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Houston Police Chief Wants Cameras in Homes
An anonymous reader writes "In one of the most blatant and frightening statements made on privacy, the Associated Press reports that Houston's police chief wants surveillance cameras in apartment buildings and even private homes. Chief Harold Hurtt wants building permits to require cameras in shopping malls and large apartment complexes. He also wants them in private homes if the homeowner has called the police repeatedly. So, if you're in Houston, don't call the cops too much, or they might install a camera the next time they show up. And what does Hurtt have to say about privacy concerns? 'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'"
How can someone say something that crazy and be taken seriously? Who does he think he is, Dvorak?
I guess the cameras wouldn't Hurtt.
OK, I'm sorry.
Someone hit that guy over the head with a copy of 1984.
Sure, if you're not doing anything wrong, let's put a camera in your house. First up, Cheif of Police. Why should he worry? Of course, *he* isn't doing anything wrong. What would he have to hide?
Computers are useless. They can only give you answers.
-- Pablo Picasso
he'll also be the first to volunteer for a camera in his own home. i mean, why should he complain, if he doesn't have anything to hide that is...
sum.zero
Seriously though - how many people moms and dads will take his statements seriously? The statement and the attitude are very irresponsible to make - coming from a police chief. Did President Bush recommend this guy?
"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"
The most stupid, weird, screwed, messed up, idiotic line i've read all day. Way to go Houston or should i say:
Houston, we have a problem!
'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'
This is the most cliched argument that any law enformcemnt officer could ever give. the answer to it is that it's none of my business what you're doing, and that it's not your place to decide what's right or wrong. That's what we have legislators for. There are very good reasons for resisting the erosion of privacy, and one of them is to keep assholes like this out of our lives.
It's good to use your head, but not as a battering ram.
Boston Firemen Chief Wants Camara In Restroom Due to Rise Of Huge Ego Stucks In Toilet Accidents.
i should have spent less time on editing...
sum.zero
...until there are cameras EVERYWHERE... Sorta like in the U.K. now, what is it - four cameras for every citizen? Sad, really but look at it this way: Has anyone ever done something to your car or your property while you were sleeping? Didn't you want to know who the bastard was that did it? See, it's CHEAP enough now to set up camera spying and expense was the only real reason it hasn't been done before.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
he'll be the first one to get one installed in his home to placate critics, and since he would never do anything wrong as the police chief, he shouldn't worry about it.
April 2006,
AP (Houston, TX) reporters caught up with the chief at his new primary job. His only comment was "Would you like fries with that?"
but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
Because, you miserable idiot, that's not the point. The point is the right to privacy, the point is the state minding its own business, not the citizen's.
Does this happen in the same country where people don't want an id card because of privacy concerns? Amazing.
"And what does Hurtt have to say about privacy concerns? 'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"
OK. Let's install one in your home, and let the public watch.
Then again, that could be a huge boom to the pr0n industry ;)
I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
m l. Perhaps Mr Hurtt would like a camera in his home, given that he seems so enthusiastic about them? Maybe it could be placed in his bedroom, or somewhere equally degrading.
Try telling that to Shi Tao http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/0909/p01s03-woap.ht
Anyway, doesn't the fourth amendment protect against unreasonable search and seizure? I'm pretty sure this would count as an unreasonable search.
But with a wimper. I suppose that is how freedom will make its' exit. That this isn't being shouted down by the city of Houston is appalling. The city council will slap this down if they are smart. We have all read the quote that goes something like "Those that would trade essential liberty for safety have neither." It still remains true. The canary in the cage in the coal mine is dying I think. Is anyone going to notice the little yellow birds' demise?
My humor is probably your flamebait
oh wait... why does this not come as a suprize.... and in all honesty, this is probably a made up article by some left wing nut (note i'm in the middle)
Houston is the ultimate Bush Country.
--
make install -not war
Is this guy for real?
I've already got four cameras in my house. Two in my bedroom, one in my bathroom over the shower, one in my kitchen. I don't need your shit in my house, if I want it, I could just publically broadcast my shit to you. Leave me the hell alone until I WANT extra cameras in my house, and start respecting my 4th Amendment rights.
Still waiting on Serviscope_minor to wake up to fucking reality and realize that Jessica Price isn't going to fuck him.
Attention, everyone in Houston.. Your police chief is on a track that would result in the city paying out tens, if not hundreds of millions in damages to people whose fourth amendment rights are violated.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
What should I worry about? Not much.
But I have to say that I can't always trust police. They are only human, too.
"He (Houston Mayor Bill White) called the chief's proposal a 'brainstorm' rather than a decision."
I'd call it a brainfart, myself. This is something so creepifying I almost want to say it's a bogus article.
If you think that having n^x number of cameras where you have something like n^(x-50,000) people able to do real-time monitoring. All this idea stands for is two things: (1) money to be made by the camera infrastructure business; and, (2) a digital record of your murder to be used in the prosecution. All you give up is your privacy & digniity.
OTOH, putting one of these on VP Cheney might save a life....
There's more than one idiot from Texas.
If police chief Harold Hurtt wants to put a camera in my home be my guest.... so long as I can watch a live feed of him in his home and at the police station. If someone wants to track my movements with a camera I say go ahead.... but only if I get to know who's watching me and I have the ability to watch them back. An open and transparent society can make the world both safe and free. The only thing wrong with traditional surveillance is the imbalence of power between the watchers and the watched.
I think outrageous comments like this are great. It'll only show how stupid these arguments from autorities are. Maybe its outlandish idiotic stuff like this that'll get more averages Joe's to take notice.
if hes not doing anything wrong then why should he worry
In Japan there wouldn't even be an argument. The police have the right to search any house without a warrant. I guess the fact that there is no specific definition to unreasonable search and seizure gives them some lattitude in their tiny brains. Hey can't make the agrument that they meant cameras since they didn't have them. It's called common sense. They are considered privacy laws for a reason. They want to be able to tap our phones and track our cars and now put cameras in our houses. This isn't for our own goods people. This is about power and control. If it's for our own goods lets start with government officials then the rich. If it's for protection they need it more than the rest of us. See how long that lasts before it's banned. If it's to make sure we aren't doing something bad guess what it's called innocent before proven guilty. They legally can't do it. Don't let anyone convince you they legally can or that it's for your own good. Complain about what Bush is doing in your own home and see how quick the feds show up to see if you are a threat. It's happened when people have made statements disparging the administration in public. Now they want us to be careful what we say in our own homes? It's a Democracy and they are supposed to be working for us. We shouldn't be treated like prisoners in our own country.
This guy is a nutcase. That would be completely unconstitutional. He simply cannot do it. Scott Attorney At Law
Lets just hope that this guys idea of "Wrong" is the same as mine.
This is just a ``brainstorm'', as the article says. I think our big brothers have been brainstorming these types of tactics for ages, but now I guess its becoming financially possible.
If you're interested in facts I'll tell you what they are and I'll give you sources - Chomsky on The Big Idea
And speaking of Orwell's 1984, I watched the documentary about Kevin Mitnick, Freedom Downtime, recently. One scene had a typical bit of Emmanuel Goldstein's dark humor, he was in Philadelphia and he was filming Independence Hall - where the Declaration of Independence and US constitution was signed, it is supposed to be the birthplace of freedom or whatever. Nowadays, on top of its tower is a video camera spying on passerby. If I recall correctly, they're building a prison next to it as well, which has signs that say "no videotaping of prison allowed" (I guess they're allowed to videotape but we're not).
The efforts to stop this will probably be partially unsuccessful, but I'm not too worried about it. All the technology in the world can not keep people down who don't want to be kept down. As Steve Biko once said, "the most powerful weapon in the hands of the oppressor is the mind of the oppressed."
Bonus goodie points to the person who actually names the logical fallacy behind "if you have nothing to hide" etc. If possible, please include a link. More people need to know how to intelligently refute arguments such as these.
Please help metamoderate.
And it happens to reside *right* in front of the camera! Oh Darn, poor me.
I live in a Houston suburb and this is a BS misleading article. I've seen news reports about cameras in crime ridden public areas and some apartment building owners are working to have cameras installed in their buildings, but the cameras in homes has never been mentioned on any news report I've seen, and as a taxpayer I don't want my taxes to go to a babysitter who can't keep their act together.
This article is taking some quote out of context and twisting it into a story. Whoever wrote this should stick to writing campaign speeches or crime novels.
This man is actually helping the citizens of our country win the war against government spying. See, it goes one of two ways when it comes to the big freedom grab.
[The Bad Way]
1. A very suave and sophisticated individual quietly introduces a small bill that only takes a little chunk out of our privacy. His/her/it's arguements are pretty good, and the concessions asked for are minor.
2. This bill passes.
3. Nobody notices.
4. Repeat this process until, finally, the bad guys have reached their goal of making "1984" look like a fairy tale about the good old days.
[The Good Way]
1. Some flambouyant a-hole like this gets up on his soap box and says: "Camera's everywhere! I want a camera in everyone's workplace, home, school, car, rectum..."
2. We say "What about freedom/privacy and all of that?"
3. He says "I didn't get that whole memo about freedom/privacy. In fact, I think you're just making this up give me a hard time. I'm referring you to my supervisors! And auditing you! And arresting you for "obstructing justice"! And shooting you for attempting escape!" GATCK! GATCK!
4. Generally, people get pissed about this type of behaviour, and defacate into the appropriate mailboxes to make this proposal go away.
5. When anybody mentions anything that even looks like this crap again, people are less willing to compromise because of the stigma associated with what just happened.
6. We win, and have a Tequila brunch.
The moral of this story? If you want to win, take sides with the government! Do so in a way that is stupid! Look like an a-hole, and paint all of your new "friends" with the same brush! Be outrageous! Make every stupid little program to take a little more freedom look like the avalanche of doom that it really is!
"...but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"
Because I want to scratch my balls while watching hockey naked, fart while making nachos in the kitchen, and have passionate sex with my wife on the couch and dining room table.
And here's the kicker... I DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT IT.
and in other news... the houston police department is currently under surveillance for the blatant abuse of the street drug commonly denominated as crack...
That cop.
I'll let the police chief put cameras in my home if I can put cameras in his home. Likewise, if political officials want to put cameras in all of our homes, we should be able to put cameras in theirs and be able to watch their political dealings.
In David Brin's Transparent Society he argues that not only is such a system of mutual and ubiquitous surveillance/sousveillance inevitable with continuing advances in technology, it would also reduce government abuses of power. I'm not completely decided on this yet (I've long considered privacy to be of the utmost importance), but I think such a system would be a better society overall.
Houston Mayor Bill White said, "but on the other hand we spend an awful lot for patrol presence." He called the chief's proposal a "brainstorm" rather than a decision.
Don't you need to think in order to have a "brainstorm"? Or is he confused with "brainfart"? The real artcle should read;
Houston Mayor Bill White said, "but on the other hand we spend an awful lot of time for patrol presence at local donut shop." He called the chief's proposal a "brainfart" rather than a decision.
"Don't let fools fool you. They are the clever ones."
The Houston police chief isn't an elected position, is it? If it's not, lucky for him. If it is, I'm sure he won't be chief next year.
...having grown up there, i'm not in the least surprised...
'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'
"then you will be happy, Chief Hurtt, to lead by example and to have the first camera installed in your living room, right?"
hypocrisy cuts like a knife
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
And the back of your bookshelf is the perfect place to hang that giant goatse poster your aunt got you for Christmas...
Curiosity was framed. Ignorance killed the cat.
Ah, but you don't actually need someone to watch all of the cameras, all of the time. It's the theory of the Panopticon...have enough cameras, and the paranoia that results from never knowing exactly when you're being observed is just as effective as 24 hour surveillance.
Whenever I hear people say they have nothing to hide, I always wonder, are they listed in the phone book? Will they tell us their full name, address, phone number, cell phone, and the names, birthdates, phone numbers, addresses, and credit card and social security numbers of their parents, brothers, sisters, cousins, aunts, uncles, and children?
No, they will not. Because they do have something to hide. They have things to hide from bad people.
What these naive "I have nothing to hide" people are totally missing is that law enforcement is also home to some of the bad people. There have been plenty of stalking cases where police have abused their access.
The fact a chief of police of a large US city doesn't get this simple fact is very troubling.
the cops around here are so lasy. They sit in the local mexican food joint at 2am so they don't have to write tickets to the drunks driving.
I have seen it many nights.
As well...
The other day my brothers were following a bum who stole some designer tile from a construction site. They had the cops on the phone while following this crook. The cops were not intrested. When they did show up it was over half an hour later. By that time the crook sold the goods to the local appliance shop and split. When the cops ask the owner of the shop about the tile; "i did'nt buy any tile". The cops droped it after that.
Cameras won't help if the cops don't do thier JOBS!
Someone in Houston....
I don't want a pickle; I just want a Motor-Cycle! A four foot cop arrived with a five foot gun!
