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Sousveillance in Seattle - Watching the Watchers
Eh-Wire writes "At the recent ACM Conference on Computers, Freedom and Privacy, Steve Mann - cyborg numero uno - led a troop of conference attendees on a surveillance camera hunt and digital capture. Their antics confounded rent-a-cops in a downtown Seattle shopping mall who had difficulty with the concept of having their surveillance cameras surveilled."
"What I argue is that if I'm going to be held accountable for my actions that I should be allowed to record ... my actions," Mann said. "Especially if somebody else is keeping a record of my actions."
Does this make sense to anyone?
Taking pictures of cameras taking pictures of you is not keeping a record of your own actions.
Further, unless he's alleging that video will be doctored, the record that is kept of him, privacy issues aside, is just that. How is taking pictures of the devices recording YOU going to prevent them from improperly keeping an accurate photographic record of your own actions. Again, whether they SHOULD be keeping record of your actions is beside the point for this specific question.
All these are - wallets that require someone else to swipe their ID to see your ID, etc. - are just publicity stunts to get people thinking about privacy. Great. People should be thinking about it. But then they jump from the likes of the GAP in a mall to government (???), and apparently liken a lowly employee in the mechanics of either someone who should themselves have to give up personal information for simply asking for identification for whatever purpose (again, the extent that it is appropriate is beside the point).
Seems a little wrongheaded to me.
To say nothing of the fact that almost all malls are private property.
Mann asked the guard why, if the Mont Blanc cameras were recording him, he couldn't, in turn, record the cameras.
Why should a random private mall employee have a philosophical privacy and surveillance discussion with some self-righteous, cynical privacy advocate. Who, by the way, expects exactly what happened, i.e., worthless responses, to happen?
But sure to please and amuse countless slashdotters, I'm sure. (Yeah. Because confusing near-minimum wage mall security is really hard.)
Oh, if only world politics worked this way.
U.S: We wish to disarm Iraq.
Iraq: Bzzt. We're sorry, but in order to disarm our weapons, you must disarm your weapons too.
Mann quoted Simon Davies of Privacy International, a London-based nonprofit that monitors civil liberties issues: "The totalitarian regime is the regime that would like to know everything about everyone but reveal nothing about itself," Mann said.
Good luck getting inspectors into places in the US.
If only there were someone with a camera with enough balls/stupidity/both to try that out? Michael Moore anyone?
/^[A-Z0-9._%+-]+@[A-Z0-9.-]+\.[A-Z]{2,4}$/i
Gee, that's tough to do.
Do we need some new government work programs here? Do these people really have this much free time? One of those wack jobs actually was a professor, getting paid to be a nutbag off tax payers' and students' dime.
Someone you trust is one of us.
At the Gap, photographers were told they couldn't take pictures because the Gap didn't want competitors to study and copy its clothing displays.
Good laugh. All they need to do it walk in and LOOK at it. Duh.
in any event, I don't think malls are the best place to start - I think public cameras, being monitored by government agencies, or cameras placed in locations where we live would be a more justified target. Malls have a right to protect their assets from shoplifters. On the other hand, I'd argue that a property manager or government agency doesn't necessarily have the right to watch me as I come and go, who I'm with, or anything else of that nature.
Ok, this is either the art of looking at sauce, the art of looking under tables, or the art of spying on Dr. Seuss.
Karma be damned, correct the spelling in the titles, please.
The relationship then of authority to civilian is one of dominance and subordination. The ideas presented at the conference are attempting to redefine that relationship.
This is my last post.
[6th Estate]
used a smoked-glass oval guard tower to induce discipline and good behavior
Sounds an awful lot like Las Vegas casinos to me.
...
Oh wait, you say it was designed for a prision. Oh, I suppose that makes sense too.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
More then a few of them were quite effective, ex-military and reservists that enjoyed providing protection, whether it was to people, goods or property. They weren't morons incapable of rational or deep philosophical conversations. They just ended up where they ended up and felt comfortable where they were.
If you ignore the other uses of a tool, does that make the tool less useful, or you less useful?
...that give privacy advocates a bad name. He's not a professor, he's a performance artist.
Rather than playing into the recipients insecurities, why not cause their partners to realize how dissatisfied they are?
You get a breast enlargement spam. You start thinking, "Man, it *would* be nice if she had bigger boobs. Maybe I'll get her this cream."
Meanwhile, she's checking her e-mails and thinking, "Hmm, needledick could use some help. Maybe if I get pills from this one place, and a vacuum pump from this other one..."
Not that they really intended that, but it's another valid way to market. ED pill commercials often show how much happier the women are.
500GB of disk, 5TB of transfer, $5.95/mo
Who watches the watchers watching the watchers?
These kind of publicity stunts annoy me because they're devoid of any real solutions. Stores need cameras to catch shoplifters and prevent petty crimes. Is Mann advocating that these cameras be removed? No - he's just saying we should be "aware" of all the surveillance. Okay, fine, we're aware, but what's your specific solution? Oh, you don't have one? Then go away.
Tristan Yates
these are the people who are not licensed peace officers, can't carry a gun, can't leave store property, and failed out of the police academy.
Since we're on the theme of rent-a-cops, and since this article is about one of the most useless activities that has taken place in a while, I thought I might entertain you with the lyrics from Ben Folds's "Rent-a-Cop":
I'm 'trolling food court for girls
Yeah, it's the best job in the world
They know they're safe with me
They love my little mustache
They love a man in uniform
Oh
With my sunglass they can't
See what I'm really looking at
And as they're walking by
I whisper through my doughnut
Hey baby, baby light that ass on fire
How long must this day go on?
I got to stand here two more hours till I
Punch the clock
How long must this day go on?
No kid, they don't give me a gun
I don't get paid enough to run
So you can call me what you want
I'll be hanging at the check out
Checking out your girlfriend
Figure out how she's going to fit all of that
Butt into that underwear - yeah
Yeah
Hey girl if you can't recall
Where you parked your daddy's car
Then I could help you out
All alone in this
great big mall
Oh
How long must this day go on?
I got to stand here two more hours
Till it's Miller Time
How long must this day go on?
Whoa oh oh, oh oh
I'm 'trolling food court for girls
I whisper through my doughnut
I whisper through my doughnut
I whisper through my doughnut
Hey baby baby, hey baby baby baby
Light that
Light that ass on fire
Alright, that's good
Ironically, the word ironically is often used incorrectly.
It sounds like a bunch of people who are trying to make a good point are basically just making life more difficult for the new generation of blue collar workers who staff service industries and who consider their days blessed if they can get through them uneventfully. Especially middle-layer managers of mall chains, whose job description is basically to make problems go away as quickly as possible before somebody notices.
