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."'"

Comments

Hats

[toetagger1]

So will you still be allowed to wear hats or other facial coverings, so that you can't be identified by those cameras? Or would that be ruled as "unpatriotic" and grounds to be arrested?

So, here's the question I find interesting.

[mcc]

Let's say-- we of course hope this will not happen, but stuff is hard to predict-- there are, as is sometimes unavoidable in a situation where there are protesters (and I'm sure there will be protesters) instances of police brutality during the upcoming DNC.

And let's say that the police cameras record this.

Do you suppose anything will come of said recordings?

Another question: when Britain installed similar cameras, there was some thing where some tripped-out version of the FOIA would allow you to request any film they had of you on those cameras. Does Massachusetts have any kind of state-local version of the FOIA that would allow private organizations to request copies of these Boston street cameras?

Re:Security vs Liberty.

[noname3]

I've handed over thousands of dollars in cash for computers no problem. The worst flak I've ever caught was "may I see some ID?" while $1000 in 20s were passed under a UV light. I initially declined, but then flashed my driver's license because I didn't want to go to another store. Nothing was noted down, the cashier was too busy checking bills.

I've only been ID'd once, but I've bought PCs, a laptop, and a thousand dollar PDA all in cash with no problem. Everyone has checked at least half the bills under a UV lamp though.

Hell, a bunch of places have offered to let me avoid tax on small items if I pay in cash.

Let's do the same to the government!

[dbretton]

I propose that we put a video camera in every hallway and every office of all major government buildings and play the videos back in all major cities across America.

Re:Security vs Liberty.

[BlackHawk-666]

I think you guys in the USA mustn't have been paying attention lately. You have very little real freedom left. With the DMCA, surveilence cameras, a state that locks people up without charges and detains them indefintely, and a media so powerful they won't even let you share your films with your own friends over the internet, about all you have left is freedom of speech - and even that is in doubt. You fingerprint people as they enter your country, have IP laws that stop small software innovators from releasing a competitive product and still enforce the death penalty (which no civilised country still uses). 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.

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?