Yeah you'll be so safe. So when you get mugged outside your apartment at midnight, I'm sure there'll be an officer looking through that particular camera at that particular time, so they'll immediately dispatch a patrol car to the scene without you or a neighbor even having to reach a phone. You might be able to use something like this for evidence, but safety involves the lack of crime, not prosecution after the fact.
The excuses used in defense of the policy tell me that these are as relevant as ever:
--
"Extra Anus Kills Four-Legged Chick" -- Headline
Even if this book is old i found it be disturbing because so much of it could apply today. The war on terrorism is the exact same beast as the constant war between Oceania, Eurasia and EastAsia in the book. A never ending "war" that put all normal laws aside. War is peace, indeed. Reading the book should put the wheels in motion on most people. Its hard to go through it and not be touched by how much is applicable today. I almost got the feal that the Neocons favourite book must be 1984 and they are striving in that direction. The reasoning behind Guantanamo Bay is real live truespeak. Bend the truth again and again and soon enough you have built your own. "Illegal combatants"? To throw people into jail as long as they are a "threat" in a war that according to Bush can span decades? Without any trial? Im sickened by the european countries that also is going in this direction. Terrorism kills a millionth of a percent of people killed by smoking and still we think the right to smoke is much more important than privacy, free speech and the right to a fair trial? Its truly sickening.
The thing i find so disturbing is that normal people seems so willing to give up what their forefathers gave their lives for. Talk about pissing on their graves. The government cant do theese things without the willing consent of its population. I dont think for a second that its because people are stupid that they just watch.
HTTP/1.1 400
Hm... any more suggestions for books on there?
1984, George Orwell
Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
Terrorism 101: A How-To Guide, Anonymous
The Armchair Anarchist's Almanac, Mike Harding
Visit http://ringbreak.dnd.utwente.nl/~mrjb/growingbettersoftware to download your free copy of the book
First, nobody is talking about live surveilance in homes. He's talking about all the times that cops get called out to domesic violence 5 times per week to the same house. Put a closed circuit camera in the house with a padlocked VHS recorder. That way its no longer he-said-she-said...
People have NO IDEA the type of assholes cops have to deal with.
Good security is based upon reality and common sense. Common sense is a function of having common knowledge.
Is that really necessary? What do you know about Texas? I live in Houston, don't particularly like the clown police chief that said this (or the idiot mayor who hired him) but we're not all rednecks.
You should probably learn something about Texas before you pick a new title for it.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Anthem, by Ayn rand
Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury
Animal Farm, by George Orwell
"And if a homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to require camera surveillance of the property, he said."
Sounds to me as though he's talking about cameras which wouldn't be able to see anything that a police officer on the scene, in a public area, wouldn't be able to see.
I'm sure that there are plenty of people out there in all levels of government who consider Orwell's 1984 a how-to manual instead of a warning, but this article isn't enough to convince me that Harold Hurtt is one of them. Instead, he seems to be trying to figure out how to provide more police protection while "...facing a severe police shortage because of too many retirements and too few recruits..." in a city that "...has absorbed 150,000 hurricane evacuees who are filling apartment complexes in crime-ridden neighborhoods."
Please note that the crime was there before the evacuees arrived and that they are as likely, if not more so, to be the victims as to be the criminals.
I see even classic Slashdot is now pretty much unusable on dial up anymore.
'if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'
junior, you're right, down there playing xbox in your parents' basement, you won't need to worry about it.
for the rest of us who are living in a post-nietzschean world where absolute standards of right and wrong do not exist and cannot be meaningfully codified into a series of laws, a plan which furthers the extent to which an external police force can monitor and impose imaginary laws on the people is not going to go over real well...
As Montaigne put it, "Laws are now maintained in credit, not because they are just but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other."
...when there are men with heavy truncheons and jackboots watching every tiny thing you do.
... just wait until I find some pictures of my granny naked at the age of 80 that I can hang in front of the camera, covering the entire lens. You want to add a microphone? Sure, if you want me to add a headphone and an mp3 player playing an endless loop of my entire modem handshake sound collection. ;-)
Tux2000
Denken hilft.
"If we have to live our lives weighing every action, every communication, every human contact, wondering what agents of the state might find out about it, analyze it, judge it, possibly misconstrue it, and somehow use it to our detriment, we are not truly free..."
"...If someone intrudes on our privacy - by peering into our home, going through the personal things in our office desk, reading over our shoulder on a bus or airplane, or eavesdropping on our conversation - we feel uncomfortable, even violated.
Imagine, then, how we will feel if it becomes routine for bureaucrats, police officers and other agents of the state to paw through all the details of our lives: where and when we travel, and with whom; who are the friends and acquaintances with whom we have telephone conversations or e-mail correspondence; what we are interested in reading or researching; where we like to go and what we like to do.
A popular response is: "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear."
By that reasoning, of course, we shouldn't mind if the police were free to come into our homes at any time just to look around, if all our telephone conversations were monitored, if all our mail were read, if all the protections developed over centuries were swept away. It's only a difference of degree from the intrusions already being implemented or considered.
The truth is that we all do have something to hide, not because it's criminal or even shameful, but simply because it's private. We carefully calibrate what we reveal about ourselves to others. Most of us are only willing to have a few things known about us by a stranger, more by an acquaintance, and the most by a very close friend or a romantic partner. The right not to be known against our will - indeed, the right to be anonymous except when we choose to identify ourselves - is at the very core of human dignity, autonomy and freedom.
If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
But there also will be tangible, specific harm.
The more information government compiles about us, the more of it will be wrong. That's simply a fact of life. ...But if our privacy becomes ever more systematically invaded by the state for purposes of assessing our behavior and making judgments about us, wrong information and misinterpretations will have potential consequences.
If information that is actually about someone else is wrongly applied to us, if wrong facts make it appear that we've done things we haven't, if perfectly innocent behavior is misinterpreted as suspicious because authorities don't know our reasons or our circumstances, we will be at risk of finding ourselves in trouble in a society where everyone is regarded as a suspect. By the time we clear our names and establish our innocence, we may have suffered irreparable financial or social harm... [go ahead, read the rest, its well-worth it.]
What would I do if I could watch any camera in any house? Three words. Free amateur porn.
That said, I don't think that the transparent society really advocates stuffing a camera into everyone's house. The idea is really about how to deal with the commons. Granted, there is still possible abuse when used in the commons.
Where do you think he got his ideas from? Seriously. Most people read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, and are either frightened, or mildly disturbed ("That'd never happen. People would be outraged!")
People like him read 1984 and think, "I wouldn't use those cameras like that...", missing the point completely.
Police these days are so far removed from reality, it's not even funny. I recently read an article about police stepping up speeding enforcement on "the most deadly road" in a particular county in (I believe) Ohio. The officers bragged about writing 40+ speeding tickets in two hours, using a LIDAR gun ($2k-$4k each, often paid for by Geico), one officer clocking vehicles, and 4-5 motorcycle units pulling people over. They talked about how they really want to get one patrol car to spend one day each week sitting out pulling over speeders, and they were makin' the roads safe.
Except the reason that the highway is so deadly is because it's a single lane highway with nothing but a double yellow line between you and oncoming traffic; the fatalities are from head-on collisions.
So instead of patrolling the road and pulling over anyone who tries to pass on a double-yellow, they write speeding tickets, making more people drive EXACTLY the speed limit, which is only bound to result in more idiots trying to pass the "law abiding" "safer" drivers. Not to mention, they're pulling people over on a single-lane highway, where all those flashing lights and whatnot are a major distraction.
Way to go, guys!
Please help metamoderate.
'if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?' Like every /. reader, i masturbate 3-4 times a week.
I have nothing to hide.
We had a similar debate in an ethics class I took a few years ago, when discussing surveillance cameras in general - and the Panopticon effect. One of our female classmates insisted that cameras in public places were a good idea, because they "made her feel safer". I pointed out that most violence occurs at home, so why not put a camera in your bedroom? She didn't really understand my point.
In fact, the "think of the children!" crowd really need this to be driven home: most child abuse/abductions occur because of actions taken by the PARENTS (and to a lesser degree, relatives). Really, if we actually were interested in curbing violence, we'd put cameras in our homes.
However, we do have a right to privacy. Personally, I'm of the opinion that this should trump all other issues.
Endless arguments over trivial contradictions in books written by ignorant savages to explain thunder in the dark.
call the houston police: 713-884-3131
-- lol pwned
OH yeah... Now we can set up cameras in that hot chicks bedroom... ohhhhh....
his office number directly: 713.308.1600
-- lol pwned
"If you aren't doing anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
Wrong, according to whom? You? The mormon manning the camera who thinks drinking is against God's law? The Jewish officer next to the Mormon who has a problem with my delight in cooking pork?
Everybody sees the world through their own lenses of right and wrong. If I am being observed by somoene with a radically different belief structure than my own, it stands to reason that in their eyes I very well may be doing something wrong. It is completely the right decision to want to hide my behaviors from such people, allowing them to navigate through the world with their own peculiar perceptions without slapping their personal prejudices against me.
We do not live in a homogenous society. We live in a society of great diversity where people are offended on a reasonably consistent basis by the behavior of others in society. Offense and prejudice breed harassment and worse. It is absolutely critical that people hide their personal lives from each other, and especially those who have the authority to act on their prejudices. Anyone who thinks differently - well, those are the ones who have the most dangerous prejudices of all - the ones who think they have the authority and RIGHT to force their view of the world on others.
It is your personal duty to fight for what is right on a daily basis. Ignoring injustice is identical to approving
I'm absolutely sure they won't be putting a camera in my house, because they certainly don't want to see my obese nude body. Anyone who did would stab their eyes out with a spoon.
"Fuck you, Chief"
mailto:mayor@cityofhouston.net?Subject=Message-to- Mayor
Email the mayor and tell him/her that this is a very bad idea and the police chief needs to be fired.
Contrary to popular belief, Unix is user friendly. It just happens to be particular about who it makes friends with.
First come the mandatory cameras, then come the oversized potted palms.
The US has over a quarter of a million people in it. Does the mad ranting of one idiot need to make front page news every time they say something stupid? Even if the guy is in a position of authority what he 'proposes' will never come into existence. In order to get what he wants he would need the following:
First, he would need to convince a legislative branch of the state government to allow such an atrocity. This law would be promptly struck down by state courts as it clearly violates the article 1, section 9 of the Texas constitution. So, Texas would need to change its constitution, which is no small task. If Texas changed its constitution, this law would again be struck down by federal courts as it is clear violation of AT LEAST the 4th and 5th amendment in the US bill of rights. So, you would need to go and change not one, but TWO of the original amendments to the bill of rights.
Unless anyone out there really believes that this ass hole is going to change a state constitution and rewrite the bill of rights, this is a non-story. The title of this article should have been "Dumb ass police chief doesn't understand the laws of his government and is an ass hat"
The only thing that about this story worth reporting is that there exists a police chief this stupid. This jack ass should be put out of a job for displaying such a gross level of ignorance, especially when it his job to uphold the two respective constitutions that he suggests violating.
...that the provision Texas gave itself for seceeding from USA should be used against Texas to kick them out of the country and bring democracy back?
Software is not supposed to be about how to work around a useability issue. - Ken Barber
should lose his job.
Some idiot says something crazy. Who cares? Only people who want to blow up the insane statements of some guy into statements of policy for their own rhetorical reasons.
I used to have a good friend who was a cop, and based on the way he talked, this type of move isn't surprising.
The cops I knew would definitely be in favor these types of moves if it took "criminals" off the street and looked them up for good. But it also meant that they would have to do less police work when it came to solving crimes.
Off course, when I talked to these particular cops, they all spoke in favor of getting rid of the Fourth Amendment as well. They felt that it would make their job easier if they could search any person they found suspicious.
When police speak of placing cameras in individuals homes, they don't want to do it to make individuals safer. They want to do it because it will mean less police work for them.
My Sysadmin Blog
Hey man, give us a minute to get together over this. I just found out right before you did.
While I'm sure that it might keep some crack off of the streets, forcing people to put camera's into their homes would cause riots. We didn't even have that much commotion on April 26, 1992, but THIS would get people's attention. Even as a humble stoner, I would rise against this abomination and either do everything I could to bring it down, or just give the "good ol' USA" the middle finger.
The American People stood up to tyrants once, a very long time ago. It might just be time to do it again, with or without cameras in my home.
They are installing cameras everywhere. Intersections, highways, downtown areas, local neighborhoods, etc. This is only a natural progression of the attitude that seems to be all over the state these days. Oh and they are also making many new toll roads. Even roads already paid for by tax payers. The scary part is that I pass a toll way named after George Bush (Sr) twice a day.
*It's not what you can do for the Dark Side but what the Dark Side can do for you!*
Yeah and about 15 mins of watching me scratch my naked fat ass while I fry up some eggs would probably change his view on how great of an idea this is.
That greatly depends. Lawyers are clever beasts, and they will find a way to make it happen. The police can legally search my vehicle, without a warrant, if they pull me over on a speeding ticket. Most people would find that unreasonable, but the court seems to allow that.
