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Chicago Pondering Huge Camera Network
andyring writes "According to ABC7 in Chicago, mayor Daley rolled out plans to install thousands of video cameras in public places across the Windy City. In some ways, I suppose there are positives, as all the existing and future cameras are tied in to the 911 emergency center, allowing a 911 dispatcher to actually watch the area in question when someone dials 911. Dispatchers will be able to control some of the cameras, such as panning and zooming in."
Sort of off topic, but can any Chicagoans explain this Daley family thing? Is this like some dynasty that won't die?
I'm surprised this family is still around and in power, am I missing something as to how great they are or something?
Your hybrid is not saving the environment. Its purpose is to make you feel good about buying something.
With the pan/tilt and zoom features, what's to stop a camera from peering into a window? How long until they start adding things like infrared or night-vision? Maybe I'm just speaking for the tin-foil hat brigade, but these questions need to be asked.
This says nothing of the rights of the accused to face their accuser. When one of these systems is used to, say, issue a traffic citation, who's the accuser? You have no witness to the crime. It opens up a whole new can of worms, IMO.
There is a difference between "insightful" and "inciteful" other than spelling.
OK, so it might sound 1984ish to have cameras everyone in public. Certainly it makes me nervous. But how is this survailence worse than what the IRS has been doing for the last 20 years at least? The IRS is already entitled to every bank and ATM transaction, every credit card transaction, a record of all the charities you give to, a record of all income you make, and if you are a buisness, a record of everything you spend your money on. All this long before The Patriot Act or 9/11 or George W Bush or the War on Terror / War on Drugs.
Certainly tracking a person's every financial transaction is far more dangerous to democracy - (Did you order those movie tickets to Farienheit 9/11 by phone? The government has a record! Did you donate to the Green Party, or the Natural Law Party, or The Libertarian Party? Who you vote for might be secret ballot, but the government knows who you donated to! Did you fly out and rent a hotel to participate in a protest? The government knows! Pay by credit card for your web server? Don't think your controversial political web blog can't be traced to you!).
You never hear a peep from so called "Civil Libertarians" about what I mentioned above... probably because challenging the complete and total financial survailence of every American means that it would be hard to tax people, and be hard to pay for those expensive government entitlement programs that have so effectivly eliminated poverty, racism, and war (yeah right!).
Having cameras in public places is more akin to having a police officer on every corner. Yes, it can (and probably will) be abused... but people are regularly abused by Police officers without using any hidden cameras. And at least in public places, there is the understanding that you are in public and can't expect total privacy.
It seems to me that people are OK with Big Brother, so long as Big Brother will give us the illusion of "freedom". The government can know everything single detail about your political, social, and economic life. But god forbid they catch you on camera picking your nose or something!
Brings back memories of Chicago 1968.
Those of us who watched events unfold on television, can never forget the name Daley or the Chicago Police Force. This was one of the defining events of my generation.
Excellent point. If the goal is to deter crime, rather than, say, to spy on people.
Let me start out by saying that I'm not at all in favor of this move and I'm not much of a fan of Daley.
But lets clear up a couple of things:
He isn't planning to "install thousands of cameras." He's planning to centralize the monitoring of the existing cameras, while installing "a few hundred" more. Yes, "a few hundred" is vague, but the significance of this move is NOT the installing of these cameras, but rather the centralization. He could have installed those other hundreds of cameras without saying a word. Centralizing them, though, becomes a big deal, because it creates the "Big Brother" possibility. Bottom line: Most of these cameras already exist.
As for Daley himself: There are a lot of replies about Meigs and about all the bullshit Daley pulls. For background on this, read Boss by Mike Royko or read any and all of John Kass's columns in the Chicago Tribune (there is a particularly good recent one about his long-standing "freindship" with Daley) (free reg. req.).
On Meigs: The closure of Meigs did NOT place any further burden on any other airports. Meigs was ONLY general aviation and provided NO long-term parking. Furthermore, Meigs was scheduled to be closed in 2005. I, myself, was sorry to see it go (I have taken off and landed from Meigs only a couple of times, but they were plenty of fun). It WAS shady how he closed it, but you get over that. That's how politics work in Chicago.
Chicago wouldn't be Chicago without Chicago politics. City Hall is corrupt. Corrupt as hell. But it works. And it is a government of the People. Daley is from Bridgeport, a blue collar neighborhood southwest of downtown. You'll see truck drivers, construction workers, factory workers who are better connected than the richest businessmen in the city. In some sense, its the universal equalizer.
Chicago politics are great; great in a neverending-amusement way. But while you can bitch and moan about civil liberties in relation to these cameras (I'll be there right along with you), pay attention to what actually is being done here: The innovation here is CENTRALIZATION, not INSTALLATION.
For whatever reason, this same flight simulator (or one that borrowed the map)is the default loadout.
Earlier this year, just before a customer meeting, I found out that you could fly the thing using just the throttle and the yoke (I figured you needed extensive knowledge of the rest of the hundred some switches and dials). Initially only one person was watching me, but eventually a crowd had gathered by the time that I had gathered enough speed to hit the diamond head building. The crowd was conflicted between laughing (which they would have done openly, four years ago) and gaping in horror. Someone laughably mentioned that I should go to jail for my act.
postmodernsideshow.com