Then again, when I was slinging burgers as a youth, somebody creating a scene would have been a welcome distraction. Still, I think their point is well-meant but poorly-executed. Most retail chains are going to disallow photography inside the retail space for a number of reasons, most of which your typical manager is utterly ignorant. So the fact that stores were ushering them out is irrelevent. If they were taking pictures of the color of the walls or the brand name of the urinal cakes, they should have expected a similar response.
A cute idea that, like most of these kinds of demonstrations, ultimately makes transparent that the people engaging in these kinds of stunts aren't that bright. I'm all in favor of privacy advocacy but this kind of stuff ... well, at best it raises awareness, at worse it paints privacy advocates as misguided loonies. I question whether or not the stunt is worth the tradeoff, especially since it doesn't really prove or demonstrate anything other than the obvious fact that private retail spaces typically disallow photography of any kind on their grounds.
"I have never won a debate with an ignorant person." -Ali ibn Abi Talib
At Nordstrom, an undercover security guard who looked like Baby Spice and sported a badge identifying her as Agent No. 1, summoned a manager who told Mann that customers would be disturbed by the handheld cameras.
Illogically, she didn't have a problem with participants pointing their conference bag domes around the store to take photos, just with the handheld cameras.
The author needs to read his own article before calling this illogical. She was concerned with customer comfort, and people often don't like to see folks taking pictures in a place where they're trying on clothes. Her logic is perfectly consistent in that she knows that the bag domes go virtually unnoticed by the customer, whereas the handhelds don't.
Also, what does the "Baby Spice" dig contribute here, other than letting everyone know how immature the author is?
RTFA be damned, I stopped reading at this point.
This seems like such nonsense..what is the point of videotaping or photographing the cameras? How does videotaping a camera that is videotaping you deliver on the following quote from the article? ... my actions," Mann said. "Especially if somebody else is keeping a record of my actions.???
o .html?
"What I argue is that if I'm going to be held accountable for my actions that I should be allowed to record
Now actually taping your ACTIONS makes perfect sense if you are going to be doing something that is potentially dangerous or you expect to have a brush with the law. The New York Times just had an article on how a bunch of "amateur" video tapes of the Republican Convention protests have shown that the NYPD have either doctored evidence or simply lied about what protesters did when they were arrested.
Among other incidents, the amateur video shows defendents who were charged with resisting arrest in no way putting up a fight when arrested.
link to article http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/nyregion/12vide
------ How can making people laugh lead to bad karma?
Actually, there is a pretty strong reason to prevent taking photos of security devices. That is, preventing intrusion. The first thing a thief does when entering a monitored area is to somehow fool the security - and it's much harder if the security devices are unknown. Yes, security through obscurity - the obscurity being just one of elements of the system, not the only one - is more efficient. A well planned robbery would require detailed plans of the building, with focus on the security devices. Obviously the management wants to prevent that. ...although, in the era of miniature cameras that can be easily hidden in a handbag etc, taking photos in a way not visible to the shop security is quite easy...
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i worked on a project sort of like this with a collective in chicago. we mapped and documented surveillance camera's in chicago's loop (downtown) area. our site is up at http://open-loop.org/.
we had some issues with security guards asking us not to tape, but mostly restricted our documentation to public areas (cameras monitoring public space), so it wasn't as much of an issue.
the surveillance camera players have some more camera maps on their site
and probably my favorite application of this idea is the institute for applied autonomy's i-see , which allows users to map a "path of least surveillance" through nyc.
Just saying, you find all types...
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When are we going to have a group that is watching Cyveillance? If you don't know who this organization is, you should.
... the Simpsons espiode when Homer discovers his Hippie roots and drives around town with the jester hat on "freaking out" the squares?
Is a great ideer. I should at least be able to record who recorded my ID.
So when I get my creditcard bill, I can see that Greg Pinpolowsky wanted to see my ID when I bought my last computer. However I think the shops would dislike of this, private persons "gathering" personal information is generaly disliked, since few would trust them not to misuse it.
Corporate bodies however, who are actually in a position to misuse personal information, are generaly trusted.
In Soviet Russia the system is watched over by you!
Say what you will about the paranoia of all these sousveillance nuts, but don't pretend that it doesn't serve a valid purpose. For instance, remember all those RNC convention protestors who got arrested last year? And those sworn affidavits from cops saying that those kids had been kicking and screaming, resisting arrest and so forth? Yeah, those cops were making shit up.
I wonder why this hasn't gotten wider play. Are we now entirely unsurprised when cops perjure themselves? Had it not been for some paranoid kids with camcorders, a lot of people would have been unjustly imprisoned. I mean, more than they already were.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It isn't private. It is opened to the public. The public are invited in. Publicly. As in not a private invite-only.
PS your taxes have gone in subsidies for these places. So it isn't entirely privately funded, either.
"Mann sported his signature camera eyewear, while some of the other participants wore CFP conference bags around their necks. The bags had a dark plastic dome stitched on one side -- modeled after store surveillance domes -- which they pointed randomly at passersby, unnerving them."
No kidding this was unnerving. Whenever anybody displays behavior ooutside the norm and tries forcing themselves upon passerbys it's always unnerving, Mann et al are not special in this case. I'm guessing the large group of pale, nerdy looking people would be unnerving enough, the plastic bubbles were merely icing on the cake.
This article deserves no coverage whatsoever. This is merely an attempt to elicit a predictable reaction from ordinary individuals going about their daily business; merely a vain effort to highlight a supposed injustice that... get this... doesn't even exist.
Sorry, I had to.
There are 10 types of people in the world. Those that understand this sig, and those that beat up people who do.
Silly premise if you ask me. Maybe for a good cause, maybe for cheap publicity, maybe for ego gratification, maybe all and more.
Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
"Why should a random private mall employee have a philosophical privacy and surveillance discussion ..."
Why should anybody be held accountable for doing anything, as long as their boss told them to?
Are you also the sort of person who believes that we should tip waiters who give crappy service, just because it's a hard job with little pay? Do you also believe that we should buy things from telemarketers because it's a hard job with little pay?
Geez, did it ever occur to you that maybe the only way to get these ridiculous policies changed is to actually question them?
dom
Much like the example, I walked around a store, and looked up at random video cameras throughout the store. This so freaked out the store manager on duty that she called the police, and not one, not two, but THREE cops showed up to deal with me.
Now, I could be wrong, but I think that it is a little extream to have the cops come out after you just for looking at the camera's in a store. I am also in charge of the security cameras at my college, and if someone started looking up at them, I would think "They must be interested in security cameras" and if they photographed them, I would wonder why, but for goodness sake...
I may get flaimed for this, but I think that America is turning more and more into a police state. The more we want protection, the happier we are to give up our rights and thank the person we are giving them to.
