Slashdot Mirror
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.)
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.
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]
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.
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
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.
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.
owners of private property have the right to do anything they want
Wrong, wrong, wrong!
Property owners are not gods! They are required by law to do many things, and are prohibited by law from doing many things. Simply owning property does not mean you can completely control what goes on on that property. Yes, it does give you broad powers over the use of the property, but you do not instantly become a dictator because you own some arbitrarily defined piece of land. This is a very common misconception that property owners love to see spread around.
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
I will admit that the ownder of the camers does not WANT them to be photographed. So what? So do criminals, and so do people cheating on their wife, and so do people simply trying to protect their privacy.
The question is not "is there a reason", but instead is "Is the reason you want to stop people taking pictures of your cameras BETTER than the reason you came up with to let you set up the cameras in the first place"?
Why? Because ANY reason that lets you prevent others from taking pictures of your camers can be turned around and used to prevent the store from taking your picture
If you have the right to take my picture to prevent criminal actions by me, I have the right to take YOUR picture to prevent criminal actions by you. Yes, if I were a criminal, I could analyze the pictures I took to plan a crime against you. SO WHAT. If the employees of the store are criminal, they can analyze THERE surveliance tapes to plan crimes against shoppers.
The management clearly wants the power to observe their shoppers and does not want shoppers to have a similar right against them. Shoppers want the power to observe the management and does not want the management to have similar rights against them.
But the law is not a slave to EITHER side, so gives BOTH the rights to observe and record.
I do agree that the management has the right to require the shoppers to hide their cameras, as the store has hidden their own cameras.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
No offense, but it sounds like you're saying "if you don't know exactly how to fix something, you shouldn't even mention it's broken".
I guess I should stop sending bug reports in, then.
While you are technically correct, if your "rules" are in violation of law, then you are in violation of law and can be held responsible for it. Furthermore, as a property owner, you give up the right to make some "rules" if you choose to be a landlord or otherwise use your land in a commercial application. i.e., my landlord cannot drop by at any time of the day simply because he owns the land. It's illegal (statewide). As a citizen, those are my "rules", and they better damn well be followed. Deal with it.
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?
The choice is the only thing you get to decide. Deal with it.
Here's a test for you. Declare that on your property you don't have to pay taxes. When the tax collector comes by offer him or her your two choices. Post back and let us know how it went when you get out of prison.
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 sad thing is that America IS a police state, but most Americans don't realise the fact. Exactly what current emergency is served by the Patriot Act?
Oh well, what the hell...