Slashdot Mirror
London 2006, Meet London 1984
Draape writes "Shoreditch TV is an experiment TV channel beaming live footage from the street into people's homes. According to the Telegraph
U.K. television will broadcast from 400 surveillance cameras on the streets, into people's homes. For now they are only showing it to 22,000 homes, but next year they plan on going national with the 'show'. They fly under the flag 'fighting crime from the sofa'."
Sweet cam whores get free bandwidth! That rocks!
And its not 1984 if the government can't see into your private space.
Remember - expectation to privacy and expectation to privacy in a public space are very different things.
There are shills on slashdot. Apparently, I'm one of them.
I refuse to think that I'm the only one who believes that this won't actually help prevent crime. Sounds like the title is used to raise publicicity, public opinion, and ratings, but not actually describe the show.
From what I understand, the police in the U.K. already monitor those cameras with a huge staff. Adding another 500 people (assuming that's the number of people who actually bother to watch the show for hours on end) who don't know what to be looking for is only going to add to the number of false calls that the police already receive.
-1 disagree is not a modifier for a reason. -1 troll, flaimbait, redundant, overrated are NOT acceptable substitutes.
combine this with the automated "racial profiling" with their ANPR cameras, and you've got an episode of COPS!
"BRITAIN'S most senior policeman Sir Ian Blair is facing a race relations dilemma after the release of figures that reveal almost half the number of people arrested in relation to car crime in London are black. Blair, the Metropolitan police commissioner, has signed off a report by his force's traffic unit which shows that black people account for 46% of all arrests generated by new automatic numberplate recognition (ANPR) cameras."
Push Button, Receive Bacon
If they did this in USA then they could rig up remote controlled guns or such and get a better crime resolution rate.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
In India, people pee on the streets. That's the best use of government property I ever saw. This one's even better.
They haven't really mentioned in TFA what kind of crime they're targeting. I imagine they mean the snatching-old-ladies-handbags kind, but I suppose this could occur:
Haughty socialite: Hello Police? I just saw a crime being committed on the 1984 channel.
Operator: Yes ma'am. Please give us your location.
HS: 42 Anstoltue Street.
O: And what is the nature of the crime in question?
HS: This guy, he had sideburns.
O: Alright ma'am, but what's the crime?
HS: HE HAD SIDEBURNS I TELL YOU! IN 2006!
O:
[Slashdot Comments We Liked]
Do you want to live in a society where only the government has access to the cameras or one where everyone has access?
Ah, the wonders of technology. Bet the folks living there are looking forward to calls like, "What do you mean you're sick? I just saw you at [venue of choice]! Consider yourself terminated!" or "Don't give me that, I saw you looking at that girl. Yes I did. I have it recorded!" or "Um, do you have to pick your nose when you're talking to me on the phone?" or "Yeah, I know you're in the middle of an important dinner. I was just calling you to ask how the food at that restaurant is, because I didn't want to spend the money if it's no good, and I saw you guys eating there. And what's that guy to your left eating?" or "You can't pay me back because you can't remember the PIN to your bank card? Hold on, let me flip on my Tivo, um, here it is..."
Microsoft has just released their much anticipated hands-free cordless mouse. Warning, it may hurt a little at first.
Jan Ashby, 57, a resident who previewed the scheme before yesterday's launch, said: "I wouldn't say it was spying, but it is nice to see what's going on. Look, there's my local pub."
She also added "I like to keep an eye on the pub to make sure that my husband does not go there. I'm not intruding on the little bit of a life that he has outside of me, I'm just looking out for his best interests."
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
I for one am in FAVOR of this action because for every action there is an opposite and equal reaction.
The reaction? Fighting in the streets to get on the telly you twit! Right then.
Chauncey Gardner
Reminds me of the This American Life episode, Spies Like Us. Check out act 1, the lobby channel.
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
Here's a BBC article on the subject as was in my submission for the exact same story about 5 days ago (grumble grumble).
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
We aren't that close to "1984". Yes, at a very superficial level we have some of it's infrastructure in place, but socially and politically we seem to be creeping to the dangerous area of "Brave New World"
Reality TV has just got away with itself. What next? "Vigilante Grannies finger hoods for cash!"
Engineering is the art of compromise.
"Estella thinks I'm a nosey busybody," said Ms Havisham. A 97-year-old fan of the channel and who hasn't left the house in years. "But I've seen her walking on the street holding hands with a boy, and I'm not about to take advice from a whore."
-Grey
Silver Clipboard: Time Management Tips
The TV programs in the UK must be pretty bad if they actually get ratings on that channel. I mean... other than the "nosey neighbor" - who is really going to sit there for an hour or more and watch people walking down the street? And how does advertising work? Will people walk by with a sign on their back for Nike and Pepsi? Maybe put a Pepsi machine in one of the camera shots? Anyway, my #1 question is what's the target audience? 50+ years old, single, unemployed people with nothing better to do in their lives than try to catch someone doing something "bad". I'm getting bored just thinking about how boring this would be.
This proposal though, depends on the sort of desire for voyeuristic titilation for which 'we' (being society in general) seem to have an insatiable appetite - implied through the general addiction to reality TV, no matter how banal. In the case of reality TV of course the objects of voyeurism give their explicit consent.
With this proposal we have every act you do in public - every hidden snog in an alley - possibly exposed to the voyeuristic delight of thousands. I don't meant to stigmatise voyeurism, it is obviously a widely held, if taboo, fascination, but I do not think every public act should be potentially watched by thousands. The crime angle is obviously spin, the promoters are depending on people wanting to watch other people without their knowledge, and of course prevention of crime is never a good enough reason to remove essential liberties.
This sort of surveillance does have 1984 connotations, despite the absence of the government seeing into our homes, because it allows every public act to be watched by anonymous masses, and hence yields the potential for social ostracisation of people commiting various non-illegal acts. Imagine the MP or other high profile type 'caught' on camera in a homosexual embrace. Despite the legality of such an act, many such people may not want it to be made public knowledge, and given a secluded enough spot, neither should they have to fear such exposure. Public space can be consumed reletively privately, broadcasting CCTV would remove that right.
// It had been Fat's delusion for years that he could help people. --Philip K. Dick, Valis
I would love a show where you watch live cameras filming cops. That, or to have online all the live footage of Cops that was edited to protect officers when they went over the line. The people should monitor them.
From my knowledge of how another UK town's CCTV system works I can see some issues with this experiment.
... provided that in the excitement of the chase the operators remember to press the right buttons, of course.
(1) The perps will be able to watch, too, won't they. This means that they will be able to work out exactly what the cameras cover and exactly what they don't, and will be able to plan their misdeeds accordingly, by doing things somewhere where there are no cameras. (In real life the perps do not know where the cameras are, what they cover, at a range of how many hundreds of metres they can read a newspaper headline, that sort of thing.)
(2) The perps will be able to watch, too, won't they. So they will be able to have accomplices who can see from moment to moment where the cameras are pointing, and phone or text their mates on the street to tell them the coast is clear.
(3) Prejudice to ongoing operations. Actually they've probably thought of this one, so when cameras are being used as part of a current operation the pictures from those cameras will not be broadcast
(4) Innocent victims. You might be doing something which is perfectly legal and of no interest to the police but which you still might not want your friends and relatives and employer to see. OK, so if you're snogging someone else's wife in the park when you're supposed to be home sick from work then maybe you deserve what you get, but I'm sure that if I tried a little harder I'd come up with a more deserving example.
And it'll make life just that much more complicated for politicians at election time, whether you think this is a plus or minus is up to you:
(5) No candidate or party can put enough bodies on the street to fight a full election campaign across an entire district. So where you concentrate your effort depends (partly) on knowing where the enemy is concentrating theirs. Once upon a time this was done on maybe a daily basis, as party workers reported back to HQ what they'd seen on the streets; nowadays it's more real time as reporting back is done with mobile phones; with publicly visible CCTV you'll be able to see what the enemy is up to even in areas where you don't have any bodies on the street yourself that day, and the candidate or party which can make the best use of this information will get a slight edge.
Of course it won't make a difference, the police are too busy to do their jobs anyway, and would rather harass people flying British flags which "might offend minorities", people selling food in the lbs instead of kgs and drivers going 2mph over the speed limit than investigate actual crimes.
Britain is now the world's largest floating lunatic asylum.
This is, somewhat, different than "1984". We (the society) are watching ourselves. Multiple questions after that point: 1. Will they show us whatever goes through the cameras? Or will they filter it? 2. Will this, eventually, function as a transition from "we are watching ourselves" to "they are watching us"? ("they": the government/state).
The short version of the theory: we're all going to be monitored, because those in power want to. The best retaliation is to stalk them right back. The problem with it is, certain activities by the politicians are going to be kept secret by them exempting themselves from surveillance, and certain politicians, like Kennedy, can get away even with breaking the law.
I'd like to see a site that monitors the location of every member of Congress 24/7, who they talk to, etc..
Revive the Constitution.
What this really is, is an exercise in "grooming" the public to accept privacy invasion on an even greater scale.
CCTV cameras are known to have a definite effect on crime; they displace it to camera-free areas, where it obviously isn't anyone's problem. There was an incident a few years ago, along a road out of the city where every building is a shop, restaurant or pub. Some runt went around spraying graffiti on every establishment that was not CCTVed. The only images were a few blurred, grainy ones of him running from one shop to the next.