My Sysadmin Blog
Try reading We by Evgeny Zamyatin. It was written before George Orwell wrote 1984, and is in my opinion a much better book. If you can read it in the original Russian, even better.
Because I really don't want everyone seeing (and possibly taping) me do my impersonation of Tom Cruise in Risky Business. I can only imagine that the more riské things seen on the cameras would be leaked to the internet.
Not to mention the huge privacy implications.
Here's an idea, let's do a few test runs by putting closed circuit cameras into the chief's house first, then every police officer's house and see how they like it, then see if they want to expand that test - to their immediate family, and see the response that that gets.
It's 9 o'clock and this is the voice of fate broadcasting on 275 and 285 in the medium wave. It is the fifth of the eleventh, nineteen ninety-seven.
I think he is dead serious. It IS a wet dream for any police station. "Hey guys! C'mon! Look at this!"
While I have little faith in HPD to do anything remotely intelligent (witness the DNA crime lab scandal that never was resolved), I kind of have to wonder if Chief Hurtt is suggesting something so outrageous in the hopes that people will say, "well, I'd rather pay higher taxes to have more cops on the street than to replace them with cameras in my home or apartment!" Of course, this is probably all wishful thinking on my part (that he's bluffing). It seems like a ridiculous proposal from a cost perspective, as well - it will cost untold huge amounts of money to install and monitor cameras, and doing that as a replacement to police officers just seems misguided.
Dummy cameras are really cheap. Buy a few for $4.89 and put them on phone poles near politician's houses.
Our camera Orwellian overlords. After I bore my watchers by eating doritos and playing Quake 4 all night long, day in and day out, I shall then resume plotting against the government, in my mothers basement.
It's the job of doctors to stop us from dying. Good Doctors, who are listened to by politians tell them that in order to prevent us from dying we should be told we should have our freedom to drink, smoke and eat whatever we liked reduced so that we all live forever. Its there job.
It's the job of the military to keep us safe from other countries. Good Generals therefore tell politians about the dangers of terrorism and spys and how we should kill everyone else just in case they are a threat to national security, and reduce the freedom of foreign nationals whilst they are in the country.. It's their job.
Its the job of the police to keep us safe from each other. Good Policeman, who are listened to by politians, say that the only way we can be kept safe from each other, is if our freeedoms are reduced and we are watched constantly. It's his job.
The real problem is the politions. Its their job to up hold our freedoms. If they listen to the experts, and let them 'do they're job', then they're not doing their job - and they're the ones who are in charge - this is a constitutional republic after all.
Never ask a barber if you need a haircut. He's always going to say "Yes". (I'm too tired t spell check)
Scared of flying, pointy things snce 1979!
This idiot can't even arrest someone. http://www.publiustx.net/index.php?itemid=1519
Why bother with him?
I think that to show his commitment to this new Big Brother initiative he should install cameras in his own home and allow people to view it over the internet. Or better yet he could turn it into a television show where he completed various task for the amusement of the viewer. Nah, i was only joking about that last part, that'd be a real boring piece of shit..;)
Give us this day our garlic bread and lead us not into vegetarianism but deliver us some pizza.
If we allow the state to sweep away the normal walls of privacy that protect the details of our lives, we will consign ourselves psychologically to living in a fishbowl. Even if we suffered no other specific harm as a result, that alone would profoundly change how we feel. Anyone who has lived in a totalitarian society can attest that what often felt most oppressive was precisely the lack of privacy.
Well, moving into a small town or other community that has not had a lot of population turnover is the same way. Everyone knows everyone else's business. If you aren't used to that, or just happen to not engage the folk of the town, speculation at some point turns into "fact" (perception == reality), and the next thing you know, you're defending yourself, either in the social forum, or, more bizarrely, in a criminal forum, all because you're Not From Araound Haeah.
"If you haven't done anything wrong, what do you have to hide?"
1. People have an annoying habit of abusing their power. Statistically, there are just as many criminal police officers as there are criminal normal citizens. I certainly wouldn't give an average citizen, for example, decryption keys to the password file on my computer. I don't want to give an entire police department a video feed entering credit card numbers into websites. Or plans for protest marches at the RNC. Or meetings, for example, of a group trying to get a new police chief elected. The police and other information gathering organizations have in the past most definitely not been bastions of holyness when it comes to ethical management of valuable information.
2. There are secrets people have that aren't illegal. Maybe you're seeing a psychological councelor, and the stigma attached with that could lose your job if that slips out. Maybe you got really drunk and made a mistake that you don't want to break up your family. Maybe J Edgar Hoover just doesn't want people to know that he wears women's underwear. Why should people know any of that? Why take the risk of telling that to people, and just pray that it doesn't 'slip out'.
3. Because there are lots of little things we do every day that break the rules. These include: j-walking, downloading MP3's, subletting without telling your landlord, recording sporting events without express written concent, undocumented domestic help, recreational drug use, stealing cable, logging on to other people's wireless networks, "leaking" company information to your girlfriend, anything besides the missionary position (in many states), cheating on your wife (in many states), rolling stops on empty streets, u-turns in the middle of empty streets, locking your bicycle to the handrailing, lying about your age to get into movies, lying about your age to get senior citizens discounts, lying about your age to avoid getting senior citizens discounts, telling your company that you're "sick" when you really mean you're "sick and tired of this crappy job," not reporting e-bay sales as taxable income, grabbing an extra newspaper when someone else buys one from the machine, putting chairs in the street to save your parking spot, stealing office supplies, stealing the towels, littering, loitering, the office NCAA pool, etc etc. All of these are necessary for the functioning of our society in some way or another, but are illegal. Yet we would go batshit insane without a few personal pet vices.
And the system has been built with this in mind: nobody wants to stop your weekly 5$ poker match, they wanted to stop the gambling houses where people lost their rent money. Enforce the letter of the law, and the intent of the law gets lost.
4. Because there is a big difference between serving the public interest and fascism.
The ______ Agenda
That when you talk about cameras in private spaces they are going to catch you doing private things, like walking around naked and such. Well if the thing on the other end of the cameras was some perfectly emotionless AI, maybe this wouldn't be such a problem, but it's not, it's other human beings, who are imperfect like the rest of us. Well we know for a fact that many humans love being voyers.
That's where the argument falls totally flat. There are things that are perfectly ok, by your standards and by society's standards that you want to hide, not because they are wrong but because they are private.
It's my property - stay the fuck off of it. And it being under constant surveilance is "on" in my books, whether the presense is physical or digital, or even (gasp!) analog.
Cops (or anyone else that my taxes pay for) that think like this should be subject to a public stoning, or some equally medieval punishment. Or indeed with the "eye for an eye" method, put his bedroom on not-so-closed-circuit television.
How are sites slashdotted when nobody reads TFAs?
"...if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'"
It's a hard retort to argue against. The slave mentality driven into our brains as youths, doesn't allow us to argue that we should ever be allowed to do 'wrong'.
But I've finally figured out the answer to that question:
Who the hell are YOU to decide what is right and wrong?
I do not and will not trust YOUR judgement of MY LIFE!
Can I get a "Fuckin' Amen!" from the peanut gallery??!?!?
What about the right to privacy? Something that most people would consider a basic human right. It is not a matter of whether you are doing something considered legally 'wrong'.
Respectfully, but pure wrong. Pig cameras in public are a gateway drug, part of your conditioning, your brainwashing and state sponsored terrorism to get you to accept more and more crap. And whenever it's conveneient for them to NOT show images, like the "plane" that hit the pentagon, they refuse to show them. They get you to stop for "courtesy checkpoints" where they "ask" you if it's OK to search your vehicle. They get you conditioned to use a thumbprint to do business, conditioned against using cash, conditioned to have "free speech" zones, conditioned to accept that big politicians can blast someone and not have to give a real time interview to see if they have been drinking or not, conditioned to think it's normal that "the national debates" can only have the two major partys in them, condition you to eat black box voting and like it, condition your kids in the schools, after first drugging them, that conformity and absolute obedience to authority is the norm and to step outside of it makes you a criminal, you are being conditioed to accept the fact of "detainees" and people who can just disappear, you are being conditioned to accept "unfortunate intelligence failures", 16 of them in a row, conditioned to accept "collateral damage", conditioned to accept hundreds of new and bewildering laws passed that you could fall victim to, conditioned to have your wife or kids strip searched by pervos at the airport, conditioned to watch your job or your neighbors job just go poof and then go bankrupt and call it a "great" economy.....
and on and on..how much more evidence is really needed? Then you have fascist gangsters like this pig chief saying what he did, in all seriousness. Any one of them...hmmm, ALL OF THESE THINGS and it isn't even close to stopping yet??
Nope, it's way past time to roll it back and JUST SAY NO to ALL of it. They crossed the line years ago, any defence of them is illogical and unwarranted, it's a pure slow speed fascist takeover, perfectly clear, nothing different from any third world fascist takeover except these boys are a little slicker how they are doing it, and having you on candid camera 24/7 and RFID tagged and working for their pig corporations as a second world serf slave is EXACTLY their goal. Look back 20 years. Now look at right now. Now turn around and look forward 20 years. Watcha see? How are things doing? Really, is it going to get magically better somehow unless there's a firm line that they have to go back and stand behind? They sure as hell aren't going to do it voluntarily!
You have to look at the big picture to get the full grasp of this.
NOW is the time to get scared, concerned then angry and change this stuff. We still have 10% of a chance, your kids won't have any.
The problem I have with the whole "if you have nothing to hide..." argument is that it can be really hard to even know when/if you are doing something illegal! For a variety of reasons:
People have a hard time separating their personal judgement from what is law
A prime example is our history of sodomy law. All it takes is one deeply religious person in power who is unable or unwilling to separate church from state before you have a problem.
From the current Florida lawbooks:
Are you living in Florida with your unmarried girlfriend or boyfriend right now? (Oh wait, this is Slashdot
People misinterpret things, especially when they don't understand
What happens when big brother misinterprets your repeated login attempts because you forgot your password as attempted illegal entry into a computer system?
Or how about when you open your e-mailbox and receive those "hot teens!" spam and you're mistaken for a pedophile because you "downloaded child porn" thanks to the attached jpeg?
There are plenty of silly, stupid and broad laws on the books
I won't even bother to comprehend how many silly, stupid and broad laws there are. Check out some of your state's dumb laws (DumbLaws.com coral cached) and discover your true criminal identity.
And lets not forget about the growing issue of computer crimes created by politicians who have been bought or simply don't understand. If the RIAA/MPAA gets its way, it'll soon be illegal to put a DVD in your computer or record your favorite movie aired on TV to watch later.
... anyway
My point is that you are mistaken to think that you have nothing to worry about if you've supposedly done nothing wrong.
First, everyone in this country has probably broken or will eventually break a law or two unknowingly or willingly. And secondly, history has proven that whoever has the power to monitor the people will undoubtably abuse that power according to their beliefs and to their advantage -- whether it's in public locations or in the privacy of your own home.
This idea is constitutional and is permitted by US constitution in that the the citizens have a right to monitor the government.
As far as am concerned, THAT is a true use of my money. I get to exactly note how my money is spent.
What do you say Mr.Policeman?
"Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
This is not THAT outrageous considering some of the real life cases that I have witnessed. In the ghetto, sometimes police get called to a particular address on a semi-regular basis. (Whether for domestic dispute, drug related violence, etc.) I could sort of see this working as a black box... so, when society breaks down, we can see what the heck happened. So, privacy wouldn't be so much of a concern due to the lack of active monitoring... it's just for an unbiased source of evidence when the shit hits the fan. Too often crimes go unpunished due to lack of evidence and police waste a lot of time with people finger pointing.
colorgarden
It's not enough. Let's go that last mile.
Camera's everywhere. In your home, car, toilet, bathroom, inner sanctum, the forests, the parks, car parks, office blocks, apartment complexes, eye-balls, and the backs of heads.
Now, give everyone free access to see everything these cameras see through the internet.
Utter, complete, disgusting freedom through knowing what everyone else is doing and no-one gets away with anything nasty. We'd either kill each other or have a very strange utopia.
His name is Robert Paulsen...
Say "Cheese", Harry.
Seastead this.
A bunch of us ought to stand outside his house and stare in the windows all say.
"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing.
Ok Chief, let me clue you in. In this country people are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. People should not be required to repeatedly prove their innocence to your satisfaction by being subjected to 24/7 monitoring.
It is your job as a police officer to respond to criminal complaints, protect the innocent, and arrest the persons reasonably suspected of committing those crimes. Police officers have been performing those tasks long before you came along and they did it without the benefit of modern investigative technology. And they also did it without subjecting the entire citizenry to invasive monitoring such as what you are proposing. If you and your officers are not up to the task, you may want to consider a career change because you are obviously not going to live up to the level of you predecessors.
The only other alternative I could suggest is a reeducation camp, with the purpose of instructing you and yours in the finer aspects of our US constitution and criminal investigation procedures. Perhaps Guantanamo is free for a few months?
Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the (supposed) good of its victims may be the most oppressive
Uh oh. Quick! Somebody set up the Lesbian defense donation fund for all the lesbians Texans who own more than 6 dildos.
Well... I gues we'll all just skip back 22 years or so... Maybe we'll change the newspapers and books so that houses always had cameras in them? Maybe, those like us rebels will just start disappearing without trace, and people will claim "Tinned_Tuna"?
Those who think differently will start just to drop off the face of the Earth if things continue like this!
Encrypt everything while you still have the chance and while it's still remotley legal!
One day, the powers that be will look back and think "What a waste of time that whole freedom fiasco was!"
If anything like this happens in England, I'll destroy the camera! I'll hack it, i'll rig it up to explode on command. I'll send rude gestures to who ever is watching, I'll stage a protest of some kind
I'm not disagreeing with your sentiments, but Jews have no problem with Gentiles not keeping Kosher.
Support a few technologists in Washington.
If they want to put the American public on camera. Make them be under the publics eye for at least five years prior to any change. Let them see what its like first.
Just because you can, does not mean you should.
"Only in Texas." That bozo should install cameras in his home and broadcast it to the web. Hey if he's not doing anything wrong, why worry? What a moron.
What if I want to walk stark naked in my house? What if I want to have sex with the wife on the kitchen table? What if I want to do legal things that would embarrass me if others knew? Those things are all legal, yet I don't want do put on a show for stranger eyes.
'Animal Farm' and '1984' all at once.
Active Torrents for:-
Animal Farm ( 699.53 MB )
and
1984 ( 898.78 )
It's almost unbelievable that this is happening in the US, that bastion of freedom.
I think that there should be a law that whenever a politician or public official makes a completely ludicrous statement like that, they must be ready to be the first test subjects. Let's start by installing cameras in his home.
VOTE SIMONSON '08
I'm a signature virus. Please copy me to your signature so I can replicate.
Much more cost saving is to implant citizens with cameras and mics at birth. Maybe even major muscles could be monitored.
Do not forget sleep or reset buttons: so, instead of using weapons, press sleep and a person goes to sleep. If it got dangerous idea in the mind, press reset (no jails needed!)
DRM is much more enforceble then, checked with a hash of DNA sequence...
As you see, many more problems could be solved this way. With more advanced AI, crime could then be treated as a bug in the software. Citizens will receive updates.
Policemen will maybe need additional gadgets, but this may be just additional software.
What was stated, was that he wanted cameras watching the property. "And if a homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to require camera surveillance of the property, he said."
Cameras in malls and large apartment complexes are actually quite common. Having a camera watching the halls and lobbies should not affect normal people at all. A camera which is used for watching private property is not /too/ much different, as long as it is placed outside of the house (probably watching the road in front of it, the driveway and the walk up to the front door). To me, it sounds like that is all he's talking about. /inside/ the home is a totally different issue, and any who suggest it should be thrown from whichever office they currently hold.
Of course, having a camera
Calling a sword by a pretty name is no more than adding perfume to poison.
A jew negro.
when you have a spare 10 minutes pull over and make a call on your cell phone, when you see the tow truck coming up the freeway finish call and drive away.
If enough people did that the tow companies would get tired of sending out trucks just to have them return empty handed and stop sending them out.
But then i remembered thats in texas and most likely there is some type of compensation to the tow companies when they get a call whether they tow or not.
And there probably is some type of connection between the mayor and said tow companies.
Why waste my time just to line someone elses pockets with my tax money.
.. it's just that's it is presently a TV show called Big Brother. If I were them I'd patent the concept quickly.
Talk about clueless - this guy is a police CHIEF?
Insert
The Anarchist Cookbook...
Donald 'Duck' Dunn: We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline.
5 times per week to the same house
then later
2 times per month to the same house
then later
2 times per 6 monthes to the same street
then later
we are installing cameras because its the law
Any liberties violated are precursers to total enslavement you just have to wait long enough.
Dear chief: If you're not doing anything wrong, why do you close the door when you go to the toilet?
"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"
I know a lot of people are concerned about Josef Stalin, but my response to that is, if you haven't pissed him off, why should you worry about being shot? Are you some sort of traitor to the Motherland, Comrade?
... If you expect opposition to your proposal, you propose something even more draconian than your original goal to see how it goes over. This achieves two things, first, it tests the water, just in case people are ready to give in. Second, if the people aren't ready to give in, you scale it back to less draconian, and all of a sudden the scaled back solutions don't seem nearly as bad, and the "controversial" ideas go forward masquerading as "reasonable", due to the now common comparison with the "unreasonable".
They're hacking us people. They are hacking our minds. They know exactly what they're doing. This isn't tinfoil hat stuff, they have highly paid strategists that study how to pull shit like this off. We're in deep doo doo if we, as a people, don't begin to recognize the nature of this social "matrix".
"Chief, do you like to have sex with your wife?" ...
"Can I watch?"
Jeremy Logan's Website.
That's what I'm talking about! Set it up so the people can more readily scrutinize their elected and appointed public officials. They're the ones who should be under constant surveillance! I'd like to have a camera in Florida right now, keeping an eye on Jeb Bush and the cleanup men flown in from Texas, to be able to watch them shredding those incriminating documents. It is we the people who are in charge, not these morons. They need to start remembering their place, that they serve you and me, and all the people, not just a manipulable faction who can be cowed into voting in our own oppression. We need to make the social position of public servant less desirable to power-seekers, frankly. Strip it of all the trappings of affluence, which is entirely undeserved. And we need to remove the machinery by which corporate money maintains a thousand times more influence in government than the will of the people.
Such a revolution is possible. Quite simply, the people must be reminded of our American roots. The people looking for a common cause have only to look to our founding principles, which are not from some particular brand of ideology or religion. Our system of laws was founded in principles designed to undermine tyranny and prevent the abuse of power. Period.
The current corporate fascism was not imagined in particular at the time of our founding. However, the danger of monied interests corrupting officials and the Democratic process was well-understood. The framers of the Constitution provided for this almost explicitly, but due to the complex nature of government, the stagnation of bureaucracy, the bamboozlement of the people, the leveraging of weakness and ambiguity in the law, and the freakish slowness of reform, there is no overarching power that can hold back emergent powers like the profit-centric Military Industrial Complex, Pharmaceutical Companies, and Petro interests.
The result of all this is of course the rape of the People by monied interests, who are allowed by the crumbling system to usurp every bit of our collective wealth. Since we are the root power, ir is up to us to insist on more controls. If corporations are allowed to encroach in the workings of Government then they should be treated as another branch of Government. You might say, they are the branch that fulfills the practical needs of society and creates concentrations of wealth bound to that purpose. Under that theory, every cent a company makes should go to its own sustenance, and none should go into coercing the other branches. If it wants to act as if it were a branch of government it should be bound by the clause concerning the limitation of powers.
There are a few people out there who want to believe that this country was founded on Christian or Judeo-Christian principles. They would have the cart placed before the horse! Those people who call themselves Christian would do well to remember that the teacher they worship taught specifically that one should not follow laws blindly nor submit to external authority.
Jesus even went so far as to say - not in so many words - that Moses wrote the Ten Commandments and deliberately delivered them under the aegis of divine authority in order to sell them to his people. He states that the people were too hardened to accept civil law on its inherent merits, so Moses took a deep breath and wisely used the leverage he had. The founder of Judeo-Christian ethics was a master politician. He got you to listen. Did you? He told you: It's time for you to be the grown-up and understand why civil laws are metaphysically meritorious, and stop kowtowing to external coercive authority.
Okay, that's my diatribe for today. If I wax verbose it's only because I see things going to shit because of corruption. I see the people's time, air, water, and minds being stolen away. I see the rulers of this country - you and me - sleeping on the job, letting these charlatans get away with murder every minute of every day. I see high-paid hacks poisoning the discourse on a hundred channels. I see the mindset of "me and mine" eroding the culture, turning us all into cancer cells in the body politic.
I'm mad as hell and I'm not going to take it any more!
-- thinkyhead software and media
I was thinking about this too. DoS attack in real life. :) It should not be too hard to find out how the tow companies are compensated.
Police Chief Harold Hurtt kills a kitten. I don't care if the watcher approves or disapproves of what I do at home; if I got off on people watching I'd have a webcam.
It's not that average decent people (or police) change their minds and become spying power hungry scum. It's that the ones who already have those tendencies gravitate towards positions of power. In times of crisis, these people see their opportunity and push. A bit more power for me, a bit less for you. And that makes it easier for those power seekers to get together.
Where does it end up? History shows some examples.
For every expert, there is an equal and opposite expert. - Arthur C. Clarke
if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'"
Because my sex life is not for your entertainment.
Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
When They (as in the government and the cops who operate the cameras) redefine "doing something wrong" and use the cameras to bust you. Or when the people monitoring the cameras mis-interperate what they see.
Also, who will pay for these cameras? Will the taxpayers pay more tax? If not, where will the money come from?
And, finally, which camera manufacturer left the big black suitcase full of unmarked bills in the police chiefs car in return for suggesting this?
Not knowing anything about Houston or Texas politics, I have no idea if this guy is just spouting his mouth off or if there is an actual chance that this will be implemented, any Texans want to enlighten me?
After all, do you beleieve after this current budget assessment that there
will be funding to monitor the beer-drinking, porn-watching, taco-eating,
burger-festering couch potato population when the current government
can't even guarantee evacuation busses during a hurricane?
Then again, that would be COOL!
I could track my daily progress via the camera via some Linux solution
to forever confuse the police with innuendo and reality dramas about my
mundane worker-bee life. That would definitely convince them there's
something to investagate.
And think about it! If this goes through, all you have to do to get
a job at the police force is have a profound fixation on watching other
people. Takes care of all those voyeuristic folks who like to watch
prOn all the time.
Install, Then Run
sure.. put a camera in my house
of course i'd expect cameras in politicians' and policepersons' and other 'persons of authority' houses and meeting spaces, that i also have access to.
that should be fine, shouldn't it? because if you've done nothing wrong, you ha
ve nothing to hide, right?
Maybe now we'll find out who wrecked his expensive holo-synth tv.
Sorry, couldn't resist posting an obligatory Phillip K. Dick reference.
Especially since these days, more and more stories in the newspaper sound like something out of one of his novels...
I work in local government. I am around cops all day. 2 of my friends actually became cops. Over the period of 2 years while training and first year of service, you can definatly see a change in their attitude. They become very detached from reality. I think very few cops these days actually become officers to uphold the law and make the world a better place. Some do it for the rush and excitment. A lot do it for the power. Some do it simply because it's a steady government job that doesn't require anything more than a high school diploma.
A great deal of police think that if you were clocked at 45, you were going 45 and you are just lying. There's this attitude that if you were pulled over or arrested, you are guilty (even before trial). If not, that would mean the police are wrong (oh my, god forbid that!).
What happened to you is actually a common police tactic. Not ticketing you for the primary accused charge, but some made up lesser charge (seat belt, tail light, reduced speeding ticket). Most people won't fight it because they are scared if they get in court the officer might bring up the original charge and have a huge ticket. Guilt or innocence has nothing to do with it. Which is sad, because a lot of people pay for tickets they should fight because they are scared. The police are very aware of this and use it as a common tactic to make a ticket stick.
And that's the sad state of many police departments in the united states. Making the world safe and fair for us by upholding the law is only about 10% of their motivation anymore. Revenue and power through selective accusations seems to really trump that these days.
I can't even tell you how many times I've seen the police flick on their lights just to run a red light. Or let off their friends when they pull them over. The clincher? I'm at a crowded restaurant one night (30 minute wait time). Cop walks in with two chicks, looks at the line. Walks right past everyone and finds a recently vacant table. Asks them to clean it and sits right down. And no one said anything because he was a cop. That really sums up their attitude right there.
If an officer ever threatens to taze you, say you have a pacemaker.
Lets take this argument further - why wear clothes? What's the matter, got something to hide?
I'm an exhibitionist, so is my wife. We are recently planning on moving to Houston, and were wondering - exactly what kind of repeated calls would qualify us for this kind of surveillance equipment?
...Big Brother... ...insensitive clod! There are women who want to watch too!
'Nothing to hide', just another stock answer. Living in the early 70's in the US all you heard from the 'silent majority' was another stock answer 'Love it or leave it'. I left.
"If the King's English was good enough for Jesus, it's good enough for me!" -- "Ma" Ferguson, Governor of Texas (circa
Where is Houston anyway?
If I've done nothing wrong - I've nothing to fear - therefore you have no need to monitor me. And surely you should assume from the outset that I have done nothing wrong.
There's something terribly wrong if I have to parade in front of a camera in my own home all day to prove that I'm innocent. You can't just preemptivly gather evidence on everyone based on the theory that at least some of them will probably be guilty, at some point, maybe.
Fast! Go straight to any vendor and buy a webcam. Plug into your internet-connected computer and redirect the stream "out" (via whatever you want).
:)
Then call 911 and ask for the chief. Tell him that they can view the stream from their station 24/7 (hey! I provide what you wanted and you don't need to place your infrastructure).
