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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."
I have been away from Chicago for the past twenty years only to return for the summer, and no it isn't any greener. It is stinkier and bigger than ever.
...Anonimity in public will no longer be an option since public space will be taken over by private overlords!
The green spaces have been eaten up. The farm I grew up on a half hour out of town is now a housing project surrounded by housing projects.
The trees look diseased today compared to the photos I took as a child and the city spills out so far into what was once quiet country it is astounding. Even more astounding is that it is filled with morons who will spend a big chunk of their waking hours in stinky big SUV's in an endless sea of traffic.
Any gain achieved in offshoring all the stinky factories to low regulation china seems to be offset by all these overstuffed single passenger ATV's that ceaselessly creep along the pavement day and night.
Seems like the beaches are plagued with closings due to contamination more than they were twenty years ago ( I don't remember one once)... and I really wonder how a beach can be dangerously contaminated one day and less than twenty four hours later be declared conveniently safe for the weekend. I know I am not touchin that filthy polio filled sewage they call "Lake Michigan".
probably the most amazing thing is that the notorious Officer Jon Burge is finally on the stand for the abuse he has been committing ever since he came back from the viet nam. He probably just pissed off the wrong person after shaming the city with the constant amnesty international condemnations the Daley's finally had to give him up to maintain the rest of their abuses.
Sure property values are up, but so is lending in these low interest days.
Thing is most of these people with their "valuable" properties are up to their eyeballs in debt with their home mortgage tied into their credit cards. I imagine most folks are just a few paychecks away from bankruptcy. They don't own their homes at all, the banks do.
For all of the "security measures" I have noticed to be added since I left 20 years ago, they don't seem too effective. Most of the federal buildings that have been fortified still have major chinks in their armor wide open for a truck bomb to drive thru. The subways are patrolled by fat poorly trained german shepards with muzzles, which indicates they are more than likely loose cannon attack dogs made to look like explosives dogs, but really just look like pets with ADD the way they pay little attention to their handlers. It's typical chicago window dressing.
Along with the Cameras in Chicago, the Governor wants new legislation on the tollways (the same tollways that were legislated to become freeways once they paid for themselves over twenty years ago)to double the tolls for people who don't use the government tracking devices called "I-Pass"..
Guess the saying is true, the more things change... the more they stay the same
Since the cameras will not be publicly accessible they will in effect be privatizing public space.
In many ways, the cameras are probably a good Idea. Chicago is populated with violent subliterate people who have little concern for the law.
Mobsters like Capone are still idolized here.
Unfortunatly these are the same punch drunk morons that "enforce" the laws so in the end sum, they will probably be more offensive than defensive to the citizens. Cops will use the cameras to prey on the weak just like they use their badges, billy clubs and cattle prods today.
Don't they ever vote in Chicago?