If the "experiment" is not universally opposed, the government will find a way to take it nationwide. The more affluent areas of every city will be filled with cameras that anyone can monitor. Crime will simply be displaced to the non-CCTV areas. Meanwhile, the public will gradually be getting used to the concept of never expecting to be able to go totally unobserved. The way will be paved for ever deeper intrusions into individuals' lives.
"Mummy, does Jesus watch you when you're on the toilet?"
"As long as he's watching channel 36, yes!"
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
The year is 2016; the place: London. As I make my way home, she is following me on her TV, chatting with me on my mobile. Rare now are the street corners that are unseen by the cameras. I make it a point to know the blind spots - few and far between, certainly, but there are still public places where one can disappear, if only for a minute or two.
If I stay hidden too long, a Monitor in China, Glasgow or anywhere else will raise a red flag and dispatch a nearby Watcher. Indeed, these hundreds of thousands of cameras are constantly surveilled by Monitors - who get paid for each reported occurence of antisocial activity. If a Monitor needs to see what's happenening in a blind spot, or just needs another angle of film to make out what's happening, he can dispatch a Watcher to go shoot the scene with a portable Wireless Internet camera.
Watchers are mercenaries, just like Monitors. Anybody citizen with a clean record can become a Watcher - whereas anybody can become a Monitor, even non-citizens. Both get paid per incident. Anyway, Watchers start their work day by strapping on their Watcher pack and logging on. Some do it part time, but others make a living out of the job. So, a Watcher get dispatches from Monitoring Central and they head out to the specified coordinates, on foot, bike or car, and the Watcher films the potential antisocials.
Whenever circumstances warrant intervention, a Monitor or a Watcher calls the police, who tend to arrive very quickly these days. They have priority lanes and all traffic lights will change in their favour so that they can stop crime more effectively. The police doesn't have such a big workload anymore. Everyone is surveilled as soon as they go outdoors. Those foreign mercenaries, Monitors, are always looking for anti-social behaviour.
I like it. I like The Master System, the most advanced artificial intelligence in the world. It's not quite sentient, and it's still mostly understood and controlled by the government, but it has grown so big. The Master System is the entity that runs the Anti-Social Surveillance and Rapid Action Program, or ASSRAP.
It has limits, and that's why it needs humans to help it. The job of Monitors is not to watch live cameras - it's to watch selected clips and closeups presented by The Master System and to answer questions about those images it shows. If The Master System decides to follow somebody's movements across town, it will use its tracking algorithms to make a guess, but humans are still much more accurate. In order to drive up accuracy, it asks multiple humans the same question. When there is no consensus, more humans are polled until a clear answer appears. Those humans, known as Monitors, are themselves rated on their speed, accuracy and the quality of their answers.
The Master System does its own recruiting, and has learned how to manage all of its systems. No longer do human programmers need to improve it, for that it has gained self-awareness, the power of introspection and of self-improvement. It assimilates all content on the Internet. It begins using the Watchers to attend classes, public events, and even to talk with people. It now uses the Monitors as tools, as machines that contribute to The Master System's own intelligence.
I have accepted The Master System as my new Overlord. It knows all that I do, where I go, and I give myself willingly, carrying for it sensors, letting it see all that I see, letting The Master System guide my actions, speaking into my ears, overlaying information in front of my eyes, enhancing my own potential. I am a mild cyborg, as of yet without implants - but I have given up on my own independence, for that I know how much greater I am as part of The Master System, which knows and sees all, which can punish the naughty and reward its loyal servants.
All Hail The Master System!
It's like one big Panopticon. Note that before the involvement of the general public, the cameras were there really to collect evidence for after the fact. Now somebody is watching. Wonderful.
What's next, are we all going to get a two-way video link in our homes that we can't turn off ?
In Soviet America the banks rob you!
Lets see, anyone who was on the shady side of things now has a safe and secure way of knowing when all people have left a building that they might want to 'have a look through'. They also now have a way of assessing what might go in or out of a house (ahh tommo has a bmw parked in his garage today) and now have a way to monitor for police or other witnesses coming along that might interfer with what they are doing. They also know now exactly what is covered and not covered by the CCTV's and can assess many ways to disable them.
It's like handing the enemy the feeds from your spy sats - incredibly retarded.
Is this actually any different to walking down the street and being watched by people out of their windows?
I've spent years travelling into London and doing my thing. I spent six months living in London doing my thing.
How many people have seen me walking along the street and doing my thing? Probably millions. Can't say I'm the least bit bothered really.
This is just 'effin brilliant!
:).. Oh yes indeed..
I happen to be a pedophile and a rapist, and I cannot WAIT! to subscribe to this
Of course.. Once I subscribe, I can watch full REAL-LIFE Rapings, What a wonder!.. Thank heaven for this public survelince system, without it, I might even be convicted as a criminal if I just watched a women get raped 10 feet away, but now it is on TV I have no problem! No criminal record for me! WoooHoo!
Oh and, I can't wait to watch another one of those innocent children get proper ruffed up, grabbed and raped, it will be such a wonderful sight and I will keep splashing my money over to this system since I can freely feast my ultimate pleasures on it without even worrying one bit!
Also, think about the public humiliation that the women who just got rapped proper on 21st street for EVERYONE who's watching to know all about it, to actually SEE it ALL happen! I wonder how happy that women will feel walking into walk, or even in the public knowing full well she has just been on TV for not just normal peoeple who think this system actually deters crime, but actual other-rapists who delve into this kind of material... Wonderful Yes!
and it didn't do any of that cool stuff. I feel like I've missed out on so much, now.
Well this should bring 'Dogging' to a whole new level.
Are you are trying to imply that ANPR is discriminating against blacks in some way? Unless licence plates are allocated according to a racial profile, I cannot see how this could happen.
From the article you linked:
The report tacitly appears to address concerns among ethnic minority communities who believe they are unfairly targeted by the police through stop and search powers. Black people are up to six times more likely to be stopped than whites.
If I interpret this correctly, it means that when police officers get to choose whom to search, they choose blacks over whites in a 6:1 proportion, while the automated system chooses them in about 1:1 proportion. This is still not racially neutral because, according to the article, blacks are only 11% of the London population, but still the automated system seems to be more fair than human cops.
OTOH, if for any reason at all there are more blacks involved in crime than whites, then the only way to stop this kind of racial discrimination would be to cease all efforts to fight crime.
Police scrap 10,000 staff after the success of their CCTV channel. A police spokesman stated, "We have spent billions of taxpayers money hiring security staff to monitor CCTV footage. The popularity of the CCTV channel indicates that residents have a real interest in their local surroundings. They are our eyes and ears for policing crime."
The police save money and the politicians justify their next pay rise. Responsibility for catching criminals is moved to the public who pay for the privilege. Meanwhile a 15 year old male is mugged and no one is watching it because the world cup is on the other channel. Police operate on a shoe string and cannot justify the expense of checking CCTV footage for small crimes.
*sigh* People wonder why I'm cynical. I wonder why they aren't.
I would love this to take place in America. Replace all those crappy web cameras we have now with video cameras. We need to put them on every street and alley in NYC. I will safely bet it will deter crime. If people knew that millions and possibly billions (with the internet) could be watching them, they just might not commit the crime. Live TV recording makes for a great court evidence too.
\
Holy crap this is stupid. This basically makes surveillance on people easy (for the bad guys).
"There goes Geoffrey, that means his house is empty, time to go get that new HDTV I want"
or
"Oh, look at that little 12 year old walking to the market by herself. I'll just hide behind that bush and grab her when she comes back in a few minutes."
or anything number of things you can think of. This is beyond irresponsible.
The ratio of people to cake is too big
Forget about your self absorbed fears, do you really think you're so interesting? The REAL downside to this is that it opens the door for all sorts of crooks to dirt-cheap surveillance. Nevermind they watch you cheat on your SO, how about somebody able to trail your moves, have acurate time tables, know your every routine? How often certain people go to the ATM, how guard shifts are changed at certain businesses, what are the best times to catch somebody alone. Nevermind the whole neighborhood my be watching, nothing a good ski mask and a swift stolen car cant handle.
+Raider of the lost BBS
Main reason is probably that less drunks are the same place at the same time since they go home over a 2h period instead of a 5m period ... AND that the drunks are not pissed off because they are FORCED to go home!! :-)
(Down here, when the pub's owner wants to send the hardcore drunks out, he starts cleaning the place -- which occasionally involves flooding the floor with soapy water and moping it, and yes, I had my fet wet this way a lot of times...)
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Tune in to the cam in front of Downing Street 10, and as soon as Tony goes for a walk, tape it. Tape everything he does, including the times when he picks his nose, then sell that tape as "The Blair watch project".
I bet you anything, that whole junk disappears faster than it came into existance. Nobody enjoys being under surveillance.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
I certainly don't hope I'm the only person who finds this incredibly creepy.
...having only a few behind closed doors watching ..."real tv" shows ...add your own
but some questions remain:
will Americans get to watch also (re: US government gets to see teh phone habits of europeans)
when will we get to watch politicians and economic manipulation practices, as this can be exposing. (in the US some local tv does show things like town meeetings, but thats should be a given...)... It has been researched and found that more and higher dollar white colar crime happens than blue colar crime.
