have an honest debate about the need (or lack thereof) of such a right. Unfortunately I don't see this happening.
----- Question authority, but not ours. Hate the man, but we're not him.
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.
An "Extreme Libertarian(tm)" that becomes pragmatic and gives up freedoms when safety is a concern. Um. Yeah. We call those Conservatives or Republicans where I'm from.
That creepy voice imploring you "if you see something, say something" is on the subway PA about every 15 minutes.
The stations and trains are covered in posters depicting "vigilant" citizens doing their part to protect Freedom, close-ups of an eye reminding you that our enemies only wait for you to drop your guard - really straight out of some cheesy science fiction movie about a semi-futuristic totalitarian regime.
Now apparently they are going to be doing random bag-checks for the DNC (I think they've decided on bag screens now, not sure if that's better or worse), and I am sure that's going to stop right after the DNC is over.
So yeah, the MBTA is definitely doing their part in the whole fear mongering campaign.
sic transit gloria mundi
There may be 10,000 CCTV cameras in london, most of which are probably on private land, shopping centers, inside shops or pointed at road trafic.
Only the high-street cameras are easilly accessable to the police, then trafic cameras which just requires phoning up the trafic monitoring station... after which it requires people handing over VHS cassettes or being issuesd with writs fromthe court to do so.
But the federal goverment is installing these cameras, not a city law inforcement, or even a state law inforcement.... I don't know about you but I think that's the most scary part.