I've discovered it's often, perhaps even usually the case that protestors want to make noise about something and "raise awareness" but don't actually have a solution to anything. Not supprising, it's easy to have an uninformed opinion on something, and go scream about it. It's much to really grasp the complete issue. It's much, much harder to then come up with a workable solutions for it.
Many people want to feel like they are making a difference, so they get involved with a cause. But they only want to do the fun parts of stirring things up. It's boring and difficult, sometimes to the point of impossibility, to really research an issue and try to come up with a brilliant solution that will make things better.
After all, if the solution was really obvious, it probably would have been implemented, or at the very least suggested, by now.
Your last point is pretty interesting, but I think you have every right for the person asking to see your ID to "prove" who they are before you allow them to see it. You are recording that person X asserted authority in situation Y with respect your conduct attempted conduct of action Z at point in time T. Finally, shame on the retards who willingly usher in the era of big brother under the notion that power isn't going to be abused. It is *always* abused, whether legally or not, just wait and see.
You seem to have outrage without a solution, too.
How peculiar.
Of course some would say the real purpose of art is to provoke, and this certainly passes the test on that front. In a Post 9/11 era world it's amazing the surveillance-surveillance wasn't halted on possible terrorism suspicions.
I have a nice cell phone I can no longer bring to work because it contains a digital camera. The Gym where I work out prohibits camera cell phones as well and not just in the locker rooms, but the Gym area, which ironically is on complete view from the street with floor to ceiling windows.
I have friends who like to snap pictures of random individuals and then deride these strangers later for their looks, clothing, or activity -- "Look at this Bozo." There are people who don't like to have their pictures taken for just this reason, with digital photography costing next to nothing these days it is happening more and more. In the past such people were just being paranoid, today they are being realistic -- not that it really should mater if someone you don't know is making fun of your clothes behind your back.
I guess I'm a bit conflicted about all this. I would like to be able to take my pictures anytime anywhere I would like, but I understand why some people would have a problem with it. Storeowners don't typically like people behaving in ways that discourage patronage. Someone clicking away uninvitedly at you while you shop kind of has this feel.
I would support stores having to clearly mark possible surveillance equipment, whether real or not. I would also support public access to government surveillance equipment that monitors public areas.
As for what I can do with my camera on private property, perhaps the privacy issue lies with the storeowners and not the camera wielding performance artists.
Letter To Iran
Taking pictures of cameras taking pictures of you is not keeping a record of your own actions.
hth, hand
Mann said that duplicity is often necessary in order to mirror the Kafkaesque nature of surveillance.
See, it's a lampoon of people who use the word Kafkaesque when they don't know what Kafkaesque means!
Please, ma'am.. No meat touching!
(What is she going to turn into a bug?)
Try to understand, he's just a man
A warrior of words taking a stand
He is Franz Kafka!
Livin' like a bug ain't easy.
I got tiny little bug feet
I don't really know what bugs eat
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
civilian: Tum de deee. I'mjust out walking
authority: Show me your ID.
civilian: Why?
authority: Because I have a suspicion you are a criminal
civilian: Why?
authority: Because you're resisting arrest?
civilian: How?
authority: See? You're doing it again!
As I've often said: "Who watches the watchers??"... Here's an enterpreneurial startup idea: stealth clothing!
Looked like Baby Spice?
This thread is useless without pictures!
comeon if you really want to find out what the turdstools are up to breakout the laser bounce listening device detection tools
Steve M is mad. really. Everyone else at the MIT Media Lab was scared of him. The girlfriends of his roommates were extra scared, as they couldnt tiptoe down the corridor to the bathroom at night without fear of SteveM popping out, camera on his head, to catch them in their undies.
I agree with you, you do need the odd bleeding-edge nutter around, and he fits the "odd" bill nicely. I just dont want him round me.
To really make things equal, my camera would have to be focused on the security guards monitoring the camera. Having the guards take pictures of me while I take pictures of their camera is not equal.
Remember that guy in Washington State who obtained the names, addresses and social security numbers of everyone who worked for law enforcement, the courts and other dept. of justice personel and published them on a web site? The site is now down but as far as I have been able to determine it was not because of any legal ruling. Now think about the recent debacle with Choicepoint and Lexis-Nexis. How would the officers and employees of those companies like it if the people collected their personal information and made it available to anyone? The watchers ARE THE PARANOIDS and history shows they cannot be trusted. Combine this with greedy corporatism and you have a recipe for the recent disasters. Any revolutionary /.ers feel free to get hold of me.
http://epresence.tv/mediaContent/website_archived. aspx?dir=Open~Source~and~Free~Software:~Concepts,~ Controversies~and~Solutions~(May~9-11,~2004)
Scroll to the bottom of the page to find his talk in the list.
Cheers,
Richard
I'm from the US, so I don't mind if Steve Mann wastes Canadians taxpaying money. They're a social democracy, anyway!
cheers.
until you try to fly. Then the "watchers" have every right to take your gear away and make you submit to a cavity search. If Mann wishes to reverse the panopticon, he might do himself a service and reread some foucault. It might then become painfully clear that no-matter how small his gear becomes, no-matter how inconspicuous his reversal is, the power to search his asshole ultimately lies with those who primarily held the ultimate surveillance card.
As an engineering student at the University of Toronto ("Toike Oike! Toike Oike! Ollum te chollum te chay!" etc.) I shudder everytime I read anything along the lines of "Mann, a University of Toronto professor...". To my knowledge he hasn't taught a class in two years, and hasn't taught anything besides a postgrad seminar based on his own book - moreover his published work is repetitive and focused on his personal goal of becoming a cyborg. His lab is very small in proportion to his media profile and commercially (rather than research) -oriented.
In general this makes me feel badly for some of the truly excellent professors UofT has doing pioneering research in a wide range of fields. They tend to labour in anonymity because their work (in many cases with wider implications than Mann's) is less understandable to the general public and keeps them sufficiently busy to preclude field trips to Seattle malls. I sincerely hope this stunt wasn't in any way funded by his UofT salary.
In David Brin's "Earth" (science fantasy, but a good read anyway) a percentage of the citizens commonly walked around wearing small cameras, recording/transmitting live everything they saw. In the book these citizens were complete assholes, trying to force everyone else to conform with their narrow moral views, but in our world it could also be used to record the actions of authorities and use those transmitted recordings to keep abuses in check. Which is why at some point I'm sure you'll see legislation banning these devices from use in public places, as even bulkier camcorders are tripping up authority-types who like to break the law and lie in court to cover their asses (RNC being the last big example I can think of). No way, no how is the government going to allow the citizens to surveil *them* with the ease that it surveils *us*.
Mark my words - you heard it hear first, on Slashdot. The legislation will come up, and it will be passed. I give it six, seven years at most.
Max
My god carries a hammer. Your god died nailed to a tree. Any questions?