So if this camera broadcast is to help reduce crime, how about the white colar and political crime cameras?
Not being a UK citizen, I wonder how well the UK police actually monitor the cameras they have. In the US, where most such cameras are used by private security, they're not monitored very well. In my office building, for example, cameras are located throughout the facility. And the camera feeds go directly to the security desk, which I walk past several times a day. In my experience, the guards rarely are watching the camera feeds. On the other hand, when we did have some items stolen, the camera tapes were reviewed to ID the crook. See also the post-911 investigation which used camera tapes. Or the Oklahoma City bombing which used the tapes. In the UK, how much is active monitoring, and how much is using tapes to gather evidence after the crime occurred?
...all crimes are caught. But not necessarily prevented.
I am from the uk and was there last year and had a thought Well they say you were on your way to the pub(bar) for a few drinks with the lads (male company) and you ran into mr. smith who you owe some money due to the fact you needed a small loan until your next paycheque (paycheck). So you reach into your pocket and pull out a few pieces of paper and your wallet and had mr smith your case. mr. smith shakes your hand and says bye and you continue on your way to the pub. Meanwhile, your arch enemy, Mrs. old cow who dosent like you for what ever reason (maybe you are just young and full of your own opinions of the world) sees you on the telly (TV) and decides to call the cops and tell them you are dealing drugs. Problem is once in a dead while you might smoke a little pot and quite now possibly mrs. cow has be given the power to cause you problems. Of course the chances of you being on that camera at that moment are well 1 in 400 at least but the opporunity exists. With a little video editing and just making it look live you could achieve of sorts of wondering scenarios. Think about it!!! Cheerz baz
My first computer had 1024 bytes of ram
Supposedly they're also considering an "ASBO" channel, where people with anti-social behavior orders served upon them are shown. Combine this with the 10 'tip-off' rewards (where you get 10 if you text the police with crime tip-offs) and the CCTV channel, you could make a killing sitting at home, looking for 13-year-olds who've broken the terms of their ASBOs, and cash in via text message. Financial traders have moved from working at the exchange to trading on the Internet from home.. perhaps a whole new generation of telecommuting snitches and crime fighters will come along in the next twenty years?
From what I understand, the police in the U.K. already monitor those cameras with a huge staff.
I don't know about London, but that's not what happens in my city. A handful of local authority staff watch the monitors: the police are allowed in when there are particular ongoing incidents, and they can ask for tapes of particular incidents, but the police may not just sit there and watch in case anything interesting should turn up. (And even if they were allowed to there's no way there would be any spare police to do this job.)
The Code of Practice gives a reasonable overview of how the system works.
Mayor Richard Daley Jr. expects to have all the street cams viewable over the internet by December 2006. That's thousands of cams.
I bet it'll be whites watching blacks, Chicago will be Profile City!
this is one reality show that the Europeans can keep.
Although, oversight is important, this would make a wonderful tool for planning crime, stalking, and tracking down people that went into hiding ( example witness protection people, if they have a program like this ). Because of this, it might be better to not let everyone have access to such channels
...welcome the Star Wars kid to slashdot!
But I'm really puzzled as to why you would single out JFK, who was guilty of not much more than getting elected by a lot of dead people, and scarfing down copious amounts of cocaine on the job.
Surely both Nixon and George HW Bush were extremely guilty of much more serious offences? (In Bush's case, treason, although in his defense, he was only VP when he sold weapons to America's enemies.)
London is already the most surveilled place in the world. I know because I live here. It's beginning to feel oppressive as you know there is probably someone taping you everywhere you go. Speed cameras are making driving without getting fined difficult - cost me £180 last year for very minor speed offences. Soon TPTB will be fining you for smoking or spitting on the street using this type of technology - you'll just get a computer print-out sent to your house. Maybe I read to much sci-fi as a kid but I feel like I'm in 1984 half the time anyway. Erosion of civil liberties is pernicious and creeping - at what stage to we pass the point where it's too far?
Even when criminals are caught what happens to them? - the prisons are full (75% drug-related offences - generally just poor people trying to make a go of things) - and fining the poor never really works. The criminal justice system in this country is ineffective and flawed - many 'bad people' get away with misdemeanours because of various technicalities so what's the point of catching more people? Nothing is going to get solved.
Q: How is the government preparing for the probable collapse of society as peak oil begins to bite?
A: By developing 'Big Brother' technologies and surveilling everyone. Selling paranoia to everyone about their fellow men and neighbours to prevent social movements from emerging - typical 'divide and rule' tactics, time-tested and true.
Now to turn on the news and watch the 4-minute hate . . . . ooh what a bad man, string him up, string him up! He's the reason everything's so bad now, we see it now.
spoonerize "magic trackpad"
In that case who the fuck cares, yeah you look stupid and some extra person watching tv saw it as well. So what.
If by something stupid you mean, knock in a window, spray graffity, rob someone then guess what. I don't give a damn if your scarred for life by being caught.
There is a lot to talk about on this subject but people being caught on camera during a blooper moment ain't one of them. Do you want to ban people taking photograps on the street because they might catch you picking your nose?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It won't be long before everybody who wants their fifteen minutes of fame will be 'performing' in front of those cameras. It really is more like Big Brother the TV show than Big Brother the novel. With a little imagination, it could get quite entertaining ...
Speed cameras are making driving without getting fined difficult
Try cruise control.
I can see as many bad uses coming from these as good.
I can see this being abused in so many special ways. I really want to start dancing in front of the security cameras. Maybe I shall start my own television show by standing in front of the security cameras. Come on. Tell me you haven't danced or waved at those security cameras in stores. What will they arrest me for? Dancing in the streets of London. Muahahhahahahah....
Ooo man the floppy drive is broken. No wait. The computer is just upside down.
Examples of surveillance abuse and public acceptance: http://imdb.com/title/tt0093894/ The Running Man (1987) http://imdb.com/title/tt0120382/ The Trueman Show (1998) Also see the following: http://imdb.com/title/tt0076987/ Blakes 7 (1978) http://imdb.com/title/tt0061287/ The Prisoner (1967) There were rumours of a Steve McQueen film which was banned. Anybody know about that?
My hyperlinks aren't worth the paper they're printed on.
Knowing how stretched the police is here in the UK, why not introduce amature law enforcement? Anyone who sees crime taking place on TV should be allowed to get from the sofa, go to the crime scene and beat the living shit out of the bastards.
...well, you know how it works. There will also be a team of forensics doing meta-moderation.
As a criminal, I'd be scared to death knowing that 80 thousand people are coming my way right now carrying pitchforks, ropes and tubes of vaseline.
Think of the health benefits for coach potatos!
To avoid the system misuse, we may borrow from Slashdot. Each citizen will be issued a gun with 5 bullets from time to time and
In time, we may completely abolish police and judicial system, since every crime will be on tape. People could vote the least simpathetic criminal out with their remote control etc. etc...
--
What this really is, is an exercise in "grooming" the public to accept privacy invasion on an even greater scale.
WHAT PRIVACY? You are in PUBLIC!
If anything is Orwellian, it's the doublespeak games you nuts play to redefine privacy as something other than privacy.
We all know how crime was handled in the old south. Arrest the nearest black person. Worked especially well in rape cases cause everyone knows those niggers just can't keep their hands of white women right?
To combat this you have to have a legal system wich is "blind". It is the reason that justice statue has a blindfold.
The problem is that every police person can tell you it is a load of bullshit. If you see a group of black people in a poor area of london in an expensive car you know it is stolen.
Note here that the figure is that 50% of ARRESTS involve blacks. NOT stoppages. The only way people are arrested after being stopped is if they have been found to do something illegal.
What the story is effectivly saying is that the police shouldn't arrest so many black people. But how? Let them run because "oh yeah he done it but we are over our quota off blacks for this week". Arrest white people on made up charges?
Cause the horrible fact is that blacks just seem to commit more crimes or at least be caught more easily. But you can't say that.
This system is impartial. It just looks at the facts and flags a vehicle as suspicious or not.
In fact at its simplest it checks wether a vehicle has been stolen and then tells the police to pull it over.
if then it is found that in 50% of the cases the driver is black what the hell can you do about it.
In holland we got a similar case. Suriname (former colony with a largly black population) is a known traffic route for drugs smugglers. So customs check passengers on flights from Suriname more thoroughly then from other countries. Is this racist? Well yes and no. Obviously the majority of passengers from Suriname are black. Why aren't say asian passengers from Japan searched as well?
Because it ain't about racism. IF that was the case black passengers from japan would be searched extra as well. They are not.
The problem is that political correctness has made it impossible to accept any figures that suggest minorities are more involved with crime. This is just one extreme example.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Oftentimes, safety programs backfire, and make things less safe.
Examples:
1) Pickpocketing was an issue in some large urban subway. So to do the public a favor, they put up signs telling people to look out for pickpockets. Guess what? Right behind those signs was where the pickpockets would hang out. People would look at the sign, and pat their pocket where there wallet was, which in turn told the pickpockets exactly where their wallet was. Easy target! Pickpocketing became much easier as a result, and the signs were taken down.