But, you know, for a little fee. Won't you go over RIAA's guys?
And just in case the refuse, keep in mind that your images belong to you. And they have a price
It's not at all surprising to hear the endless stories of government cops ticketing or even arresting people on false charges all the time. After all, it's not like you hired them. It's not like they're responsible to citizens; they don't lose pay or get fired for poor performance, except under the most unusual circumstances.
In spite of the best intentions of many police officers to "stay honest" (whatever that means to them), their masters are the politicians who make the rules, civil servants trying to increase their department budgets, and police bureaucrats trying to protect their piece of turf in the state protection racket. The amount of true protection to citizens that is required to please these special groups is pretty low.
Compare your experience to the behaviour of private police on university campuses and other institutions. They're paid to assist visitors, keep everyone safe, and protect their customers. Pay and employment are linked to performance in a meaningful manner.
If the Houston police chief was the police chief in any number of other countries, he might just get his way with in-home cameras. Perhaps that day will come in the US too.
It's no wonder private security is such a booming business. It's not like you can get real security from the government -- only intrusion and bullying.
He who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me.
3 years ago I got my junk car stuck in my driveway, in the process, I breathed unburned gas and CO to the extent that I was unable to drive, almost unable to walk. I went in the house and called 911, then went out to the porch to wait for ambulance. Police showed up in advance of the ambulance, and accused mr of 'being wired', and what was I high on? They asked me repeatedly, then badgerd my wife, "does your husband ALWAYS go to work stoned?". My wife drove me to the hospital, after taking enough crap from public safety officers, and I was treated for CO poisoning. It never crossed their minds that I wasn't high on some illegal substance, even though I explained what happened.
That's not the only incident where officers decided what happened before responding, when my brother, who'd had a stroke recently, got hit while riding his bicycle, responding officers mocked him and accused him of being stoned because he couldn't adequately describe the car that hit him. Things didn't change even after I explained his condition to them. I told them to leave, at which point I became the bad guy.
That Houston cop is so full of shit that his eyes must be brown (disregarding genetic predilection).
Perhaps we need a new fantasticly gripping horror story of the future in a smilar vain but more real given the curent world developments, it's title:
"if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"
First, this is an expansion of already existing methodologies justified as being used to catch traffic infractions (i.e., robocops as tax collectors during a time when cities and states have cried foul over lost revenues to spend at their next meeting). Second, this is a direct move toward live surveillance in homes. The political tactic is to talk about 'effectively protecting the citizenry' (i.e., such as the frustration felt by cops who get called out to the same home for domesic violence 5 times per week, which is incredibly rare to the point of almost not existing). Put a closed circuit camera in the house with a padlocked VHS recorder and its no longer he-said-she-said. And once 'we' learn that we can arrest a handful of abusers, we'll rightfully believe the same technology can protect citizens in other situations. 'We' will go so far as to conclude that the people we did not arrest or the people who stopped calling to report false abuse are clear indications of cameras as deterent. Therefore, we will extend cameras on that basis. There are many law enforcement reasons to want cameras in homes, including the protection of children from seeing porn on the internet necessitating camera placement near every computer and grafitti artists who defile public property requiring preventive watching.
As a cop, you should already BE AWARE of the type of assholes cops are.
This policy is nothing that could not be fixed by a can of black spray paint and a bellaclava.
A people that values its privileges above its principles soon loses both. Dwight D. Eisenhower
Ah, national privacy commissioner. We have that in Germany, too. That's just got to be one fucked-up job. Sisyphus got nothing on him. Or maybe they're in on the whole thing, and just there to give it a positive face: see, the government does know privacy infractions are bad, even if it doesn't seem to care about it in its legislation.
Switch back to Slashdot's D1 system.
How much has he been smoking?? Weve all seen the attrocities that have occured to innocent people purely at the whim of a bureau or corrupt official. We all have the right to our privacy, remember Nazi Germany, and the lessons that the jewish population went through and then magnify that many times due to current technology of tracking people. Who isnt scared? Those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them. Time to look for a new police chief.
Shopping Malls and Apartment buildings SHOULD have cameras to promote public safty.
People who think they know everything really piss off those of us that actually do.
.. is and can only be: You never know when authorities decide, that what you do is wrong in their mind!
There are borders and should always be in a democratic environment about what is allowed for legislation and executive elements of the state against the one who are the state!
if you are not doing anything wrong
No, no, no... I think if I ever hear that argument again I am just going to explode and hope I'll be some bacteria my next life. Well, if I'd believe in being reborn that is.
Every (wo)man with power who says lines like that should just have their rooms and bathrooms in each of their houses equipped with cameras giving live feeds on the net.
I am putting myself to the fullest possible use, which is all I can think that any conscious entity can ever hope to do.
Dvorak? No. Bush, yes?
Dear Texas,
Thank you for giving us another "brilliant" public servant.
Regards,
Me
Name: Mr. Anon E Mouse; SSN: 555-55-5555
You tell 'em, comrade!
Game... blouses.
if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it? If I am not doing anything wrong - then why should you be looking in my house?
The only way to fight terrorism abroad is to fight terrorism at home. I could see federalies detaining the maid under the patriot act for possesing bomb making materials
I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
How about one worrying about them doing something wrong with all the information they get?
It happens, quite frequently too. Just look at the RIAA suing deceased grandmothers.
But of course, they're *drumroll* the law enforcement and never makes mistakes...
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Bill White, the mayor of Houston is not a conservative crypto fascist Republican Neanderthal - he is a Liberal Democrat.
Everybody who thinks that all would be cured if only we got rid of Chimp Hitler Reich Master Bush and put in a good old non-God fearing Progressive shining star like John Kerry needs to stop and think about that fact for a few minutes.
In this country we have two parties - one of them is composed of rich people looking out for the interests of the rich. The other is composed of rich people who claim to be looking out for the interests of the poor - but who actually just don't want the first group of rich people running things.
The vast majority of people - who are neither rich nor poor simply have no representation whatsoever.
In answer to the police chief's question about "If you aren't doing anything wrong - why would you object" let me follow him around all day with a live TV camera and see how long it is before he has his officers arrest me.
This guy makes for an interesting goolge search.
Disappointed about not having anyone to arrest they arrest everyone at K-Mart. They actually practiced at a Wendy's restraunt the week before. I believe with the mayor and police chief watching. They even arrested families that had a receipt showing that they were waiting for food, for tresspassing. In order to crack down on groups of youths collecting in high crime areas where they might cause trouble. They needed a scapegoat, and so after the backlash, it became the officer in charge at the scene decided to do it on his own. The test a Wendy's was determined to be an "unrelated" incident
And we can be sure that he would protect are constitution rights. Just like he would for his own officers. So why not put the cameras in. You can't talk to anyone if you criticize my department
But he just wants to make sure that everyone is not breaking the law. Unless they are an illegal immigrant. The police chief has issued a direct order to police that they cannot enforce any immigration laws because it creates to much political conflict with city officals getting relected. I just have trouble with the police being told they cannot enforce a law. At this point the Police chief has become lawmaker & enforcer. If they want the illegal immigrants to stay, they need to change the laws, not give the police chief the right to do whatever he wants.
I regularly scream in rage at my viewscreen during my Two Minutes Hate sessions.
Cameras are just the next logical step.
OMG the CAPTCHA dictionary has cute geek words!! todays word is:
kilobits
Seriously is that all cowboyneal does with his life?
please type the word in this image: kilobits random letters - if you are visually impaired, please email us at pater@slashdot.org
#hostfile 0.0.0.0 primidi.com 0.0.0.0 www.primidi.com 0.0.0.0 radio.weblogs.com
He didn't, of course. The submitter (or perhaps Zonk) made that up. He never said "IN homes". he said "in large apartment complexes", meaning the public areas, and the exact words for honmes: "if a homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to require camera surveillance of the property". Which means the OUTSIDE of a property, unless the police chief is a raving lunatic. The lack of emphasis on this in TFA indicats this was understood to be the meaning. Not to say there are no problems with the idea, but argue about what he actually proposed.
Right, that's my point, the part about cameras in homes was only mentioned to sensationalize the story. Who gives a rats ass if there are cameras in crime ridden parts of the city and apartment complexes. I see the news every morning and evening and there are murders in apartment complexes almost every day.
If Hurtt or anyone else had mentioned cameras in private homes, the local TV news would have gone nuts. They're so goofy about sensationalizing "The Danger lurking in your home that could KILL YOU at any moment" which is your gas stove if the knob gets turned accidently or something silly like that. This they would have jumped on, there would be no love lost between the cops & news in this town.
the local donut shop! Wouldn't want to miss out on that "vital police activity", right?
Live streaming of in-car audio and all police radio transmissions could be next.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
I was taught to be polite and have respect towards others. In this, in what my estimation is a wholly ridiculous and terribly invasive idea to put into practice, I say let him be first with total information surveillance. If he believes that constant surveillance will afford the public with a level of safety that far exceeds the norm that should outweigh the loss of our bill of rights? On one hand having a transparent goverment with all of its interactions available for review, censure, and reform wouldn't be a bad idea. Why shouldn't we the people be the ones to surveil the police?
a slut did tulsa
Maybe Chief Harold Hurtt should be a trendsetter and install cameras in his own home and make them available for watching over the internet by anyone who wishes....after all if he is not doing anything wrong what does he have to worry about?
My bet his answer would be no.
To quote Ayn Rand (from Atlas Shrugged)
""Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.""
'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'"
,1858)
Reading my families old German newspapers from WWII gives me a nice historical reference on this "reason". Every tyrant who has lived has believed in freedom for himself.
"Our reliance is in the love of liberty which God has planted in us. Our defense is in the spirit which prized liberty as the heritage of all men, in all lands everywhere. Destroy this spirit and you have planted the seeds of despotism at your own doors. Familiarize yourselves with the chains of bondage and you prepare your own limbs to wear them. Accustomed to trample on the rights of others, you have lost the genius of your own independence and become the fit subjects of the first cunning tyrant who rises among you."
ABRAHAM LINCOLN
(Edwardsville, Illinois, September 11
Who are you calling homogenous? I'll have you know that I am happily married to a beautiful woman. Don't try and push your evil hippie California immoral lifestyle on me. May you all burn in hell!!!
"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing.
Bottom line? He should be removed from the force. His job is to enforce law, not judge it. He clearly hass no respect for fundamental rights spelled out in the U.S. Constitution, and is therefore disqualified to be a police officer, much less Chief of Police.
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
It wasn't long ago that America was known as the Land of the Free. I'm scared sh*tless of how short a time it takes to decend into facism. The crazy thing is that a lot of people are actually defending stuff like this.
"If you're ever in Houston,
Oh you'd better do right
You'd better not gamble
And you better not fight, lord
Or the sheriff will grab you
And the boys will bring you down
The next thing you know boy,
Oh you're prison bound"
-- as interpreted by me
Seems ol' Leadbelly had it down some 40+ years ago. I wonder if everything that the old blues players sang about will just come true again only in a digital world.
--
If I actually could spell I'd have spelled it right in the first place.
This man must be a real communist at heart.
Yeah, it sounds all "1984." The police chief isn't *quoted* (in TFA) as saying "in homes." I'm willing to concede that he probably meant something more like, "in the vicinity of" high-crime-area homes to surveille the homes and their surrounding areas. This would approximate the same thing as a patrol car sitting on the street watching.
Like all cities, there are a lot of places in Houston that no one likes to be in after dark (including the police). Cameras leverage the limited manpower of the police in those areas.
However after the shitstorm of controversy stirred up by the ill-considered wording of the comments and the implications leveled in the press, the city council will probably table this (they have enough of their own problems).
I, on the other hand have both a tin-foil hat and a Glock, in either case.
every person in charge that says, "if you're not doing anything wrong, then don't worry about it", is usually doing something wrong...
*plays the Apogee theme song music*
Such cameras are costly, Houston Mayor Bill White said, "but on the other hand we spend an awful lot for patrol presence." He called the chief's proposal a "brainstorm" rather than a decision.
This is so common now that no one questions it, but why exactly do police need to be on patrol?
When a real crime occurs, it gets reported to the police. There's a community outcry, and if its credible, the police can ask to be empowered to pursue justice, and if the judge agrees, they bring in suspects and evidence and put the pieces together. If the case is still credible, it goes to trial. Due process at work. If a crime hasn't occured, you simply don't see the police. There's no patrol required, they can do this noble job hanging out at the station all day waiting for the phone to ring.
But putting police on the street to be on the "lookout" for crime is a draconian line that was crossed long ago and is now taken for granted. Frequently the crimes they pick up are never reported to them, they're crimes the police see on their own. Crimes like driving without a seatbelt buckled, or an exchange of goods or services that the state does not agree with. Essentially, victimless crimes. And these instances are the ones most abused: cause to question the black kid who wandered into the white neighborhood, mugging motorists as a form of state revenue, etc.