Whether Steve Mann is a weird or not, recent developments with cops and prosecutors trying to edit video tapes as evidence makes Steve invaluable to commoners.
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Link at this addy:
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2005/04/3
I would much rather have the ability to record (and safely transmit to a server outside of prosecutor's jurisdiction) a video of my interaction with cops than trust in "justice" and "fairness" of our "courts".
He pretends to have working cybord gear. Ask him to look thru and he'll say "well thats personal, its like lending someone your underwear"
But i've been to his lab -- only about 5% of his stuff works. He claims to be a great inventor, but mostly he is a snake oil salesman doing circus prank stunts. And the media loves those stunts, so steve gets a soap box from which to boast about his various amazing achievments without having his credentials checked.
In fact, I would be willing to be $100 that NONE of the "sousveillance conference bags" had cameras -- they were just black domes sowed onto bags. Typical circus shit.
Please, world, check the work of wack-jobs before giving them credit. Notice he publishes in shit weird conferences now, the kind that would admit a randomly generated paper. Because the serious academic community has, for the most, recognized his lies, shinanigans, and academic misconduct.
Kafkaesque is not about turning into bugs. Not only does Gregor in The Metamorphosis not turn into a bug,
but a "monstrous vermin", I found the text to be quite the opposite of what it is perceived as. It is not a nightmarish vision,
but a view on how people perceive someones circumstances more sad than they themselves. It is quite a happy reading with a
sad but hopeful end.
The verb kafkaesque is used as a description of a certain situation which resembles his writing-style. While I have not read much
of Kafka (except The Metamorphosis) my impression is that kafkaesque is used in opressing (imminent danger) or surreal (bizarre
or dreamlike) situations.
So, it's actually used right in this TFA.
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
. . . in a mall.
I do not like them on a wall.
I do not like surveillance cam.
I do not like them Steven Mann.
There's a book by Stephen Baxter and Arthur C Clarke about a new (cheap) technology which allows everyone to monitor everyone else. How it does it is relatively unimportant (wormholes), but sitting in your home in London you could watch a couple in their bedroom in Tokyo, and the latter have no way of knowing, and no way of stopping it (other than making sure it is totally dark).
Great power to the government... but also power to everyone else since people can watch the goverment as well as the government watching them.
Then they figure out how to send the holes back in time, so not only can you watch anyone anywhere, but also anyone at any point in the past. Government and business coverups become almost impossible (as does cheating on your partner or taking a private shower).
Is a 'fair' situation where nobody has any privacy at all better or worse than an imbalanced one where big organisations have privacy and private citizens have only some?
I'm a number, not a free man!
strange how i have never seen any police dashcam footage of the assault. somebody must have captured something...
sum.zero
Your response indicated that you think this whole excercise was silly showboating, and in a way it was. The idea of 'watching the watchers' isn't bad, but they just didn't really think it out very well.
The cameras and the security guards are simply the fingers of the beast. Poking at them does nothing to the brain. They should have looked up the Exec in charge of security and the president of the company, and obtrusivly followed them around for several days recording every thing they do in public. If they ask you about wht you are doing, inform them that you aren't cleared to discuss survelance operations with them, or some similarly oblique nonsense.
Similarly, the best way to put an end to silly intrusive survelance legislation, is to use it to spy on the congressmen and senators who enact it.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
Its only trolling to people who consider alternatives unthinkable.
David Brin pictured in "Earth" a society of total surveillance. Everyone (from nerd to granny) has glasses which record every second of their lives (with todays available storage no problem). This is actually exactly what this article is about. The right to watch if being watched. I would have no problem with this but it would time to get accustomed to this.
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
"He does this in airports for crying out loud."
Yes, where those terrorist seem to thrive. I don't get why an airport is different than a train station.
That's as stupid as people who think having the right papers will "prevent terrorism".
She could not get a real job, after all even former pop stars need work. It worked well for Gary Coleman didn't it?
Sorry about the writing. Robot fingers, you know? Cliff Steele in DOOM PATROL #23
A bug report is something to help a programmer out. You say "hey, I noticed this was broke". Presumably they didn't notice, or it wouldn't be broke. They can then fix it. Here we are talking about a small system, that runs on an imperitive device. That's very different from trying to fix the way something is done in society. You don't just go and edit economy.c to fix a problem with a trade imbalance.
The idea behind protesting should be to bring about some kind of social change. Something is being done that's wrong or at least suboptimal, and we need to fix it. However part of that is having a solution, a fix. Few things in life are perfect and a change in the way we do things will have benefits and consequences. So if you can't say what should be done, and what it's projected benefits and problems will be, how can you be so sure change is necessary or good?
Raising the awarness of a developer of a bug, or a security company of a breach, or an owner of a broken window is useful as is, because that person is in the position to fix it, and in all likelyhood has the desire to fix it. Raising awareness of a particular condition in the world isn't very useful, if it isn't also coupled with a solution.
Yes, I'm quite aware there are cameras in department stores. What do you suggest should be done? I have to hear your idea, the reasoning, and some discussion about ramifications before I can decide if it's better or worse than how things are done now. Just saying "be aware that this exists" makes me say "So? I already knew that."
The art of looking under. I'll leave to your imagination exactly what they're looking under.
Your first point, about "forcing" people to think, has some validity -- there can be times when it's appropriate to force people to think, perhaps because some injustice is taking place which needs to be called to people's attention, but there may be other times when such forcing may be less justifiable.
However, that has little to do with the pledge of allegiance issue which you raise. The issue there is that the pledge is something that is supposed to be shared by all US citizens, and even more pertinently, said by children under the direction of teachers in public schools. In that situation, significant coercion is being applied, on multiple levels, to children to have them say "under god", no matter what their beliefs on the matter, or, for that matter, the beliefs of their parents. Their only alternative, to refuse to say it, is likely to be a socially costly exercise -- the sort of thing that is going to raise people to have strong, even radical feelings on the matter.
This is precisely one of the reasons behind the principle of separation of church and state. You don't want to apply coercion to your own citizens on matters of deep personal belief -- it's only going to get you in trouble.
For 62 years from the time it was written, the pledge was something which could be shared by all citizens, until Congress stepped in and hijacked it in the name of religion. In so doing, they expressly violated the Constitutional clause which reads "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion". Congress could get away with that because it happened during the McCarthy era, when religion was seen as a bastion against communism, which was associated with atheism.
Today, there's no excuse for it, and even those of religious faith should recognize that it's not in their own interests to impose such a thing on their fellow citizens. If they refuse to acknowledge that, they are merely setting up an "us against them" situation, and relying on their majority status to be able to have their way. Such people should be ashamed of themselves, especially considering that most of them are Christians, since they are certainly not following the spirit of Jesus Christ on this matter.