2) Near where I live there is a highway that goes over a mountain that is occasionally covered in thick fog. They did a big study and spent something like $20mil on these fancy lights on the sides of the road. Well guess what? Being that the drivers were more comfortable and felt "safe" because the could see the side of the road, they would drive faster than they should, and its more dangerous to drive on that road now after they made it more safe.
3) Anti-lock brakes. I won't get into this because people here do not agree that increased friction between the road and tires with centrifugal force increases the likelihood of a rollover and fatal accident.
oh, I should really use this "preview" thingy sometimes.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Is it your business that you are mugging this person? The person might feel that he wants everyone to know about it especially the people in blue with dogs that will tear your arm off.
Is it your business you are putting your tag on this shopfront? The shop owner may feel that it is his business as well.
Is it your business you are walking down the street on your own time doing nothing to harm nobody. Yeah sure. Pity that all those other assholes ruin it for you.
The simplest problem is graffiti. A tiny handfull feels the need to spread it all around, a small group doesn't give a damn but the largest group doesn't want it.
Democracy is the dictatorship of the masses. Put camera's up they say to catch the taggers. Yeah pity you are filmed snogging harmlessly with your girl. The good suffer under the bad.
But what is your solution? You are going to pay to have my wall cleaned every week? No didn't think so. You are going to walk the streets at night to keep a personal eye out. No didn't think so.
I hear everyone talking about privacy but no-one offering to pay for the costs of it. Odd that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
1) WTF is a 'yob'?
2) When you say 'pissed', do you mean 'intoxicated'? Here in 'The Colonies' (or whatever you call the U.S.), 'pissed' has a slightly different meaning.
When I read the article (yeah, I know, that goes against Slashdot policy), I encounted this phrase:
What in the world does "shop any yobs" mean?
Throw the producers of the "Blair Watch Project" (great title!) in jail.
A lot of people suggest these kinds of reactions to scary, Orwellian government programs (like the idea of carrying a burned DVD with random noise and the words "pirated movies" written on it with a Sharpie through customs in response to the DVD-sniffing dogs story a while back) but for their own sakes, I hope they don't actually try it. Because any government that's willing to pass these godawful laws in the first place is almost certainly willing to imprison anyone who tries to interfere with the operations of those laws.
There are in fact a whole lot of what might be called "meta-laws" already. Contempt of court. Obstruction of judgement. Refusing a lawful order from a police officer. All of these are more or less prettied-up modern versions of lese majeste.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Really, each and every example you give is just off assholes being found out. Should I care about that?
Geez. Give a decent example. "Yes we saw you give free medical aid to people without insurance doctor, we terminate you as a registered doctor with our insurance company". Bit more contrived but at least the person "caught" is sympathetic.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
It was called Nathan Barley.
There's a reason there's a magazine called "Shoreditch Twat".
Gamers Europe - Gaming News. Reviews.
If I owned a business in London I'd figure out which places they regularly show and start standing around there holding a HUGE advertisement sign for my business...
The MAFIAA is a bunch of mindless jerks who will be the first up against the wall when the revolution comes
Not to my knowledge. My mum is one of the volunteers that monitors the CCTV in their local town. If they spot something, they are able to call the local(ish) police in the same way that anyone else can, but there's no special hotline, and certainly no permanent police presence there. All this does is potentially mean that there would be more volunteers and they wouldn't have to leave their sofas to do it.
...for mimes.
rj
1) Any kind of idiot who thinks being an idiot is cool, smashes things/people up for fun, usually a complete meal short of a picnis when it somes to social niceties. 2) yep, drunk as a skunk 3) "Shop any yobs" - report the idiot(s) to the boys in blue (police)
"The hands that help are better far than lips that pray." - Robert Ingersoll (1833-1899)
Huh? What about personality rights, which require every tv producer to have you sign a release form before they can transmit your image over the airwaves? Are those rights now suddenly waived? Strange...
If these cameras are in fixed locations/positions, how long before people begin to take over these street locations with posters, spray painted ads, and even performances or ad-hoc concerts?
I, for one, would love to see this exploited.
- When you do things right, no one will be sure you've done anything at all.
Fiction, like shit, can happen.
Love salty crackers? catchy electronica? Try !
Watching Blair is no crime. It's not even stalking. You're not following him around, you're using what government provides you with. And how can something the government does be illegal (ok, ok, lame joke, I know...).
Worse yet, he's a person of "public interest", so he doesn't even retain the right of his own picture. An ordinary person could press charges against you, claiming that they didn't agree with it (which is moot, considering you already forfeit that right the moment you walk the public roads in Britain).
If you get thrown into jail for that, the reporters of the yellow press should tread VERY lightly...
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Anyway, once people are accustomed to being watched while "out", it's only a matter of time before they start watching people while they are "in". First of all, it will be stairways and communal areas in blocks of flats. Then it will be the homes of people suspected of offences. Then it will be the homes of people considered likely to commit offences. Then it will be everybody's home just in case anyone commits an offence.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
I haven't read it myself, but in my case all that this means is that I don't refer to it at every turn. Sadly, many people do resort to this trick in an attempt to sound clever, and they're pulling it off spectacularly badly.
3) Anti-lock brakes. I won't get into this because people here do not agree that increased friction between the road and tires with centrifugal force increases the likelihood of a rollover and fatal accident.
Ok, I'll bite. Give us your full theory on why anti-lock brakes are worse than not having anti-lock brakes. Where does the centrifugal force come into play? This should be interesting...
No, they won't. There is no "slippery slope" argument to make here because it's just ridiculous to consider putting cameras in the street the same as putting cameras in someone's private property against their will.
One thing people like you fail to consider is that extending my right to privacy to areas where I'm really not in private has adverse effects on other people's liberties. If you are walking down the street absolutely minding your own business I have every right to photograph you because -- get this -- you do not own the street. You are not on your own private property and you should have no expectation of "privacy" when you're in a public area.
My Greatest Heist - Muisc partly inspired by the unbeatable Qwantz
You guys are all so negative! Imagine if you want to kill someone from your hood. Wouldn't it be that much easier to plan for it? I mean, you let him walk home from work... *click* switch over to the next camera *click* *in to the walkie-talkie* He's coming down Brumbley Ave... ok NOW! *pop* dead. Who cares if 50 people see the crime... you've taken appropriate counter measures... and as you are fleeing, avoiding the cops is made that much easier because you can see where they all are too! *in to the walkie-talkie* Watch out! There's three bobbies on Rutlidge and two on foot heading northbound on Brumbley *munches cheetoes on the couch* It's like reality TV meets PS2006.
Perhaps privacy isn't quite the word
This goes beyond "isn't quite" and ventures into "total opposite" territory. This is in no way a privacy issue. It's as far away from being a privacy issue as you can get.
I'm all for privacy. I really am. But I have no problem with CCTV cameras. I cannot say I am pro-privacy because people assume that I am against CCTV. This is because the anti-CCTV people play word games and provoke knee-jerking in the name of privacy. Stop it, you aren't helping the cause of privacy, you are harming it.
Anyway, once people are accustomed to being watched while "out", it's only a matter of time before they start watching people while they are "in".
1. That's a bald assertion with no evidence or even reasoning to back it up.
2. Even if this were the case, this would mean you have a problem with CCTV in private places, not CCTV in public places. So why not campaign against CCTV in private places and leave the reasonable CCTV in public places alone? Perhaps because CCTV in private places as a government policy isn't even on the drawing board so there's nothing to object to?
You have fallen into the slippery slope fallacy. "[X] is bad, therefore [Y] precondition of [X] is also bad". Nonsense. [Y] must be evaluated on its own merits, not judged based on something that hasn't happened and is not even on the drawing board.
Christ on a bike, you tinfoilers give real privacy advocates a bad name. It's embarrassing. Please focus on the real issues.
The only problem is that it does not go far enough. Put the feeds on the internet too, open up all the cameras, and install more in all government buildings (if you're a public servant the public should be able to monitor you while you're on the clock). 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.
Do not confuse anonymity with privacy, though it's easy to do. The only way I can think of to do this while protecting privacy is that the viewer must have no idea where/when he's watching, and no control over what he sees. You can still see faces (violating anonymuty) but with no idea where/when they were, you cannot violate the viewed-subject's privacy.
/. forgotten to ask "who's watching the watchers?" Forget the CCTV feeds, we need cameras in the police stations' monitoring rooms to watch what the cops are watching!
And has everyone on
Now THAT, I'm all for.
Adding another 500 people (assuming that's the number of people who actually bother to watch the show for hours on end) who don't know what to be looking for is only going to add to the number of false calls that the police already receive.
One of my family members works at a 911 call-center, in a midwest state, outside a fairly large city. He periodically gets 911 emergency calls that go like this:
Caller: There's a [derogatory term for a person of Middle Eastern decent] walkin' past the Conoco gas station at the corner here! Send the Cops and the National Guard, quick!
Operator: Sir, what is he doing?
Caller: He's walking past the store. He's got a black backpack, wearing jeans and a t-shirt, he's got short hair, and looks like he's about 15 or 16.
Operator (noticing that the time/location/description fit for someone walking home from school): Sir, is he doing anything? Anything suspicious or threatening?