In an ideal world, we could have full faith in the police and allow them to simply point to someone and say "guilty" and have them locked up forever. But the police are only human, and can be corrupted, and that's a dangerous amount of power to give anyone, so we make rules and processes that are checked by one another, and decentralized, to protect us from the police.
So maybe when the police say "if you aren't doing anything wrong, you should have nothing to hide", we should respond with "if you aren't trying to abuse your authority, you should have no problem with due process".
Not quite the same ring to it, huh? :(
...just consider the possible dimness of the source.
The guy is a headline grabber.
These guys are mad with power. About 3 years ago they decided to arrest 278 people with absolutely no cause. Check these articles out. I think every officer involved in the incident should have been fired.
3 287251.html/ raid/index.html
http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/special/raid/
http://www.chron.com/content/chronicle/special/02
Just imagine what they would pull, if they were given even the tiniest bit more power.
The problem is that no-one actually has time to look through the security footage, so it's all pointless anyway unless you have a massive team watching the output of them. If there are 4 million cameras here (and I think that might actually be conservative estimate judging by the numbers I see here in the UK every day), then logically there should be a massive number of people employed to watch them - but there aren't.
;)
Case in point - where I used to work a very nice multiprocessor desktop machine was "liberated" by someone over the Christmas break a few years back. We had loads of security cameras, including hidden ones, but the machine still went missing. I asked security to check the tapes and find out who stole it. Their reply - "no". Apparently it takes too long to look through the footage, so it's not cost effective. Two weeks of recordings, twenty cameras, no chance. Of course I actually think one of them stole it anyway, so that might be the real reason
Security cameras provide the illusion of security to some - but if no-one watches the output, they may as well not be there.
Unfortunately the only people with enough manpower to watch cameras are exactly the people I'd rather not have watching me... Like that police chief.
unlike when your wife (or, perhaps, your mom) comes in when you're surfing pr0n, actually fucking her (the wife, that is) is ok.
"Our interests are to see if we can't scale it up to something more exciting," he said.
Hey, wait just a damned minute, aren't these people the ones who say that copwatch shouldn't videotape them while they're on the (publicly-funded) clock?!
My question is, if I'm not doing anything wrong, why do I need to be watched?
Frank
Houston, TX
Next, I really don't think my taste (or lack of it) in movies should be bandied about.
Last, there are things that are legal now, that could be made illegal later. Sure, we're not supposed to have ex-post facto laws, but we aren't supposed to have survailance cameras in our homes, either.
Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves.
I don't object because I'm doing anything wrong. I'm afraid of what you'll consider wrong in the future.
How about pointing it at a framed copy of the constitution and bill of rights? That would confuse them, since they don't seem to believe they exist!
Exigo spamos et dona ferentes
The real questions is Who Terrorizes you more?
.45 pistol and a shotgun and you should be ok in most situations. (chemical, gas , nukes aside)
The government w/ its wonderful 'protection' programs. Carnivore anyone? Magic Lattern?
or
some dude 8000 miles away in a 3rd world country?
personally i say just invest in a good old
Parent's comment reminded me of a case from a few years back.
There was a congressman...or was it a police chief...who favored the position that once garbage was placed at the curb, it was considered abandoned by the owner, and was not subject to search by warrant. The police could just pick up any given bag of trash and search for evidence...no privacy concerns.
All was well until a local paper picked through his trash and publised the contents...unread magazines and solicitation letters... food boxes...that's what I remember.
Man, was he pissed...and suddenly his view didn't apply to him.
So, hell yes, let's put publicly accessable GPS devices in police cars, let's have webcams in police stations...in every room. Let's watch the watchers.
Also reminds me of that sherrif in Arizona who had webcams in his jail...the man was ahead of his time.
Huh?
I'm sure he won't mind having cameras installed in his home.
There are two things he's talking about here.
...
1)camera's in apartment buildings
it's not necessarily a bad thing if you have ever been in a lift (elevator) which someone decided to use as a toilet. not pleasant is it. maybe a camera would help. There are a few hell holes around like that. That just maybe a few camera's might make a difference. A camera covering the carpark outside so your cars still in one piece when you go back to it. It might help raise the quality of life for people trying to live thier lives in places like that.
however is that something that should be done by the police or is it better managed by the buildings owners?
I've seen in poland apartment blocks with a carpark surrounded by a fence and a guard at the entrance to the carpark 24 hours a day would you like the extra security that brings?
personally I have had 3 cars damaged or broken into whilst parked on the street outside my house. There is no camera
2) camera's in peoples homes
What is outrageous thou is putting camera's in peoples homes and pointless too billybob will still slap maryjane he just will make sure the camera's can't see him do it.
The articles absurd it misses the point by talking about camera's in peoples homes which isn't reasonable by any stretch.
Camera's in communual area's thou it's more reasonable although for me I like the guy out in his cabin watching my car all night least he should respond.
Camera's don't tend to get an immediate response , a camera shows someone in a hoody busting in your car. doesnt identify him doesn't stop the damage and inconvienience.
personally i think we could do with more security guards.
How much to improve the quality of life for residents in a tower block with 160 familys the cost of having a guard on duty isn't that high for the increased security it would bring.
Another plus point is a camera tape could be around for months recording what time you got in, when you left. The security guard will only ensure no break ins while he was on shift not who was visiting mrs smith whilst her husband was on shift. Security is one thing surveillance is another. memorys fade not so camera tapes.
Blarney Quality Restaurant, Plants
This police chief would get along great with lots of people...Like: Hitler, Stalin, Mao Tse-Tung. But i might at this does seem to line up with our country's current shift away from privacy evident in legislation IE the "patriot act". It is becoming more and more "patriotic" to give up your rights to privacy. The only thing left to do is find a small unclaimed uninhabited island and start a micronation!!
Well, obviously, they're living with someone, and according to the laws you quote, both are guilty of the same crime...
I think the police officers should be the first ones to test out the new cameras in every room of their homes. After all, they probably call the police department more than anyone else.
Also reminds me of that sherrif in Arizona who had webcams in his jail...the man was ahead of his time.
Yes, there's actually someone who's not afraid to show how he actually runs things. However, I think he got sued and the webcam was taken down.
"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?"
So, I guess he sends all his mail on postcards then?
When is enough enough? I remember once that this was something soviet union did that we thought was so awful. Now we are becoming just like them. Here in Texas (Plano and Richardson for example) cameras are being installed on traffic lights for automated tickets by mail.
I mean, after all, if Congressmen aren't doing anything wrong, why shouldn't they be tagged with implants, tracked via GPS and constantly monitored by video and audio. I mean, not only are they not criminals (LOL) but they work for us. If anyone should be subject to monitoring it should be the government and upper management of large public companies and other organizations.
if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
The Chief should be required to defecate in public for a year. Since there is nothing wrong with the act of defecation, he has nothing to worry about.
Unless, of course, the human need for privacy extends beyond just hiding things that are illegal or immoral, and instead extends to things that are merely, well, private.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
For one, the right not to incriminate one's self is given to US citizens in the constitution. If I flip off my computer when Windows XP gives me an error (Which is quite often), and the camera catches that, should I be arrested for slandering a company in the privacy of my own home? Also, new laws are made and current ones are changed on a consistant basis. What may be illegal publicly may not necessarily be illegal privately. However, if what you're doing privately is being recorded for public / state use (as it would be if it were regulated by authorities) then how would anything be private anymore? IMHO, I say it's time to start telling the government to piss off anyway. They're getting a little too quick to remove rights given by the constitution. The government that governs least, governs best.
'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'
Spoken like somebody who has never truly read Orwell.
Do you see what I did there?
Whoa, why do all you slashdotters take everything so negatively?! Think of all the cool stuff you could do with your own private home surveillance cam: - Put on little mini-plays every night illustrating the various methods of murder from "Friday the 13th" movie series. - position the camera onto the cat's litter box - place a TV monitor in front of the camera and loop "A Clockwork Orange" - position a picture to fill up the surveillance frame and then install a new pic every day. I'd start with goatse... The possibilities truly are endless. Seriously, am I really the only one that would be donning a 'Leatherface' mask, cranking up the chainsaw (with chain removed of course) and putting on a little show for my 'law enforcement surveillors'?
Scottie on Star Trek invented this. "I canno dew it, Cap'n! I need more time!" Invariably, he would always deliver. Made him look like an engineering GOD.
It's finally looking a lot like 1984.
There's a general consensus about mass surveillance. On the 'pro' side of the field, the argument is and will always be, "If you have nothing to hide, then you have no reason to be afraid. It's for your own good." On the 'con' side, however, you actually tend to get the mental juices flowing, and you get responses like the ones I've read here, detailing how mind-blowingly wrong this is and just how pathetic our 'leaders' must be to actually think that implimenting a plan like this will actually help anything.
We Americans, among other societies in the world, have become a society of terror. Pure, unbridled terror - fear in its purest form. I believe it was Albert Einstein that said, "If people are good only because they fear punishment, and hope for reward, then we are a sorry lot indeed." This is the sorry lot that we are transforming into. We live in a world run by morons now, people who don't believe that there is an answer to the social ills of the world other than terror; people who place themselves on a higher pedestal than the rest of humanity; people to whom life and freedom are both cheap, and death and oppression are glorious. This is the world we live in, and 'men' like this miserable police chief are the ones in charge - the ones about whom we can do little to nothing. Sadly, there are probably hundreds of thousands of citizens that would agree with this man. People with no will, no desire for freedom, scared, miserable little people who have yet to understand just how worthless life is without the freedom to think, speak, and act on one's own. These are the people who are only motivated by fear and reward; the proud, lobotomized masses.
This site, the people speaking here? This is what terrorism looks like. This is what evil personified would say. At least, that's what we're supposed to believe. There's a war going on out there, but it's not against religious extremists and idealogical warlords. It's by religious extremists and idealogical warlords, and it's being waged against us. I certainly hope our Big Brothers read this, because it goes to show that at least I am wise to their game, and it's obvious I'm hardly the only one here. Our freedoms, our rights, our very minds, these are all being compromised. Even if we ourselves never crack, if the rest of the world goes down without us, then that leaves just us against the world. That leaves us with a limited number of options that we should consider before they are no longer available. The first option is to simply say, "No."
We can't allow ourselves or our societies to degrade into nanny societies where our people are brainwashed into slaves of the M.I.C., serving one narrowminded will that cares only for itself. We simply must say, "No." People like this police chief? They need to be removed from power immediately by any means deemed necessary. I'm not saying to hurt these people, no. That would make us the terrorists they want the rest of the world to see us as. I'll leave the creative work up to you folks out there, though, since honestly, I'd give this police chief a couple black eyes and a fat lip if I could, just for being such a damn moron. Past mass-protesting and mass-petitioning, I also propose that the more tech-literate among us devise a means to discretely detect, arbitrarily disable, or destroy hidden or visible surveillance cameras, microphones, and other sensory devices that may be used to spy on the people if networks like these get out of hand. I know it's for our own good and all, but something about the absolutely massive potential for abuse of power such intelligence networks have and the likelihood that the people in charge will take advantage of that power just kind of bothers me.
I know that the instant I hit 'submit', I'm probably going to wind up on the NSA's shit-list, if I haven't already. I'll probably wind up being locked up some day for saying what I say, thinking what I think, doing what I do. It'd probably be a much better idea for me to simply keep my
Its nice to know that you're right to privacy can be baught for a 250$ paint job, or a 100$ window.
Yeah, those darn Democrats in charge of Houston need to stop trying to violate our civil liberties.
/. ads.
Why do I think that if the Mayor and his hired flunky the Police Chief were Republicans, that'd be highlighted in the story and we'd have a quote from the ACLU already?
Anyway, the article summary as usual lies about what the Chief actually said, but anything to sell
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
So, hell yes, let's put publicly accessable GPS devices in police cars
That is an astoundingly bad idea. Then everyone will be able to violate the law as much as they like, since they know whether or not there is a police officer around.
"Red light? Who cares, the cops aren't watching."
"Woot! We can pack two more Plasma TVs into the truck before anyone shows up to answer the alarm!"
"Hmm. There's a cop just around the corner, so I'll have to wait a few minutes to steal this car."
Et cetera.
"No problem. I have the capacity to do infinite work so long as you don't mind that my quality approaches zero."-Dilbert
If you're not doing anything wrong then why not invite complete strangers to pull up a bench outside your window, open a bag of popcorn, and enjoy the show? Oh, heck, just give a tour of your home to any stranger who shows up un-announced, at any time of the day or night!
If I want my life to be an open book I'll publish memoirs.
-Rich
dont people have the right to do illegal and weird things in their home without being on camera? dont i have the right to sit and download bittorrent? i say if a cop is not there at the time of the offense... then you should be let go
Release the data after an appropriate delay.
Surveillance information can also be sold to organized crime who can use it for instance, to plan burglaries.
However, I think he got sued and the webcam was taken down.
Yeah, illegal to have people who have never been convicted of anything show up on the local "jail" stream. But I think that the ruling would have easily allowed them in holding cells with convicted people, and in prisons.