Here's a realPlayer link to today's DemocracyNow show:
5 /april/video/dnB20050414a.rm&proto=rtsp&screensize =double
http://play.rbn.com/?url=demnow/demnow/demand/200
This is why all demonstrators need their own video.
This is so true dude -- plus, this guy is the cheapest guy ever who always screws his grad students. It is funny how he is the biggest proponent of wearcomp, but when it comes to screwing people, he is the first to take it off :) The most dishonest cyborg ever lol
The cops doctored their versions of events to mysteriously leave out the parts which would have exonerated the protestors. The cops cannot be trusted to tell the truth. Giving them the video cameras fixes nothing.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
Steve Mann describes himself as a 'cyborg.' He wears his computer (several thousands of dollars worth of embedded equipment). He says himself that he has become dependant on his technology for getting around. In fact in one interview (can't remember the site) he said that it takes him a few days to adjust to living without his computer when he has to take it off. Now, ideally for Mann he would be allowed to take his computer everywhere. However, it is a major inconvinience for him if everywhere he goes he is stopped by security guards and managers worried about the camera mounted over his eye. Would make sense for him to try and raise awareness, I think.
Before everyone yells at them and tell them to take off their tinfoil hat, let me clear something up.
I think that many people have a rightful distrust of those in authority, because often those in power tend to abuse that power to stay in power.
For instance- Let's say that you're pulled over by the police. They have their cameras recording your every action. If you had complete 100% trust in your government, there would be no need to film the police doing their job, since they're already filming it for you. But all too often they abuse that power and selectively lose/find recordings. If an officer unlawfully beat someone, do you think the recording would ever be used in that person's favor? Not likely, since it wouldn't be in the police department's best interest to share that information.
This is about more than just videotapes. This is about keeping the balance of power in the citizens' favor, the way it should be. Remember, the US is supposed to have a government run by the people, under the citizens' supervision. The citizens control and monitor the government, it's not the other way around.
The acting is bad, but the story is interesting.
You could've hired me.
Steve Mann teaches in Canada, and this conference is in Seattle. So that means he had to cross the US-Canada border. What's clearly missing from this article is Dr. Mann's experience with border crossings, looking like a Cyborg, especially with his special wallet which requires an ID in order to show you his ID.
Personally, I think the latter concept is great. But this really begs the question of why the border crossing experience wasn't newsworthy enough to be printed? One would think that Mann's behaviour ought to get some kind of rise out of the Customs people.
So either Customs didn't do anything, or what they did do wasn't noteworthy enough to be picked up by the Press.
I'm really curious whether Customs has any problem whatsoever with being challenged in their job; as Mann's approach implies he would indeed challenge them. Or did he do so whatsoever (which would seem hypocritical, given his efforts).
The best way to predict the future is to create it. - Peter Drucker.
Why, I remember back in my ol' whipper-snapper days as the bartender out West in some place called Dodge City. Yessiree, those were the days. Never a dull day in site! If it weren't some poor 'ol bank robber gettin' shot at the bar, it was a stabbin' over by the pool table. Ah kinda felt sorry fer ta poor janitor that had t' clean up tha mess everday.
By comparason, them kids workin' at McDonalds don't have nuthin' to worry 'bout.
Here at Johns Hopkins, we're swarmed with a new network of "smart" cameras all over the neighborhood. These cameras film not only campus, but are pointed out into the surrounding area and mounted to any nearby building with a Hopkins affiliation. The software in this system tries to predict threats by analyzing movements.
The part about this that troubles me the most is that actions that are programmed to cause a response from security are mostly those of people not wanting to be filmed. Walking by obstructions, putting on a hood - any attempt not to be watched gets the security patrol running after you. Anonymity isn't a crime.
If they wanted to do this on campus fine - no one's forcing students to go to school there - but the fact that they're watching many community members on public streets with no University affiliation makes me sick.
THe "purpose" of a professor is largely divisable into two parts.
The first, and less important is to transfer a small subset of the basic knowledge in some specific field of endevor.
The second , and much more important is to train and inspire students to THINK while, as required, equipping them to do so.
It seems to me that this particular "wack job" is doing admirably well!
Here's what I don't understand about this stuff. Do Steve Mann and his friends really think there is a right to privacy when they are doing things visible to the naked eye in a heavily-trafficked public place? Does that sound... "private"... to you?
"The Panopticon was a model prison envisioned by philosopher Jeremy Bentham that used a smoked-glass oval guard tower to induce discipline and good behavior in prisoners who could never be certain if they were being watched." Now, if they weren't being watched how'd they know of the improved discipline/good behavior?
You think the police have nothing better to do that harass you?
In some places, yes. I used to live in the small town of Ojai, CA. Pretty much the entire town closed at 5PM and almost nobody was out past 10 or 11PM.
Then I moved up here to Santa Barbara, an hour away. This meant that visiting my girlfriend (still in Ojai) became rare and special and so I would stay down there until the early hours in the morning, 1 or 2 AM, and then head home. Almost *every time* I did this, once or twice a week, I would be pulled over by a cop on my way out of town, asked for me ID, had my ID run and then let go without so much as an accusation.
But, obviously, I'm driving an old car late at night, so I must be some kind of criminal! They just wanted to make sure I wasn't - one of them even told me as much once - and pulled me over to check my ID. Once, one of them heard from another cop over the radio while running my ID that "someone named Forrest" was on probation and not supposed to be out at night, so the other cop drove over to see if he recognized me. (It was a different Forrest). Doesn't that come up on my record when you run my ID? They're just looking for some reason to arrest or at least ticket somebody!
I mean why not? It's reasonable, they spend all day cruising around and ignoring the lame-ass wannabe gang-bangers in that town, harassing the homeless, and confiscating drugs for their own use. They've got to get some actual bookings in there somewhere and the town is just SO BORING that there's never anyone to book!
Of course, making it explicitly legal to refuse ID wouldn't change much. Then they'd just hold you until they could find *some* tiny infraction and get you on that. ID is the least of our problems. The entire legal code needs to be VASTLY simplified such that the average citizen can understand it in its entirety; otherwise, there is no justification for holding someone accountable under laws they can't be reasonably expected to know.
-Forrest Cameranesi, Geek of all Trades
"I am Sam. Sam I am. I do not like trolls, flames, or spam."
This article was interesting to me because it reminded me of the sort of thought experiments I would conduct in my head when I was 11 or 12 while bored and waiting in a store for my mom or dad.
The references to Foucault were nothing you couldn't find in the comic-book-style Introducing Foucault (which also discusses how many high schools are designed similar prisons).
If you know anyone who's gone though a shoplifting 'phase' you'll know that the cameras aren't particularly useful in stopping them. All they have to do is be quick about it and the cameras are the least of their concerns. I think (one of) the primary uses of cameras in these cases is getting people to confess after they've been caught which is typically thanks to the diligence of ON-FOOT guards or the undercover type Wal-mart frequently uses. But once again, if the individual is not CAUGHT with something in their hand it's difficult to prove anything.