Caller: He's walking past the gas station and across the street.
Operator: Sir, is this an emergency?
Caller: Son, don't you know we're at war here!?!
"What do you think?" "I think 'What, do you think?!'"
Anti-lock brakes. I won't get into this because people here do not agree that increased friction between the road and tires with centrifugal force increases the likelihood of a rollover and fatal accident.
Nope, because anti-lock breaks help improve friction in the direction of the car. It does little if anything to the friction sideways - if you would flip sideways, it'll almost certainly happen no matter what kind of braking system you have. Instead anti-lock brakes greatly improve a) your ability to reduce speed and b) maintain sateering so that you won't hit anything to make you flip, or lack the speed to do so.
What is a good question is if anti-lock brakes, stabilization systems and the like make people drive faster, with less distance to those in front of them and in general with less safety margins. But from a purely technical point of view you're talking nonsense.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
Step 1. Take apart a microwave Step 2. Assemble guts into simple microwave projector Step 3. Go around pointing magnetron aperture at cameras Step 4. ...
Step 5. Profit?
If this catches the public's eye as being cool rather than dangerous, couldn't the government just as easily record people's daily lives? I'd be opposed to it anyways. I don't like the idea of people who I can't see being able to see me.
Life is rarely fair. Cherish the moments when there is a right answer.
That's it -- anonymity. That's what I was looking for. There's a world of difference between knowing that something happened and knowing who did it.
.....
And yes, "Who's watching the watchers" is the important question. And funnily enough, the watchers often aren't comfortable with the idea of being watched themselves
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
There are many problems with this concept
but privacy is not one of them. This is like
having webcams, only many of them.
One problem I see straight off:
Let's say that a 14 y.o. decides to have
sex and doesn't realise there are cameras.
Now anyone who set their VCR or DVR to record
the security channel can be arrested for
child porn.
Is what the bobbies are going to get. Every old biddy will call in with what she thinks is lewd behavior, and flood the lines with chaff. The signal will definitely be lost in the noise. As long as they're willing to sift through all this for the few valuable nuggets...
They say the first thing to go is your penis. Well, it's either that or your brain. I forget which...
This is good because it will make an excellent peer enforcement system when they put the street curfew into effect.
All hail fear, long live fear!
ôó
If cameras do monitor public spaces it should be the law that ANY citizen can see both the live images and any stored images at any time.
The only question to discuss is if there should be cameras at all. If there are cameras then the public should have access to prevent government abuse.
Anarchists never rule
I've been studying abroad in England for 5 months, and thank god im going to be out of this country soon.
I even took a crime prevention class here which was actually surprisingly informative about situational crime prevention and the fact that it does nothing more than merely displace crime into areas of lesser security (usually the poorer areas).
I have got to say, its going to be great to get back to the US, where I can find some privacy among my close friends and family who are only a phone call away.
In that case who the fuck cares, yeah you look stupid and some extra person watching tv saw it as well. So what.
I don't know. Something doesn't sit right with this model.
I think private organizations or persons could abuse the system and use information against innocent persons.
Oh... You were standing out front of a gay bar or a porn shop one day. Let's send this tape to your local church.
Or maybe that video hanging out in a Muslim neighborhood and even shaking an Iman's hand might get you tagged by right wing groups for a beating.
There is too many things I can think of that this information could be wrongly used in the hands of questionable individuals with enough resources to monitor CCTV of a persons whereabouts and actions.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
On RTFA'ing, it occurred to me that this is just taking the current plague of "reality shows" to its logical extreme. Thanks to said shows, the public is already well-trained to believe that such large-scale voyeurism is normal and desirable.
I also had the thought that this may trigger an increase in "nyah nyah, you can see me but you can't catch me" crime by street gangs, and that "owning" a local CC network may well displace grafitti as the territory-tagging method of choice.
I had the further thought that people with lives don't have the time or the need to spend hours peering and prying, so the majority of Crime TV, er, Neighbourhood Watch TV viewers will be the very trash (the unemployables who spend their afternoons watcbing Jerry Springer) that commit the sort of petty crimes such CCTV theoretically prevents. And it's a short hop from there to knowing exactly which houses are "safe" to pillage, which routes are covered or not, and when you must be careful to disguise your appearance.
All in all, it's likely only to select for a new class of smarter criminals. Meanwhile the real victims (the people who believe CCTV is keeping them safe) will experience an increase in new crimes, and will clamor for more police protection, which will include more surveillance... and [feels squeeze from new tinfoil hat] won't end until every home is required by law to be wired for CCTV.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Any kind of idiot who thinks being an idiot is cool
Not a crime.
usually a complete meal short of a picnis when it somes to social niceties
Not a crime.
smashes things/people up for fun
Already a crime, called "assault". What is it about British people whipping themselves into a frenzy over behavior that even uptight Americans laugh off with a "boys will be boys?"
I think you're all confused on the subject of privacy. The issue is not just whether you're monitored in real-time (that's bad enough) but that you are being recorded for all time! Worse, you're being watched by people with the power to have you arrested if they so choose. Perhaps you have faith in your government and truly believe that this power will only be used for the common good and that any mistakes that are made will be minor and easily rectified. Frankly, I'm not so trusting, and the more power my government arrogates to itself the less trusting I become.
There's a qualitative difference between being in public and having others casually observe your activities, and having video of you watched by a police officer dozens or hundreds of miles away and archived for some indefinite period. If you honestly believe that that information cannot be used against you at some later date you're simply fooling yourself.
Hell, I live in the U.S., and records from our tollway automated billing system have already been subpoenaed for numerous stupid reasons, even divorce cases ("well, if you were at work Mr. Smith why does the tollway's billing system say you were nowhere near your place of employment?") This is getting out of hand, and you can apologize for your (or my) government's intrusive behavior all you want, but the truth is that everyone will, sometime, somewhere, do something he'd rather other people didn't see. In your shiny new world, all of our imperfections would be recorded for posterity the instant they occur, and come back to bite us in the ass when we least expect it.
Automated surveillance is bad, any way you cut it, for law-abiding citizens, because it can very quickly turn into automated justice.
No thanks.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
"And funnily enough, the watchers often aren't comfortable with the idea of being watched themselves ...."
:)
As I said above about the afternoon-TV-trash element...
But you gave me this thought: what if, as part of the "subscriber agreement" to receive CCTV on your telly, you must agree that YOUR property is ALSO wired so the rest of the CCTV network can see it. Make it fully reciprocal and see how many people like it then!!
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
What's the difference between being recorded in someone's brainmeat and being recorded on a hard drive or a video tape or whatever they use? The only difference is that a video camera is more efficient.
I'm a bit uncertain about the civil liberties implications of CCTV too, but frankly, if it's just a slight optimization of what is already acceptable, then what's the problem?
"Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity." -- Hanlon's Razor
Wow, nicely taken out of context there! Look at the grandparent post - the problem is with CCTV not being a deterrent for people starting fights. Yes, the crime - the one part you agreed with. No one has a problem with the rest of it.
;-) - notice the emoticon!
What is it about American people taking things out of context to make themselves look less uptight?
It's hard to laugh off behaviour that often results in innocent people being critically injured, paralysed, killed or comatosed just because they happened to walk past a group of "boys being boys".
Best post of the day, hope someone mods it up.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Are you trolling? It's not just a "slight optimization" it's a substantial difference. Why do you think that police cars have video recorders in them? I mean, if there's no difference between images recorded in the cop's brain and frames stored on a videotape why bother? Well, it's because there is a difference. The camera provides a limited but comparatively objective account of a series of events unfiltered by emotion and human perception, and is stable over time. Conversely, individuals who witness the same events often fail to agree upon even the most basic of details, may adjust their account to fit their perceptions of the people involved, and will forget information as time goes on. The police themselves cannot be trusted to be one-hundred-percent accurate either, hence the video. And to compound the problem, when video recordings are presented in court there's a good chance they'll be misinterpreted anyway. That's just the way it is and nothing will change that. Recording everything simply provides more opportunities for illegitimate prosecution and other abuses. I don't feel that it's worth so many of my hard-earned tax dollars to have my government become even more of a threat than it already is, thank you very much.
... the results (in terms of actual convictions based upon wiretap evidence) just don't justify the incredible expense incurred. And that's not even counting the current fiasco with AT&T and the NSA.
As a general principle, I always look at any proposed expansion of police powers with a jaundiced eye. The government will always represent that there are no downsides and will point to any number of expected positive outcomes. When all is said and done, the usual result is that the downsides were far greater than the government claimed, a significant number of innocents were injured in one way or another, and the positive outcomes are virtually nil. That's always been the case in the United States with wiretapping
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
Hey, at least us slashdotters are safe!
(1) The perps will be able to watch, too, won't they. This means that they will be able to work out exactly what the cameras cover and exactly what they don't, and will be able to plan their misdeeds accordingly, by doing things somewhere where there are no cameras. (In real life the perps do not know where the cameras are, what they cover, at a range of how many hundreds of metres they can read a newspaper headline, that sort of thing.)
(2) The perps will be able to watch, too, won't they. So they will be able to have accomplices who can see from moment to moment where the cameras are pointing, and phone or text their mates on the street to tell them the coast is clear.