Learn to love Alaska
http://www.tnacso.net/cont/jailcam.php>
Anyway, idea reminded me of Larry Niven's "Oath of Fealty"
From the Houston Chronicle: White, citing data analyzed by researchers at Rice University and the Texas Transportation Institute, said Tuesday that freeway crashes declined from an average of 14,670 a year in 2003 and 2004, to 13,137 in 2005.
I can't find the fatality and injury statistics but I don't believe the towing program could be responsible for increased deaths and injuries. It's just not the kind of thing that logically would do that. It should make freeways safer because people break down on the freeways (not just on the shoulder) and getting them off the freeways just has to be safer.
The towing program has made Houston freeways much better for predictably getting where you want to go in a reasonable time. Before the program a stalled car on the freeway would cause major traffic tie-ups. It just had to be done and I give kudos to Bill White for being brave enough to do it in spite of all the naysayers. I think Bill White is doing a good job here.
I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'
Hey, since you're not doing anything wrong, then you won't object if I want to come over to your house and watch for myself. I won't take up much room, I'll bring my own food, and I'll just sit out of the way in whatever corner seems to have the best view...
You're not doing anything wrong, right? Why should you mind?
In one episode of Dragnet, Joe Friday wants to get into an apartment to look around. I don't remember the details, just that he didn't have a warrant.
No problem -- he found the landlord and the landlord gave him permission to enter the tenant's property!
I don't know about California law at the time, but I know that my business law books says that tenancy means the landlord can't enter without express permission. That's why every lease I've signed has had clauses permitting entry on 24 hours written notice or when exceptional conditions require entry to prevent damage to the building (e.g., burst pipes). Yet a lot of people seem to think that Joe Friday was right....
For every complex problem there is an answer that is clear, simple, and wrong. -- H L Mencken
Yes. Lots of those things are illegal.
The sheer volume of the offending population makes it impossible to prosecute them all. The police, the courts and the prison system could not handle the load.
Under our current system, the law inhibits those activities by requiring the violators to be quiet and careful about what they're doing. It makes them more difficult.
With a system of cameras in place, you never know if your activities have been recorded. The police don't jump right on you when you do it. If someone in authority gets pissed off at you, they trump up a charge sufficient to get a warrant to examine your camera records. They find something you did wrong and they prosecute you for that.
The result is that everyone is vulnerable at all times. It's a massive machine generating blackmail material all day, every day. It does nothing for ordinary enforcement because it is beyond the bounds where enforcement is possible.
I'm sure the Police Chief is on the blow horn with the department all the time, so he should get the first camera - in his bedroom and livingroom - since that is surely where most calls are made from...
Oh well, what the hell...
.... lets put cameras in the police department streamed to the internet and GPS in police cars and politicians too, especially those who have plenty of people who don't like them....
People in general, are not so honest. Being a police officer is NOT an excuse or and exception to the facts.
I can think of a whole lot of situations that would open up a risk factor for cameras invading police departments, politicians and really anybody.
A country willing to sacrifice freedom in exchange for security, shall have neither nor deserve neither.
Ben Franklin and Rosevelt got it, how come the current administration doesn't?
Maybe they need a test run of these cameras on police and politicians....in order to learn why thats the way it works in reality.
If the police pays for the tow to the closest available parking space all would be OK. From that point on, let the owner decide. The conflict of interest is obvious in the existing Houston policy. The dangers from tow trucks driving needlessly on the highway are not to be dismissed either.
Knowing everyone in the car is belted in is also a good way to prevent the use of the Mom Arm extended across the passenger seat, which usually contained a lit cigarette in past times. Another thing is that wearing a belt keeps you in a near-known position, which is going to be pretty important when those airbags fire -- they aren't looking for you first.
That said, I feel seat belt regulations for drivers should be in force only if it can be shown that driving without one endangers people OUTSIDE the car (including other drivers). Same for adult passengers. I have no problem with campaigns pointing out that it's stupid as all fuck NOT to wear one in all but the most exceptional of circumstances, but it shouldn't be mandatory.
The world would be far better off if everyone had rudimentary risk-management skills, instead of relying on Big Brother to do it for them. It (along with money management) should be taught in school in any system where there is more than "the three R's" going on. Don't just tell kids "do this because we say so" -- show them WHY you say so. Then they (like any rational people) will have an inclination to do as you asked, not because you said so, but because they agree with you. Sure you can't do this from the start, a baby just isn't going to understand statistics. It is also no substitute for having a locked cabinet or a gun safe. But it does reduce the need to watch over them 24/7... if they understand the WHY behind the rules.
Mal-2
How is the Riemann zeta function like Trump rallies? Both have an endless number of trivial zeros.
In recent times a lot of signals have painted a very bleak pattern of the US society, or at least it's government (which one would expect reflects it's society as a whole to some extent). Signs include the following.
.. erh .. were vague when giving power to congress, so .. well .. it's OK for congress to extend copyright forever, essentially making the power shift limitless to the culture vultures. And .. yeah, we're doing it also as a way of providing better incentives for european artists to come to the US and get a copyright here instead of 'over there'. (120 years instead of, what 110?) The system will also become more harmonized if we extend the protection, so it's closer to certain parts of the EU (contradictory statement) terms which that b*stard's employer lobbied/threatened/bullied/forced upon those countries! So, this really isn't something the supreme court should interfere with, 'kaaay? .. so .. stay out of the way will you? And they did!
1. Total failure of the copyright system and it's governing mechanics.
Just listened to the Eldred v. Ashcroft case and was horrified at the blatant arguments more or less swallowed by the supreme court. The government basically stating:
Yes, we know the founding fathers stipulated the protection of copyright and patents should have limits, but they
American copyright law colapsed at that instant. Unfortunately the government will continue pushing a colapsed copyright system and failed software patent system on the rest of the world or else, trade sanctions or just as likely, bombing or invasion.
2. Utter failure of the software patent system. Slashdot has had numerous examples about this, but when you start patenting mathematics and business processes, your at the end of the rope. I just had a great idea, I'll patent the process of payment in exchange for goods or services. Why not also throw in the concept of adding numbers together (I'll not call it addition or summing though, would be too intuitive). That way, Congress can be proud of me that I've really furthered Science and Useful Arts!
3. Re-election of the most dangerous person in the world (family trait?). A gung-ho short person with hyrbis (or some other mental illness). A person whose favorite hobbies include shooting barrels at the farm, shooting missiles at and bombing other countries and generally starting wars and causing global instability. A very very risky position with that person in a house which alledgedly has buttons to nuclear warheads!
4. Alientation of most all countries due to very hostile foreign policies to most countries. One can only assume that the only thing holding together the "allied forces" (The US, Bangladesh and Wales?) is the threat of retaliation to the other (two?) nations if they don't dance to the tune of this mad piper.
5. The country's conversion to a full blown police state is soon completed. The reactions on this board was a token to that effect. Most people simply making snyde comments. I guess the sentiment has gone from "Don't touch our guns! We need them to overthrow the government should the need arise" (200 years ago) to a few years ago "Write your congressman" to todays attitude "yeah, yeah, stupid idea, but who really cares".
Ok, some of the above are written with a flair of satire (which few will likely pick up on), but the overall theme is feedback I've received when travelling various countries of the EU for the past 6 months. It might seem a bit harsh but in general, people are bit upset at the US foreign policy and not very at ease with GWB as the leader of the "The Free World". Now I realize some people will probably take offense and mod this to the bottom of the troll stack, but it's just a reflection of sentiments from an area outside of the NA.
so the standard "police scanner" can't pick it up.
Remember "News for Nerds, Stuff that Matters"? Help make it a reality again! http://soylentnews.org
Once White was elected, with Hurtt's help he set about reducing police and employee pensions and making employees pay more for their health and pension plans. Consequently experienced officers found that they would actually lose money if they remained on the police force. It was better to retire ASAP.
So police officers quit in droves - literally hundreds have left during White's term as mayor (I believe the figure is currently about 800-900 officers gone). Since the total force is about 4000, this is a significant loss of manpower. And since the most experienced officers left, it is even a harder blow on criminal enforcement.
Simultaneously the Mayor and Chief Hurtt saw no reason to plan for any new police classes (after all there were plenty of cops, right?).
Fast-forward as Hurricanes Katrina and Rita hit and about 150,000 people move to Houston. Some are criminals, so the police get busier. But there are fewer cops. Guess what, response times go down and police workloads are up.
Mayor White undoubtedly saw this opportunity to balance Houston's city budget by asking for federal assistance for housing, police and everything else he could think of that was related to Katrina, Rita and the consequent influx of people. Houston is now sucking at the teat of your government, drinking your federal tax dollars.
When Police Chief Hurtt was hired, he lived with his family in a very ritzy downtown (I believe the Sheraton Hotel) at a special rate (IIRC it was $1/day). Now this is one, if not the best hotel in Houston. It is such a nice hotel that months later newspaper reporters were asking why Hurtt hadn't moved out. IIRC he said that he hadn't found a home yet. A very busy man, indeed. AFAIK he still is living there. Along with some New Orleans people perhaps? And all on your tax dollars!-)
Feel free to email the mayor directly, possibly you would like to organise a date for the salshdot team to come and install cameras in his house. mailto:mayor@cityofhouston.net?Subject=Message-to- Mayor
Here's a great link to the hiring of the soon to be ex police chief Harold L Hurtt
http://www.houstontx.gov/mayor/press/20040227.html
Cheers,
Dean
if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
Because it is not you who decides what you are doing is "wrong".
There you are, staring at me again.
By "we", I mean Americans.
This is beyond frightening. When the head of law enforcement in a community wants the ability to wantonly violate the constitutional rights of random (and, more likely, not-so-random) citizens of that community as guaranteed by the 4th amendment, then that head of law enforcement should be immediately fired. If s/he is not fired, then the leaders of that community's government should be replaced in the next election, and, in fact, a recall process should be initiated to replace them as soon as possible.
I sincerely hope that the local press keeps on top of this until the situation is resolved. I also hope the people of Houston express their outrage loudly and continuously until the police chief is replaced and/or the local community government (mayor, city council, whatever) is also replaced.
And if the people don't express outrage, but just succumb meekly to this? Well, someone once said that people get whatever form of government they're willing to tolerate. I just hope the people of Houston realize what they're setting themselves up for if they don't fight this.
Don't underestimate the power of The Source
> if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
Define wrong please.
Pupeno
Seig Heil!
:P )
(do I get "-1, violates Godwin's Law" now?
Is Capitalism Good for the Poor?
Why do I think that if the Mayor and his hired flunky the Police Chief were Republicans, that'd be highlighted in the story and we'd have a quote from the ACLU already?
Because the GOP has been doing more to violate civil rights than the Democratic Party has been recently?
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
The problem is that the social norm of no privacy being available in public came into existence before we had computers and digital video cameras that can literally log your behavior 24 hours day within a city. The reality of how far you can push "no privacy in public" is a lot more extreme today than it was back then.
It's hard to know exactly how acceptable we can make this -- maybe we just have cold feet about being constantly monitored. However, I think a good test case is celebrities. They are *constantly* monitored and photographed, and a huge number of them show up in news sources that I read being angry and upset over it.
It doesn't seem to me that people much *like* being monitored 24/7 in public.
Now, celebs are kind of screwed, because they are a very small chunk of the population. However, I think that if you subject everyone to the same kind of treatment, you're going to have people deciding that maybe laws against public monitoring (maybe anything that monitors someone for more than, say, 1% of their public time without their acceptance) is illegal.
Any program relying on (nontrivial) preemptive multithreading will be buggy.
Yep, I am for cameras in my apartment. Found out last night that someone had broken into my locked antique bookcase. They bent the brass door lock like crazy. This was not an apartment break in but happened during limited PERMITTRED access.
Could have been the bug sprayer guy, the fire sprinkler inspectors, or twice yearly apartment inspections. Seems that half of Dallas goes through my apartment.
Notices are rarely left. I can tell by tracks on the vaccumed carpet.
Therefore I AM GOING TO GET CAMERAS. Would be delightful DREAM if those police cameras might capture the malfesants without requiring my interaction.
DON'T KNOW IF POLICE CAMERAS WOULD WORK. POLICE ARE BASICALLY CRIME JANITORS. They won't save you but perhaps save the next person down the line from the same felon.
Jim of Dallas
"... if you are not doing anything wrong ..."
Well the simple fact is that _everybody_ does stuff that's wrong. The average American breaks countless rules (i.e. laws) every single day. Everytime a law is passed just so it can be selectively enforced, this problem is just amplified. And for those who are thinking "well, I certainly don't ever do anything illegal", when's the last time your car went over the speed limit. Would you not have any problems with law enforcement putting devices in you car that made it possible for you to get ticket as soon as you went 1 mph over the speed limit on any road you were driving on? Of course you would.
This is no different.
I also find it telling that the mainstream press is more interested in a very mundane hunting accident than they are about law enforcement officials suggesting that citizens be monitored inside their homes.
RFC2119
I fuck my wife, and don't find the process embarassing at all.
Please post link to video.