In other words, security is still feasible without the use of cameras. But is the 'image' of security still sustainable without them?
dude he stole stuff from my cube, did receipt fraud on Rogers Canada for the money they gave him for a show, he stole stuff from MIT, look in his basement at all the MIT labelled equipment, and he spends all day now sending out "Sponsorship Proposals" to try to get free shit donated, then he moves it from the school to his house. in fact, he got an industrial-strength HOT WATER HEATER donated! He had it delivered to the school (worth like 5K) then had it loaded on to another truck and put into his house!! Fuken fraud!
What you are suggesting reminds me of Freeze Frame, a somewhat interesting look at justified paranoia. The problem with going to all the trouble of recording your own data (biometrics, actions...etc) is that you are held responsible if someone ever sabotages it. So unless you have enough money for fort-knox security... forget about it.
The fact people have to spend all this money to protect their own credability in court is a clear sign of the times we live in and the lack of true democracy anywhere in the world. Maybe a hive society model would be better than all this pretend democracy?
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
At Nordstrom, an undercover security guard who looked like Baby Spice and sported a badge identifying her as Agent No. 1, summoned a manager who told Mann that customers would be disturbed by the handheld cameras.
I live in Seattle, so if someone could kindly tell me which mall this was I can go investigate this matter further.
One of the guards at my local mall was doing just that a few years beack until he hit a light post and messed up the blazer pretty well.
"He has designed a wallet that requires someone to show ID in order to see his ID. The device consists of a wallet with a card reader on it. His driver's license can be seen only partially through a display. And in order for someone to see the rest of his ID, they have to swipe their own ID through the card reader to open the wallet." Shy wallets. Maybe I am missing part of the point but isn't this sort of device a problem if wide spread? If both parties have such a wallet neither could identify themselves. I agree that there is a sort of draconian over emphasis on surveillance and security, I do not want the teller at my bank to be handing out my money to someone claiming to be me.
Hey buddy, when did you last kafkaesque anyway??
What is soo ass-backwards in Amerika is that most stores, for "competitive reasons", particularly electronics stores, prohibit photography, recording, filming, etc. While I don't have a problem with prohibiting SOME snapping, I find it odd in a good way that in Japan, stores and flyers distributers use QR codes to imart or disseminate more information to CUSTOMERS.
Here, in the US, one can see QR codes or similar codes on UPS/Fedex packaging or delivery and warehouse settings. It's great for them, but when I go to a store and want to use buy a product that is not in stock, or I just want more manufacturer information that the underpaid staff can deliver on-demand, it would be NICE to whip out my cell and SCAN the QR code.
To be honest, one computer store (Laox, if I remember correct) employee in Akihabara asked me not to surf from the computer. Maybe it was for competitive reasons, as in I might find the same product cheaper or try to bargain in that store.... But, I told him I was looking for the new coffee shop or Linux-branded coffee shop/store in Akihabara and that I was wanting to find Mandrake Linux or TurboLinux. But, I'd already found what I needed before he asked me to stop. They weren't selling Linux goods at that store, but I think had I asked, he'd have not even let me. I have a feeling tho, had I asked, he WOULD have performed the search himself, just to satisfy himself that I was not going to buy something that he was already selling.
But, does ANYone here know of ANY 'Merkun store, whether appearal, electronics, household, and so on, that offers or allows CUSTOMER use of barcodes or QR codes? Maybe there could be some technological way to prevent people from "downloading the store's whole inventory", maybe by requiring the cell or scanning device to transmit a request code that is tied to the phone's ESN or FCC ID, or maybe the Customer could be handed a store-provided scanner that limits scan downloads. Then, at the end of shopping (assuming there's a way to prevent a person or team from coming in over 2-days' time and accomplishing the inventory download...), the customer could be handed a printout of the QR codes only, or the ancilliary information, or allowed to Bluetooth the codes into their phone.
(A neat cell, which doesn't make or take calls in the US, is the Sharp V402SH. It's generally available in Japan and other parts of Asia, plus, I believe, Europe. Some of the best damn phones are locked up in Japan, partly because, as for outsiders, "They wouldn't appreciate it, nor do they deserve it....."
Well, I LOVE the 402SH, and the upgraded models are even better. (Some of them permit gamers (playing so-designed games) to output their play on a LCD TV or display. One even lets the user RECORD the (analog-tuner-received) TV program they know they will miss (maybe due a meeting or such....)... pretty nifty stuff. I am not really impressed with much of the stuff I see here in the states, as it's mostly geared toward ripping another $9 or $10 here and there... besides, I don't have enough hours in the day to benefit from 100 channels of dodgy/slow-poke download content that has to chew up local storage space on MY phone. Why not just compress/burts stream the stuff. So much for Hollywierd considering to use BitTorrent to destroy the existence of TVs... Maybe, tho, they'll use BitTorrrent to burst programs to hand-helds and not require the recipient to waste camera and sound memo space to phones. OTOH, storing the content on the HH device would let the viewer catch the program later... assuming there's no expiry stamp on the file...)
As for the other poster who nearly was arrested for randomly looking up at the security cameras, he should note that it doesn't take just that to be descended upon by cops or loss prevention. When I was a teen in High School, in JROTC, we had a thing about tucking the "bill" of our green ball caps between our pants and shirt, held in place by the belt pressure. But, walking and torso movements gradually lift the hat up, an
Previously: "Linux... Toward the Sunrise..." Now: "Linux... Toward the-- No, now, part of Every Sunrise"
I have always wanted to be able to blind security cameras somehow. Would pointing a laser at them do anything like burn out the receptors, or at least dazzle them for a time? Anyone know?
Else, we'll have to wait until they invent inviso-cloaks.
Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.
Yeah, right.
After all, this was a shopping mall. Mann asked why, "if the Mont Blanc cameras were recording him, he couldn't, in turn, record the cameras". The answer is simple: "This is our property. We make the rules here, and we don't have to tell you the reasoning behind them. If you don't like it, go somewhere else."
But on public property, dealing with governments, the issues are different, and also much more important.
Unfortunately, it would also have been much more risky. People who act suspicious in a store might get tossed out, but people who act suspicious around government buildings get treated in rather nastier ways.
http://www.eecg.toronto.edu/~mann/
http://wearcam.org/research.htm
peterrenshaw ~ Another Scrappy Startup
During the Repubican convention/military garrison last year, police arrested over a thousand people on all sorts of charges. Those arrested on the whole alleged lying on the parts of the police who swore out the complaints. Here's the followup, and it illustrates the point of sousveillance beautifully.