Who are the "perps" exactly in this scenario? Average street thugs? They're really going to study the layout of the cameras all over the city and commit the map to memory, recalling perfectly at all times which areas are "safe" and which are not? Granted, I don't live in the UK, so I don't know the extent of their street criminal genius, but over here across the pond I've known more than a few, and they're not this smart. 1 out of 10 might bother to even look at that stuff.
(4) Innocent victims. You might be doing something which is perfectly legal and of no interest to the police but which you still might not want your friends and relatives and employer to see. OK, so if you're snogging someone else's wife in the park when you're supposed to be home sick from work then maybe you deserve what you get, but I'm sure that if I tried a little harder I'd come up with a more deserving example.
How do you know right now that a hi-res satellite isn't capturing your antics? Or your suspicious wife (or the mistress' suspicious husband) isn't keeping an eye on you with a telescope? Or just gone and hired a private detective to keep track of you? None of these things are illegal, and most of them are plausible. You cannot reasonably demand privacy in public. However, you should demand the right to walk the streets unmolested (that is why we've this whole "civilization" thing, right?). Gee, 2/2 for public cameras. And compared to the disadvantages of having a truly "closed" system where only the police have access, I'd say the points you've brought up here are pretty miniscule.
If other reasons we do lack, we swear no one will die when we attack
CCTV cameras are known to have a definite effect on crime; they displace it to camera-free areas, where it obviously isn't anyone's problem.
The solution to which is obvious - cameras everywhere, then everyone will be safe!
I'm only surprised it's not been used as an excuse to increase the coverage yet...
It's official. Most of you are morons.
Yeah, well go ahead and slag off our way of live.
Considering the way your country has turned out - full of people who arm themselves with rifles and shotguns, a police force with a reputation for shooting people for "boys will be boys" type things and a seriously pissed off terrorist group (or groups) after you... I know which place I'd prefer to live in.
Drunk people are a walk in the park to handle compared to the sociopath fuckups your country produces on a day-to-day basis.
There's a reason our police force doesn't carry weapons. Think about who really gets whipped up into a frenzy over stuff.
How has nobody yet mentioned that this is Sousveillance? This is the BEST we can possibly hope for from a nationwide network of cameras. Don't complain about it, make sure MORE of the cameras are hooked into it. Good grief.
.
. hmmm
... Soviet Russia shames Fascist Amerikkka!
Speaking from experience, eh? :)
Mother, do you think they'll like this sig?
Nope, because anti-lock breaks help improve friction in the direction of the car. It does little if anything to the friction sideways - if you would flip sideways, it'll almost certainly happen no matter what kind of braking system you have.
Thought experiment.
Try flipping a car on dry pavement.
Try flipping a car on a sheet of ice.
Try flipping a car on dry pavement when you're wheels are slipping due to being locked up (no antilock brakes).
Try flipping a car on dry pavement when you're wheels are not slipping due to having antilock brakes.
Really? I expect the next step to getting government CCTV cameras into everyones home will be to require it as a condition of probation, much as tracking ankle bracelets are used now. Next CCTV cameras in your home will be required for anyone who has ever committed *any* crime, and eventually it will be required for everyone whether they have committed a crime or not in the name of safety and being "for the children." As usual, the refrain will be: "If you have nothing to hide, why should you object to having a police CCTV camera installed in your home?"
9/11 Eyewitnesses to Explosive WTC Demolition 1 of 2
"The purpose of this is twofold: to allow the driver to maintain steering control under heavy braking and, in most situations, to shorten braking distances (by allowing the driver to hit the brake fully without the fear of skidding or loss of control)."
Perhaps not losing control of the car might reduce the risk. Or what do you think?
Had you kept to your original idea with
"ABS brakes are the subject of some widely-cited experiments in support of risk compensation theory, which support the view that drivers adapt to the safety benefit of ABS by driving more aggressively. The two major examples are from Munich and Oslo. In both cases taxi drivers in mixed fleets were found to exhibit greater risk-taking when driving cars equipped with ABS, with the result that collision rates between ABS and non ABS cars were not significantly different."
from the same page I'd agree with you. Not that ABS did not make it worse, though.
1. first we got soap operas, a show where actors babble bullshit non-stop and the action that normally would fit 3 minutes is stretched in 10 episodes
2. we get reality shows, where real people are forced to do scary shit, or eat... shit and one of them wins a prise
3. a second wave of reality shows where people are left in a house and shot for 3 months doing mostly nothing most of the time. The people are endlessly entertained by seeing people eat, go to the toilet or argue who drunk the last cola.
4. third wave of reality shows, where the producers just plant 400 cameras around the streets and let you watch that, looking for "crime" and other bullshit
5. new and improved! the color bar channel offers endless entertainment, family friendly, non-stop show! your kids will love the colors!
Also, just because one does not have control over who is in the streets as one has with one's own home does not mean one should be subject to monitoring and recording there. In a democracy, the majority of the population are law-abiding citizens by definition, and law-abiding citizens should not be subject to unnecessary surveillance How do you know? Tony Blair would be spunking his pants at the thought of being able to peep into any ordinary Joe's living room any time of the day or night.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
In this case in September of 2003, the camera was remotely controlled to move around and zoom in on people walking down the strip near bars in close proximity to the campus of the University of Alabama. FTA: "Footage broadcast citywide on a cable TV channel showed several people, and the camera zoomed in on the breasts and buttocks of several young women walking past." Those videos led to the arrest of a few individuals for public lewdness, disorderly conduct, and public intoxication.
The state trooper was not reprimanded, according to the article, but now troopers are not able to control the movement or zooming of the cameras.
So, back to the parent's point... in this case, an officer on dinner break noticed the images on TV. If not for the public broadcast, the trooper who controlled the camera would not have been caught and possibly be doing the same thing today. So, it's a good thing that the public could view these cameras. I doubt that they will ever be taken off the streets, and since they only can see what is in public view, I am inclined to believe that the public should be able to view these cameras to prevent exactly this from happening.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
Does it really matter whose camera is watching you? That is like saying you object to being stripped searched by the police but not by the mall guard.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Ah, but you see, there's such a thing as the law of diminishing returns. Install enough cameras in well-off areas and crime will be displaced to less-well-off areas. When all the poor people are committing crimes against one another rather than against the rich people, the crime problem is solved as far as the rich people are concerned. And since the ones with the money are the ones with the power, that's enough for them. Poor neighbourhoods will just become clearly defined no-go areas, where criminal gangs prey on the law-abiding citizens unlucky enough not to be able to afford to move out.
For the amount it would cost to equip a city with CCTV coverage, the authorities could afford enough extra front-line officers to make a real difference to crime figures. But all they are concerned about is image. PCs {in the "police constable" sense} aren't high-tech enough for them, and furthermore would constitute a roundabout admission of failure -- since they could have been deployed a long time ago, before CCTV technology reached the state it has today, and still had more effect than any fancy camera wizardry.
Now, perhaps I've got this all wrong and it isn't a huge conspiracy against the working class; but when there are so many bad decisions, you have to wonder whether or not it just might be deliberate.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
"Betray your family and friends - fabulous prizes to be won!"
"Nine times out of ten, starting a fire is not the best way to solve the problem." - my wife
I've seen a study that linked an increase in rollover accidents with the introduction in ABS. When it got into the details, they didn't seem to have controlled for anything - not even the increase in popularity of top-heavy SUVs with soft suspension. Correlation does not imply causation and all that.
It was me who painted the graffiti, and I'll do it again, once I break your pissant cameras.
... there is no word for "change the channel."
ABS reduces the risks of non-serious accidents and increases the risks of serious ones.
Take your pick.
...What happens when one of those cameras on the street just happens to be positioned so everyone watching it can see right into someone's bedroom? Or worse.
I assume that the CCTV cameras are on a rolling loop so you'll only see limited footage from each camera. This would mean that people that may want to use this maliciously may have their usefulness severly limited for tracking people etc. This is perhaps more of a system of hopefully spotting a random crime taking place on the streets.
Sending 400 separate video feeds to all homes would at best, be impractical.
During the 1970's in New York City, Heroin use was a big problem. Because of this the legislature decided to pass a bill to raise the penalty for possesion of (over a certain amount of) the drug to life in prison. New York doesn't, and didn't, have the death penalty, so the maximum sentence for murdering a police officer was also life in prison. So many officers were killed that the police force ended up being the major party in opposition of the bill. The officers didn't want to even try to enforce the policy, for fear of death. It was eventually repealed.
I'm getting tired of these cheesy references to 1984 whenever anyone sees "government" and "camera" in the same paragraph. The theme of 1984 was unseen authority figures monitoring everybody constantly, so there was no such thing as privacy anymore. That's a far cry from private citizens watching what's going on in public streets. If we have to make a fiction analogy, a better one would be the Hitchcock movie Rear Window, in which a photographer laid up in his apartment with a broken leg watches the daily activities of his neighbors through an open window. Nobody has the right to privacy on a public street, and the difference between a window and a camera isn't really relevant to normal people.