I think all police officers should be required to have a running camera (like a helmet cam or one on their uniform) at all times they are on duity. If they're not doing anything wrong, there's no reason not to do it.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
What does that have to do with cameras? How would you feel if they stopped driving around your neighborhood and instead stuck a camera on the corner to record everything you do (except at 3:00 in the morning when it's too dark for the camera to pick anything up)?
People like this are why we need to make assassination a category of justifiable homicide.
OK, not tailgate, but draft, sure.
Follow along at a reasonable distance, but make no effort to hide what you're doing.
Wait for them to issue ayou a ticket, then argue in court that "do as I say not as I do" is not a reasonable defense of the policebum's actions.
Your aunt got you a gotse poster for Christmas? You have bigger things to worry about then cops putting cameras in your house.
Next time you're at a stadium, or mall or event, try this experiment:
Walk toward the bathroom s-l-o-w-l-y with your arms stretched out to prevent people from passing you in the corridor and getting to the restroom first. Note the reaction of people you are blocking. Make sure you walk slowly enough to block people.
Why is this very rude behavior tolerated on our roads? Because the inconsiderate asshat is shielded in a box and incabable of hearing your complaints.
And that's why we pass on the right and weave in and out of traffic.
These opinions guaranteed or your money back.
What's the issue here really? That Americans don't trust their police and government as much as the British do their's? Do Americans simply value their privacy more than Brits? Do they think the government actually cares about most of the things, mundane and otherwise, that they do on the streets, and do they care more if the government sees them doing those things? My personal belief is none of the above - cameras in public places are the sort of thing that people like slashdot readers, no matter where they're from in the world, throw up a bunch of shit about and then hardly notice once they're installed. That certainly seems to have been the course of events in England. That and maybe a more ingrained tendency to distrust and to try to spite police and authority in general in America than Britain.
I agree cameras in private places are too far - unless the owner gives permission to deal with a crime problem. But in public places, you can be seen by a cop anyway. Why is being seen by a camera any more authoritarian than being seen by a cop, except that it is better at its job? Are streetlights a bad idea too because they make it easier for cops to watch us at night? I know for a fact that I'd feel safer walking down a street in a shitty neighborhood if there was a camera watching.
Lastly, what exactly are they going to catch normal people doing in public places that is illegal? Not much - they are going to catch things like burglary, vandalism, muggings, harassment and maybe the occasional abduction. Bad ass as I'm sure the average slashdot reader is, what do you have to fear from cameras in public places, other than a slipery slope argument? Prostitution charges at worse...
"But Mr. Jones, you saw the whole rape from your window! Why didn't you call the police?"
"You crazy? I don't want no camera in my house!"
Just the few morons that we aren't allowed to shoot since joining your union.
Western society, with its worship of coolness and contempt for intelligence is the perfect environment for psychopaths. The most interesting point the linked to article makes is that psycopaths recognise and help each other. Sure explains a lot.
In some circles, this is known as a "helicopter".
You see, there was a guy whose job was to make videos: corporate training videos, chamber of commerce videos inviting companies to move to their city, and so on. Before he could start shooting, he had to submit a detailed budget to whoever was paying for the video, describing how much he would spend on actors, sets, lighting, travel, catering, and any other expenses.
But the people who had to approve his budget didn't feel like they were doing their jobs if they didn't make any cuts. Their job was to save money, and they wouldn't be saving money if they just accepted whatever proposal came across their desk, right?
So the guy who made videos would always include a line on the budget for a panoramic shot of the city skyline, corporate headquarters, or whatever, taken from a moving helicopter. The helicopter shot was very expensive... and totally unnecessary. He'd submit the budget, they'd get upset about the expensive helicopter shot, and he'd make a disappointed face and say, "Gee, I guess I could skip that, if it really means that much to you." They felt like they were doing a good job by cutting his budget, and he ended up getting everything he really wanted in the first place.
Visual IRC: Fast. Powerful. Free.
= a free camera for me. I will take the IR filter out and add an exposed piece of film to make myself a new free IR camera. It will save me the cost of buying a camera.
Don't call the cops.
You bother us and we'll go 1984 on your house.
Zig Heil!
Wansu, th' chinese sailor
I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?
Because it is a major potential for abuse. I want to feel safe in my home and not have to worry that some douchebag somewhere has tapped into the video camera in my bathroom and uploaded shots of my hairless nutsack on myspace.
A little late, but I can't believe no one else has said it yet.
"If this goes through, we're going to be in a world of Hurtt"
You may think you have nothing to hide since you are doing nothign wrong... until you realize that police officials may be able to watch you masterbate in bed.
If you believe in privacy, and believe you have "nothing to hide" at the same time, you're a goddammed idiot
Most major cities have camera networks or are in the bidding process to get them. Wilmington, Delaware has them all over the city; Philadelphia is going to get them soon (they are used in only certain areas now and are monitored by a 3rd party but have feeds to police command centers). They help people every day: they can assess the field situation seconds after a call to 911 and give proper intel (needed medical responses or more officers to catch and track robbers in the act). They do detect and deter crime.
For those curious about what weather cameras have to do with national security see The Role of Weather Information in Disaster Response and Recovery.
Remember Harriet Miers?
Dog is my co-pilot.
"There is no opportunity in the book for the reader, whatever their stripe, to sympathize with the Ingsoc regime. To argue otherwise is just plain stupid."
on some level i actually agree with you. but sadly the truth is that too many people sympathize with practitioners of totalitarianism when it's THEIR OWN government, nation, and police force.
people don't read 1984 and say "nice system." yeah. but the idea that a government wiretapping its own citizens in violation of federal law and in circumvention of ALREADY EXISTING intel laws, and that soldiers torturing (and murdering) their captive enemies, is AN OKAY thing is all over the airwaves.
the problem is that too many people are blinded when its their own flesh and blood, so to speak, committing the crimes. and in fact, works like 1984 serve as psychic "contrasts" to a person's idealistic vision of their own [police] state. "ha! evil, evil fascists. good thing i live in mighty america, with a government i can trust, and nobody comes knockin on my door!"
my point is like this: despite obvious condemnations of the things depicted in something like 1984, "See no evil" persists as a dangerous and crippling societal disease.
What the hell is going on!
Let's see. Houston Chief wants cameras in homes, malls and what... public bathrooms, in your bedroom (maybe he's got a scam to sell the more juicy videos to pron sites).
They want to put little capsules (RFID?) to track you at work (and anywhere else you happen to be).
The Pres is tapping peoples phones carte blanch and wonders why people are upset?
Maybe all those survivalist nuts weren't so nutty after all!
Things are getting scary. Looks like I'm going to have to have a contingency plan to go live out in the north forty about an hour away from the Canadian border? I also guess I'll have to bone up on my hunting skills and woodlore. Because they'll put a camera in my house and a chip in my body right after the swat teams sniper shoots me.
Anyone know where to get good maps of the upper Canadian territories?
Not much a camera is going to do to keep another from acting wrong to self. I would have suggested death traps but that didn't go over very well the first time around.
How about, "I'm glad you feel that way. Do you mind if I have a quick look through your wallet?" Either you've made your point and they look stupid, or they let you look. If they actually let you look, grab a pen, a piece of paper, and write down all their CC#s and Driver's License information and say, "Thanks!" (Don't forget those three digit numbers on the back of the CCs!!) If they try to stop you before you finish, say, "What? Now you've got something to hide? You must be one of them terrrrist." Not so effective on message boards though...
In relation to the story, maybe I have nothing to hide but I don't want officer wanker playing with himself while he watches my girls change cloths. I'm sure most people could understand that line of reasoning. Someone has to stop him... For The Children!
The job of a police officer is to enforce the law. Period. Punishment is NOT the job of the police. If someone is speeding, then either give them a ticket for speeding, or a warning if you feel that they have been cooperative enough. To reduce the offence by giving a lesser ticket, is giving a lessor punishment.. Police are not supposed to punish anyone for anything that is the job of the courts. I would be highly suspect of an officers evidence, if he offered a seatbelt ticket in place of speeding. perhaps he just thought you were going fast and pulled you over, knowing he could always "make a deal", or hoping that maybe he would catch you legitmately in the seatbelt violation.. I think better to say no.. just give me the speeding ticket, and see what happens. Might put a little paranoia in him not to show up for court if he thinks you might spill the beans about his "deal" for you.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
The cameras are on the police!
No, wait. My head is about to asplode.
Get off my launchpad!
Well, I can agree with you on that much.
Umm... because the ACLU is already pretty busy dealing with the Federal Government that is *actively* violating our civil liberties (as opposed to this loser who is merely proposing it)?
http://www.aclu.org/safefree/index.html
The ACLU is not a partisan organization. If they happen to be picking on Republicans these days, I submit to you that it's because they have earned it...
Instead of optical bugs in homes, where a resonable and constitutional expectation of privacy exists, we should take Keith Henson's suggestion and put cameras on those with _no_ expectation of privacy--the police and elected officials! Maybe that would slow down the corruption.
t mlt s.htm
For details of this "little brother is watching" turnabout on 'domestic spying' see these links:
http://www.csoonline.com/read/090402/edge_badge.h
http://www.outlander.com/badgecamera/social_effec
http://www.holysmoke.org/kh/kh620.htm
Tyranny, by whatever name it calls itself, ust be fought by those in it's grip.
>The canary in the cage in the coal mine is dying I think. Is anyone going to notice the little yellow birds' demise?
Oh oh oh. I know! Pick me. Pick me! Not to put too fine a point on it... but what about the blue canary in the outlet by the light switch who watches over you?
Sorry. Couldn't resist. Apologies to They Might be Giants for rearranging the lyrics.
Roman poet known to the English-speaking world as Ovid, wrote on topics of love, abandoned women, and mythological transformations.
The Patriot Act resonates strongly with Ovid's statement. Typical boogeyman psychology is designed to foment fear and justification for the agenda of a few who are willing to compromise the rule of law (even those established by themselves) for expediency's sake.
Another expression of faulty thinking is "The End Justifies the Means". A trial was held in recent history to establish the falacy of this position. The sacificial lamb in that trial was Oliver North. Expediency takes baby-steps to anarchy.
It should be a condition of employment as Chief of Police of Houston that the Chief of Police shall have a camera installed in every room of his house, and the feed from that camera shall be shown night and day in the lobby of the County Court House.
How the 'f is this off topic?
Put a camera in HIS fucking house. He's the Police Chief, so he doesn't do anything wrong....right ?!
"Beware of those who point their finger the LOUDEST"
Uhmm.. I was just pointing out the fact that the general public is becoming more accepting of cameras because of their cheap ability to 'catch someone in the act'. I didn't say I condone the gov't putting cameras in your house.
Don't know what you were reading into my post but it's clearly quite wrong.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
This has been a HUGE topic of discussion on the local talk radio stations and other media, the basic consensus is that this is RIDICULOUS!! This is that the only time we think the Police Chief is nuts, it is a generally regarded that he is an idiot. The Houston HPD is not the sharpest knife in the drawer, even though the beat cops try thier best to deal with political crap from above and scum they deal with on a day-to-day basis. This is just the latest crap we CITIZENS (not subjects) have had to deal with. Trust me, this is NOT going to happen, civil minded common sense people will correct this.
BTW, Texas is probably one of the most common sense friendly places you will find in the US, we won't put up with too much bullcrap.
Then what about these guys actually passing city ordinances requiring camera coverage on private property?
/. story submitter (by convieniently leaving out the party affiliate of Democrats who do bad stuff like this) is that both parties do it when they are in power.
Let's see: Daly, Chicago, Democrat. Baltimore City Council, Democrats, Milwaukee, Democrats...
I think what you are missing is that the reality is that government at all levels is doing more to violate civil rights and while you can be a partisan and blame that on Republicans when they happen to be running the government in question, the reality ignored by the old media press and by people like this
In fact, I can name at least a couple of Republicans in Congress who adamently oppose all unconstitutional civil liberties violations (Ron Paul-R TX and Jeff Flake-R AZ), but can't think of any Democrat in Congress opposed enough to vote against all forms of it. Perhaps you can name a couple?
The reality is that when a Democrat is in power, they tend to be even worse on civil liberties than the Republicans, so the solution isn't going to be replacing one with the other.
The party of stupid and the party of evil get together and do something both stupid and evil, then call it bipartisan.
That was actually Mark Kroeker, formerly the police chief in Portland, OR. After he made this assertion reporters from Willamate Week rooted through his garbage, as well as that of the Multnomah county district attorney and the mayor. The most risque thing that I remember turning up in anyone's trash was an empty whisky bottle (only one). Their point was made though.
"Who's going to believe a talking head?" - Herbert West
Today, it wouldn't be considered abandoned property but rather property with its ownership transferred to the city so if any newspaper tried to seize it it would be guilty of stealing city property.
Only city/county/state/federal agents and appropriately licensed refuse companies would be legally permitted to retrieve it.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Much ado about nothing. Stoners beware! Your drug and child porn problems are what you are really worried about. So keep looking over your shoulders!!!!!!