.html
-Remember that all protestors of the prez are subjected to HEAVY intimidation through the use of video cameras.
From the front page of the New York Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/04/12/nyregion/12vid eo
Videos Challenge Accounts of Convention Unrest
By JIM DWYER
Published: April 12, 2005
Dennis Kyne put up such a fight at a political protest last summer, the arresting officer recalled, it took four police officers to haul him down the steps of the New York Public Library and across Fifth Avenue.
"We picked him up and we carried him while he squirmed and screamed," the officer, Matthew Wohl, testified in December. "I had one of his legs because he was kicking and refusing to walk on his own."
Accused of inciting a riot and resisting arrest, Mr. Kyne was the first of the 1,806 people arrested in New York last summer during the Republican National Convention to take his case to a jury. But one day after Officer Wohl testified, and before the defense called a single witness, the prosecutor abruptly dropped all charges.
During a recess, the defense had brought new information to the prosecutor. A videotape shot by a documentary filmmaker showed Mr. Kyne agitated but plainly walking under his own power down the library steps, contradicting the vivid account of Officer Wohl, who was nowhere to be seen in the pictures. Nor was the officer seen taking part in the arrests of four other people at the library against whom he signed complaints.
A sprawling body of visual evidence, made possible by inexpensive, lightweight cameras in the hands of private citizens, volunteer observers and the police themselves, has shifted the debate over precisely what happened on the streets during the week of the convention.
For Mr. Kyne and 400 others arrested that week, video recordings provided evidence that they had not committed a crime or that the charges against them could not be proved, according to defense lawyers and prosecutors.
Among them was Alexander Dunlop, who said he was arrested while going to pick up sushi.
Last week, he discovered that there were two versions of the same police tape: the one that was to be used as evidence in his trial had been edited at two spots, removing images that showed Mr. Dunlop behaving peacefully. When a volunteer film archivist found a more complete version of the tape and gave it to Mr. Dunlop's lawyer, prosecutors immediately dropped the charges and said that a technician had cut the material by mistake.
Seven months after the convention at Madison Square Garden, criminal charges have fallen against all but a handful of people arrested that week. Of the 1,670 cases that have run their full course, 91 percent ended with the charges dismissed or with a verdict of not guilty after trial. Many were dropped without any finding of wrongdoing, but also without any serious inquiry into the circumstances of the arrests, with the Manhattan district attorney's office agreeing that the cases should be "adjourned in contemplation of dismissal."
So far, 162 defendants have either pleaded guilty or were convicted after trial, and videotapes that bolstered the prosecution's case played a role in at least some of those cases, although prosecutors could not provide details.
Besides offering little support or actually undercutting the prosecution of most of the people arrested, the videotapes also highlight another substantial piece of the historical record: the Police Department's tactics in controlling the demonstrations, parades and rallies of hundreds of thousands of people were largely free of explicit violence.
Throughout the co
Please read this essay in order to get a better understanding of what's really going on. I suggest reading it about five times.
With the current outcry against camera phones in locker rooms, government installations, and now possibly malls, how long will it take before the phone manufacturers are required to provide a way to disable phones while in an area? They already came up a way to block calls at movie theaters.
This sig has absolutely no significance and serves only to take up screen space and waste the time of the reader.
I don't think that's all that surprising... (I know you said interesting.) Religion is based entirely on faith, to the absolute exclusion of reason. Religion is the one arena where an open mind does more damage than good. (At least for highly dogmatic organized religions)
You believe in a specific religion because you are told to, perhaps through some old book, perhaps orally. Religious doctrine is often riddled with inconsistancies and contradictions, but to be faithful, you must not heed them.
Religion is mostly unprovable, so it therefore lies entirely outside the domain of reason and logic. Except in the case of bizarre predictions and statements about the world around us, religious beliefs and reason have no overlap whatsoever. It's the predictions and statements that often cause so much strife between people. (of course that's not entirely true...)
If you want a vision of the future, imagine a youtube comments section scrolling - forever.
"Equiveillance through sousveillance"? Too hard to say. I prefer "getting even through covalence": punching out the cameras, like Sean Penn in his Madonna period.
--
make install -not war
Philosophy of surveillance? As the same as much of current philosophy this exercise in "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes" lacks real world answers and relies on symbolism. Way to go. Making a difference there. How about the average man doesn't really care, and probably has never even heard about philosophy. I'm not putting down the average man here I'm just saying that when someone comes home for the day they don't automatically go to their bookshelf and start reading Marx or Foucault.
/.'ers are also having a dig at the mentality of security guards. I don't know if this is trolling or you guys are just arrogant. Take a hard look at yourselves. You are judging them based firstly on stereotypes and from the perspective that you think intellectualism is the be-all and end-all of human existence. How about obtaining some social skills and tact? Stereotype? You bet! But your dig at the mall dwellers reeks of anti-social behaviour.
I can't believe some of you
The internet astounds me sometimes, you 'nerds' go on about it being this great wonder that'll save man kind and all it has become is a giant western world techno-centric echo chamber for having a giant circle jerk over your little cultural niches. Harsh? Yup but this is what this place has become.
Hahaha, yeah, this is what he does -- constantly some scheme going on. Whether is it insurance, donation stuff, etc Unbelievable! But that is okay if he waeren't ripping off even his own students -- free lunch here, forget to reimburse some expense there. Man what a fraud. He always takes his glasses off when the scheme is up though!
There have recently been reports in the paper where almost all of the cases the cops have brought against demonstrators at the RNC have to be thrown out because, as it turns out the cops were either lying or had severe false memories implanted.
It was some web driven site to collect video from people at the sites that are setting these demonstrators free. This actual video is often counter-manding the police-supplied video that is oddly edited to only display the cop (and the people the cops are lying for) side of the story.
If a bunch of propeller-heads came into a store hauling all their cyber-gear around, taking pictures of all the security devices in sight I'd kick 'em out too.
Warm up. The actual quote (from your link) is: "It's a symbol of the fact that government comes -- derives its authority from God."
Both you and Austin Cline are right -- the Government "derives its just Powers from the Consent of the governed". But Antonin Scalia knows this document a little better than you two. Because it also states: "endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights".
So, the Government derives its power from the consent of the governed, who, in turn got created with these rights. Ergo, the Government's power can be said to be coming from the governed's Creator(s) directly.
No wonder, Scalia dislikes journalists. :-)
All of the Founding Father were religious people -- although of different sects. Scalia is simply one of those jurists, who interpret the Constitution "traditionaly". What it meant, when it was written, rather than what it should mean now (as the "activist" judges like to ponder).
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Just thought you guys might like to see an alternative way to draw attention to surveillence cameras, the NY camera surveillence players.
in only two words: paintball guns!
Fsck Big Brother, and the "1984" he rode in on.