If you have ever lived in a high crime area you know the look of the furtive predator scouting out a chance to screw somebody over. He divides his attention between looking for a victim and looking to see who is looking at him. Most people avoid eye contact, which is what he wants. Sometimes he will glare at you to try to force their eyes off him so he can do his thing. If the CCTV system gives these assholes a reason not to pull their crap on people because they can never be sure when someone's watching, I'm all for it.
And conversely, a good way for me to stalk my crazy ex-girlfriend. It all balanaces out in the end :)
If the "experiment" is not universally opposed, the government will find a way to take it nationwide. The more affluent areas of every city will be filled with cameras that anyone can monitor. Crime will simply be displaced to the non-CCTV areas
I have yet to be convinced this is entirely a Bad Thing(TM), pragmatically. While I'd love to live in a utopia, as the population in one of the burgeoning 'mega cities' like London grows, the number of hoodlums grows with it and it becomes something that requires greater attention (particularly in very densely populated areas).
I've read several books that describe a near-future where there are "security zones" with different crime ratings assigned to them, and different levels of corresponding insurance cover. For example, your personal property or car might only have a policy that covers theft in a level 1-3 area (areas which are relatively "low risk", as identified by crime figures and insurance companies), and if you get mugged/have your car stolen in a more violent level 4 area than your not covered if your policy doesn't include that zone. At least you'd know where you stand.
Frankly, I'd prefer to live in a gated community and can definitely see it becoming more common in the UK (as an import from the US). Those not living in somewhere like London may find the idea unappealing, but for someone who lives in the heart of a crowded city, full of crime and anti social behaviour, I'd welcome it. If I was given the option, I'd rather pay extra council tax to have a local policeman or two (or even, private security guards - as is common in the states) on the beat day in day out and dealing with bozo's causing a disturbance or public nuisance. As depressing a state of affairs as it is, it seems the only practical option if I want to be able to live in a nice area entirely free of riff-raff (morons shouting at each other in the street and fighting, loud car stereo's blasting out late at night with quite insane building shaking amounts of bass, etc.)
If areas of any town were evaluated in that manner, independently in a highly visible, well sign posted fashion, you can bet your local police department would do more to try and keep up the security rating (and actually keep crime down). People fed up with crime levels in one area could band together and improve the quality of there area (and would have some strong financial motivation to do - sadly the only common motivator that many people respond to).
I really think that the assertion that it's going to lead to "camera's in people's homes" is ludicrous. With greater advances in technology, coverage in public areas is absolutely inevitable (if the state doesn't do it, industry would sooner or later, and you can't reasonably outlaw it without trampling all over civil rights in an unmanageable way). With that in mind, having openly available "CCTV" footage is a lesser evil than none at all, or only the state having access to it IMO.
How about this: you stop making thought experiments and actually expirement. You'll find out that your comparison is full of crap because ABS only works in the direction that the wheels are spinning. Once you go sideways, ABS is out of the equation.
5 mod points and I decide to take troll bait. I must be getting old.
Those who can, do. Those who can't, sue.
David Brin had this one pegged down. With the proliferation of cameras the key is going to be be that we can all watch them.
Yes everyone will be able to see you. But we'll all also be able to observe law enforcement to see what they do as well - like the Rodney King situation but 24x7.
Since we can't stop the spread of cameras either from public or private sources, the thing we have to do as a society is figure out what rules we want around them.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"This is getting out of hand, and you can apologize for your (or my) government's intrusive behavior all you want, but the truth is that everyone will, sometime, somewhere, do something he'd rather other people didn't see. "
Why would someone do something they didn't want other people to see? Well, it could be because they were arranging something (surprise birthday party), or it could be because they were doing something illegal. Now, you can't legistlate right and wrong, but you can draw a legal boundary around certain actions.
So, taking this a bit further, what's so bad about using a system to monitor legal or not actions? If there are extenuating circumstances (a good reason for doing something that bends/breaks the rules), isn't that something you present in a court of law? Innocent until proven guilty?
Within the privacy of my own home, I have complete domain. Outside, I have no domain -- public areas are for everyone. Don't do things there you don't want to possibly have other people know about.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
This is much closer to what happened in Farenheight 451. The only thing in common with 1984 is the genre.
I think that everyone should simply invest in a Tony Blair mask if they were going to commit strange and lewd acts with a pineapple, a Rottweiler called Fluffy and some type of implement for removing unwanted hair, whilst in public. Then the whole idea would be a worthwhile investment. Bravo Charles Clarke. Then the ID card scheme would be much easier to implement since we could all have the same photograph on our cards. New Labour genius. Two legs good, four legs baaaad.
The CCTV isn't that bad, it certainly makes people less keen to fight and drink in public. In fact, CCTV I'm cool with, so long as it's not in people's homes, or people's businesses or anything like that, just for in public. And really, this isn't Big Brother at all, in 1984 the cameras were EVERYWHERE, the Party was watching all the time, sleep, eat, whatever. Here the public are watching because the police don't have the time to watch all the CCTV video, all recorded in a public place. Big difference.
'Comatose' is not a verb. Thank you.
The more affluent areas of every city will be filled with cameras that anyone can monitor. Crime will simply be displaced to the non-CCTV areas. Meanwhile, the public will gradually be getting used to the concept of never expecting to be able to go totally unobserved. The way will be paved for ever deeper intrusions into individuals' lives.
Now, think about this: Do you really notice those cameras at the bank, in the bus or train or whereever they have been for a while? - Well, here in Denmark almost all trains and buses are equipped with cameras in order to prevent vandalism, and people just don't notice them anymore. This includes the vandals like the bozo who tagged away at the back of a bus on the way to his school. The camera caught it all including where he got off the bus. A few days later he was identified by his principal and billed for the damages (as alternative to fighting it in court).
It is impossible to enter a bus or a train or train station without being recorded and this cuts down a lot on the crimes committed there - and help solve crimes elsewhere as well. We've had murderers and rapists caught on tape, providing a timestamp and location fix that kills fake alibis and even show the the rape victim and her stalker just prior to the rape.
These cameras are very closed, the recording are only viewed when there's an incident requiring it. But people go about their business not noticing them and only people doing something serious enough to mandate a look at the recordings may notice them.
So, if a system is as closed as this, I don't mind cameras being everywhere. Human time is precious and expensive and nobody will waste time (and money) on studying a law-abiding citizen going about his daily business. Only those breaking the law will have something to fear, and if the society is a well-oiled democracy with a judicial system that's fair and just, there's no reason for anybody to break the law in any serious way.
This includes the bozos that don't respect democracy and want a minority to decide a policy or similar (civil disobedience). There's no excuse for not going through the motions of advocating the issue through regular channels and drumming up support that way, changing the policy through the democratic way of a majority vote. Just because you feel very deeply that you're right about something doesn't justify you - as a minority - to dictate the issue against the will of the majority. That's a form of fascism actually (minority rule).
"For every complex problem, there is a solution that is simple, neat, and wrong." -- H.L. Mencken (1880-1956) --
Shoreditch is one of the poorest areas of London
I think this is the single best way to decrease crime rate, from the criminals and from the police. If you don't believe that the police can do crime then I think you must be living in Paradise. The only way to keep the police in check is to have these cameras in every public area. It reduces the venues for crime for everybody including the Police. The worst you could do is to have the cameras but let only Police see the feeds. This results in 1984 situation. But have everybody access it, and you have a crime free area.
I didn't think it possible that any country would attempt this. My kudos to the Police for installing this. I just hope that they put it on the net. Allowing people to do a post-mortem search also. It will also become difficult to coverup tracks when you have already been seen on the cameras once.
Jealous girfriends aside, I don't think there would be much interest in people stalking me remotely. I would, however, imagine that famous people that attract more attention would find public 24/7 surveillance tiresome. Think about those fans running screaming at you immediately after they see you leaving the front door. No more need to stalk the front door in order to find out when you're leaving, since you can do this from the comfort of your own sofa.
Then again if I managed to do something that for one reason or another would attract attention, I wouldn't be too happy to see my "ratings" go up and people I don't have anything to do with and I'm not even aware of are watching my every move. "Look! He's adjusting his boxers!"
Then again, as I started, apart from the people who are already being stalked, will be so much easier to stalk. Otherwise I don't think there would be any benefit from a public surveillance system.
I don't understand how this thing will see the past. So from now on you should try not to do these things in places that have the cameras. Of course this thing will not catch planned crimes. This thing is most likely to catch impulse crimes. Impulse crimes are the most common crimes. Removing them can only get better. I do agree with gays, smoking pot, etc other kinds of morally good but legally bad activities. But in this case it is better to change the laws. And when a lot of such so called crimes will be reported the public opinion will definitely change and get them legal status. In the mean time such people will suffer. But they are already suffering, although much less. It will increase the suffering for a short time but make it legal far more quickly.
I'm all for it as long as long as both the surveilance information is available to all, and all have an equal likellyhood of being under surveilance at any moment.
...
More specifically it should be just as easy to catch a politician on camera as it should to catch anybody else, and said camera footage should be freely available to all.
This means that entrances/exits to places where politicians live/work should just as likelly be under the ever watching eye of a CCTV camera as those for everybody else AND that footage from those cameras should be just as easy to see by anybody as footage from any other CCTV cameras.
This includes number 10 Downing Street.
After all, honest politicians don't have anything to hide
I suspect that due to "security reasons", it's way much harder to catch a politician (especially a member of the party in the government) on the "CCTV channel" (for example, when they have the money men of their constituency in as guests) than anybody else.
Hi, I've got one for you now coming down West Street. Expensive shoes, briefcase, ipod ear plugs. He'll be out of the camera zone in another two minutes. Looks like there's hardly anybody about. You and the boys should be able to take him easy.
Don't put off until tomorrow what you can leave until the day after.
Is Whiney Mac Fanboy Tripmaster Monkey by a different name? For ages, TMM always managed to get the first (decently modded) post, then he disappears and WMF is suddenly at the top of most article comments.
:)
Is this a cunning advertising ploy to get more publicity for your Macbook crusade? If so, it worked on me!
c'mon people, i havn't seen any bush bashing in this thread! at least not any that got modded high. i'm sure you freaks can somehow make bush responsible for all the madness in london. you get bonus points if you can throw in a couple degrees of kevin bacon.
If the "experiment" is not universally opposed, the government will find a way to take it nationwide. The more affluent areas of every city will be filled with cameras that anyone can monitor.
What are the odds these cameras will fail if there is any chance they will show the likes of police officers committing crimes though...
I expect the next step to getting government CCTV cameras into everyones home will be to require it as a condition of probation, much as tracking ankle bracelets are used now.
The argument for tracking bracelets is obvious; they can determine proximity to crime.
Your logic seems to be backwards - you point to a justified loss of privacy and see the loss of privacy as the motivation not the justification for that loss. You then go on to assume that because something else can reduce privacy that it will be equally accepted, even without the justification.
Tracking bracelets wouldn't have been feasible without the obvious justification. CCTV in criminals homes doesn't have obvious justification. If they want to put CCTV in homes, they need to justify it somehow. Even with criminals, where's the justification? I can't think of the flimsiest excuse.
For the amount it would cost to equip a city with CCTV coverage, the authorities could afford enough extra front-line officers to make a real difference to crime figures. But all they are concerned about is image. PCs {in the "police constable" sense} aren't high-tech enough for them, and furthermore would constitute a roundabout admission of failure -- since they could have been deployed a long time ago, before CCTV technology reached the state it has today, and still had more effect than any fancy camera wizardry.
Also more police is less likely to be the "double edged sword" that this type of CCTV could turn out to be. Since being able to access CCTV could be highly useful to criminals and a machine can't judge the intent of a person.
One problem I see straight off: Let's say that a 14 y.o. decides to have sex and doesn't realise there are cameras. Now anyone who set their VCR or DVR to record the security channel can be arrested for child porn.
No doubt this already happens, but the police arn't likely to arrest themselves for "making child porn".
More intersting would be if one/all of the people involved are 16-17...
Now, think about this: Do you really notice those cameras at the bank, in the bus or train or whereever they have been for a while? - Well, here in Denmark almost all trains and buses are equipped with cameras in order to prevent vandalism, and people just don't notice them anymore. This includes the vandals like the bozo who tagged away at the back of a bus on the way to his school. The camera caught it all including where he got off the bus. A few days later he was identified by his principal and billed for the damages (as alternative to fighting it in court).
Maybe these work better in Denmark. In London the CCTV system on a bus failed to record anything when someone placed a bomb on one last summer.
It is impossible to enter a bus or a train or train station without being recorded and this cuts down a lot on the crimes committed there - and help solve crimes elsewhere as well. We've had murderers and rapists caught on tape, providing a timestamp and location fix that kills fake alibis and even show the the rape victim and her stalker just prior to the rape.
However in London cameras didn't appear to be much help to an innocent man gunned down by police.
And yes, "Who's watching the watchers" is the important question. And funnily enough, the watchers often aren't comfortable with the idea of being watched themselves .....
Especially if it's by the "plebs".
This is the only way to prevent government abuse of these cameras. If the public has full acess to the cameras then government/police can't bury images they don't like.
If cameras do monitor public spaces it should be the law that ANY citizen can see both the live images and any stored images at any time.
You'd also need to have some way to be sure that such cameras couldn't be easily disabled, by either the authorities or random criminals. Any police officers prepared to assault members of the public are hardly going to be adverse to vandalising some cameras...
That may get you onto the sex offenders register, especailly if there are so many people watching, and you won't be able to get a job working with children for the rest of your life.
thank God the internet isn't a human right.
Why not just walk outside? You can observe crime just as easily from there. Then maybe the couch potato would get off his butt!
i'm not one for writing what will probably appear to be a flame post but... #1: americans aren't the only ones who have been the victims of terrorist attacks...or did you just conveniently forget the london bombings? just because we're hated the most (and with good reason since we're assholes) doesn't mean that you're not in the same boat boyo. #2: I for one have no problem w/ armed citizens and not for any of that macho "i can shoot the criminal before he shoots me" bullshit but for the real reason why the 2nd ammendment (the right to bear arms in case you're not familiar with it) exists, and that is so that the people and their government are on a more even keel. now granted i don't ever actually want a revolution to occur, hell i hate guns, and i know that in comparison with what our military has amassed that a few rifles won't turn the tide in our favor, but if the gestapo comes knocking on your door would you rather be the one without a gun? also i realize that not even the cops have guns in great britain but that's not much of a consolation to me since the military still does. in closing...just think about what you're saying next time. the whole world sucks...not just the U.S. or just Britain, and the sooner we all realize that, the sooner we can start to affect a positive change instead of ranting on message boards (ironic?) --just because they're after me doesn't mean...*message censored by the evil empire*
Well, that's of course the perfect argument for extending the areas in sight of a cam. After all, if every place is in sight of a cam, then no crime can happen, right?
Until those get cams, too.
Well, if you don't do any wrong, you have nothing to hide, do you? Ah, and BTW, your wife wants to know who that woman was you talked to yesterday
Well, in that case the terrorism trump card has to be used. After all, terrorism is a danger for freedom and democracy, so anything which helps fighting terrorism obviously helps freedom and democracy. Even if on the outside it seems to do the opposite. And after all, you cannot really exclude the possibility that at some time, one of the cams will show a terrorist, can you?
BTW, don't forget to activate your irony detector when reading this post.
The Tao of math: The numbers you can count are not the real numbers.
People will simply start to wear masks and hoods when they are in public.... Or convert to Islam.
Yes, it does.
'"When you feel safe, you can be passive," Rapaille says of the fundamental appeal of the S.U.V.'
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
Already in North America we see the effects of media fear mongering. People are becoming paranoid. They see and hear about crime and assume "it could happen to me". This feeding the cams to people will just breed more paranoia if/when people see things happen near to their homes. They won't even need to witness it all personally. All it takes is a neighbor or friend to recount what they witnessed. And this will lead to greater fear for a person's safety.
Sometimes ignorance IS bliss. If we are to be happy, we need to keep certain thoughts out of our heads.
The viewers (the suckers that pay for the thing on cable telly) will be the ones subdisizing the price for larger CCTV coverage!!! This is really a smart coup.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Statistics show that the cameras on stop lights designed to catch people running the light don't actually reduce the total number of accidents. It reduces t-bone accidents, but greatly increases the number of rear-end collisions as people jam on their breaks at the last minute to avoid getting caught by the camera. Camera proponents argue that this is still a win, since the rear-end collisions cause less severe injuries... sigh.
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
We would, however, do well to remember that whatever powers we grant to the government we have we also grant to the government we would like to have and to the government we fear.
I'm not just talking about partisan swings in the composition of the government - the difference between Democrats and Republicans, Labor and Conservitive. As Wiemar Germany proved, Despotism - even Facism and Nazism - can rise from a Democratic-Republic.
The assumption that all of your arguments hinge upon is that your government is benevolent now and will continue to be benevolent in the future. This is not necessarily a valid assumption. Governement is eratic, unstable, and often capable of massive and unexpected change.
Much as you would think twice about giving a loaded handgun to a four year old, you should also think twice about expanding the powers of a government.
I'm in no way saying that all government is bad or that all expansions of governmental power are bad -- I'm simply stating that each increase should be measured by its consequences - both immediate and potential.
Killfile(TGK)
No trees were killed in the creation of this post. However, many electrons were inconvenienced.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/2192911.stm
There has been some discussion of this before, as this article notes, there are studies to note that better lighting
is both cheaper and more reliable a means of reducing crime. Not to mention still permitting public spaces not under
the constant eye of Big Brother.
I googled on this subject a bit, noted with amusement an Astrononmical Society paper disputing these findings. Presumably out of fear of light polution.
Of course, it is possible to better direct street lights, but in general illuminating the night would put
crime reduction at odds with the astronomers.
-- perl -e'print pack"H*","6e656d6f406d38792e6f7267"'
how long until they shoot the cameras.
shoot shoot the clowns, shoot all the clowns... - Bruce Dickenson
ahhh, memories.
way back when, one of the kids in the neighborhood, after seeing nintendo for the first time, decided she just had to go and ask her parents to buy her this wonderful new toy.
so she runs home and tells mommy and daddy she just has to have duck hunt.
except, in her excitement, she slightly mispronounced it.
as a parent, what do you say when your little girl runs in and says, "buy me duck cunt!"?
if the answer isn't violence, neither is your silence / freedom of expression doesn't make it alright