That's why I'd like to see a neutral company have control of the cameras, or at least get a feed from them. Further, there should be prohibitions in effect to prevent ex-police from working for them or they from becoming police. Oh, and somehow keep whatever part of government that oversees the company separate from that which oversees the police. You know, to prevent a common boss from forcing the company to cover something up to help the police.
And allow citizens to get access via FOIA or somesuch. Both when they need it for civil suits and just when they want so that the public can verify what is being recorded.
He also made a briefcase that has a fingerprint scan that requires the fingerprint of someone else to open it.
The meaning escapes me. Does that mean you need two people's fingerprints? The authorized person and another person? Or does the fingerprint scanner that locks the briefcase have a second fingerprint scanner that locks the first scanner? I don't get this. Not that it really matters.
Maybe it really is all about something to hide. Customers really would like their privacy. The wife sneaking off to a hidden mall restaurant frequented by few that she and her paramour know; the husband sneaking into Victoria's Secret with a secret of his own: are some examples of privacy craving individuals seeking in vain to hide their activities. A court could order the uncovering of this potential Pandora's Box pursuant to litigation by other alleged injured parties; or Maury Povitch's agents could buy the information for sale to the guy that exposes cheatin spouses in compromising situations on his show. Alternatively, the guards themselves might find out directly that this info has real sales value. Good looking wife, fiancee, or whatever suddenly finds a ghastly presence in her life in the form of some guard who wants sloppy seconds or he will tell. I could go on, but our Supreme Court has said that we have no reasonable expectation of privacy in public areas, and although some states and even the federal government have promised or even passed laws against video voreurism, security cameras have a golden license to spy on the assumption that people in malls are basically evil--you don't have something to hide, do you? With face recognition software and cross-connection of mall cameras to police agencies, archaic laws like those against fornication, adultery, 'eye-ball rape' and others would have new lives. It would be easy to update these with new large fines, not prison, as the aim of these are like todays traffic and other criminal laws. That is to raise money for cash strapped governments, now as in the remote past. Think you can hide behind your purse and wear a big hat in a tiny booth in a little known restaurant and smooooch your fella, forget it. The mall security man, all five foot six, 110 pounds and sweaty undershirt of his minimum wage carcass has secretly and passionately followed you into the place and snapshoted both your girlish figure straight down your blouse (another advantage of security cameras) and his ample rear (many security folks are gay too) as well. Facial recognition software has identified both of you within 120 milliseconds of facial capture. Further cross connections with criminal records clandestinely obtained by mall security execs on grounds of 'national security' connected you to all your old parking tickets and where your car was when you got them (and how close they were to motels)...as well as your juvenile records from when you lifted a lipstick from your local friendly WalGreens and were caught along with your girl buddies. Further connections with your friendly local credit bureaus provide your other info like your address, licence number, social security number, employer, credit card numbers......and also his. By the way, both the names and records of your husband and his wife are now also his. Now that geefling, salivating dweeb owns both you and him. He knows all about the both of you, and you don't even know that he concealed on his application to his boss the fact of a recent conviction in a latin american country of bestiality with a sheep and that his favorite song is: "There'll Never Be Another Ewe"!
I forgot to mention that this is a completely ridiculous assertion for another reason: there is no one single religion represented in the Constitution Party. There are arch-traditional Catholics and Anglicans alongside charismatic evangelical pentecostal types. If the goal of instituting a theocracy were the goal of the CP, it would have flown apart years ago. There are even some Jews in the party - they recognize that America is the best friend the Jewish people have ever had, because the Christian value of "freedom of conscience" (enshrined in the 1st Amendment) means less persecution than they face elsewhere, and while Judaism and Christianity are very different in religious forms they share a very similar value system.
So I stand by my claim of anti-religious hysteria fueled by ignorance. Fears about a CP-imposed theocracy just don't stand up to the challenge of reason.
Constitutionally Correct
Yes, we have run-offs. Mathematically, run-offs are a very poor solution. They don't solve the problem. Condorcet voting does.
I don't object to a primary/caucus system being used by a party to select it's candidate - but Condorcet voting should be used there, too. I do object to "general" or "open" primaries because they are just run-offs then, which fail every mathematical test for what a voting system ought to be. The only virtue of run-offs is that they are simple to comprehend, but if they're not selecting the right person, what's the point?
Constitutionally Correct
Why is it irrelevant? A property owner has many rights, one of which is the right of occupancy of his property. When I lease a property to a tenant, I am transferring my owner's right of occupancy from me to the tenant for a period of time in exchange for compensation. Sure, I may own the building, but I can't just go in, sit on his couch, and start watching TV. Similarly, I cannot just go up to one of my tenants and say, "Get the fuck off my property." Sure, I own it, but he currently enjoys my owner's right of occupancy! If I want it back, I have to go to court and get it through a process called eviction.
I think you can agree that when you wander into The Gap, you do NOT have the owner's right of occupancy. In reality, you are given a license to enter the property by The Gap's management similarly to if you invited someone over to dinner in your house. That license can be revoked at any time. If The Gap management says to get out, you had better get out or you are trespassing. Same with your now disinvited dinner guest. If you say get out, he better leave.
Grandparent was right when he said that if you are on his property you can either follow his rules or leave. There are certain restrictions placed on certain types of businesses, but if The Gap kicks you out of their store, you two choices: leave not wearing handcuffs, leave wearing handcuffs.
"Avoid employing unlucky people - throw half of the pile of CVs in the bin without reading them." -- David Brent
Last weekend while at a local establishment I was approached by an individual conducting surveys for some tobacco company. The questions were answered via a touch-sensitive screen on his tablet PC-type device; the bit that struck me was that in order to take the survey (and collect the premium - a gen-u-ine zippo brand lighter) the participants were required to hand over their driver's license which was fed through a scanner on the tablet. I do not know if the scanner read the magnetic strip, but I could clearly see that they were capturing at the very least an image of the front of the license: name, address, photo, height, weight and similar data. For all I know it was capturing a scanned image of the back of the card as well, and very well could have been reading the magnetic stripe.
Every person approached willingly handed over their license (and I note that nobody was told ahead of time or even after the fact) what data was to be collected and/or how it was to be used. Perhaps the alkeyhall had something to do with it, or maybe just those cool lighters they were handing out. But nobody seemed to have any privacy concerns at all.
If the g'vt kept the data on you that google does you'd better believe you'd be calling it "doing evil"
The presentation materials from the Opening Keynote Plenary Panel (Steve Mann, David Brin, and others) on equiveillance is now at http://wearcam.org/cfp2005/ along with pictures of the equiveillance tour (that was funded by Bell, by the way), and the making of the camera bags (some with live wireless transmission) so that all attendees could participate. Each conference attendee received a "maybecamera" bag but didn't know whether or not theirs had a real camera and transmitter in it.