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Cameras Help Cops Catch a Killer
CrazedWalrus writes "Philadelphia police recently captured a serial killer with the help of a combination of Homeland Security and private surveillance cameras. Police examined video from 50 different cameras and pieced together relevant footage from 12 of them, and eventually were able to identify the murderer. Once caught, he confessed to several other murders spanning the past eight years. Without these cameras this killer would probably be stalking the streets of Philadelphia today. With results like that, is there really a good basis for argument against these cameras?"
Just because some intrusive technology was used for good at one occasion, doesn't mean that it completely turnes the tides on the discussion. it's still an intrusive technology.
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As long as this is the way they're used, yes. Then again, I live in the UK and these kinds of cameras are pretty prevalent.
I'm intrigued to hear from someone to explain why they don't want these cameras around. Privacy concerns is what I usually hear but as you're in a public place surrounded by the public who can watch you using their eyes, what's the difference between a policeman watching you in person and a policeman watching you by camera?
"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." - Tolkien
I never understand the comment "with such a good result, can we argue against X?".
The point is, you can always justify any intrusive technology by pointing to the good results. "If we lock everyone up, there would be no crime! Can you argue against that?"
We always have to look at the tradeoff between the intrusion on our freedoms and the the results that the technology brings. As for cameras, I think that in some cases/locations they make sense, but that (for example) the UK has gone way overboard. But that is just my opinion.
Without these cameras this killer would probably be stalking the streets of Philadelphia today. With results like that, is there really a good basis for argument against these cameras?
In 2005, there were 16,692 murders in the United States. (link)
In 2005, there were 43,200 deaths due to car accidents. (link)
It has been shown that cameras increase car accident rates by between 7 and 24 percent. (link).
So, you tell me. With results like these, is there really a good basis for argument FOR these cameras?
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Hey, I'm sold! The government may at will monitor every call, every email, examine my credit history in minute detail, access my library lending habits and even do a physical search of my home (neither without telling me)...but if by doing so one child's life is saved then by gum -it's worth it!
The cameras that were used were a combination of private cameras and security cameras put up around a post office. This is not about a sophisticated government network of cameras used to track people (although those do exist in Philidelphia). It's about a resourceful police department. It's good to see a story about the cops doing some good.
Most people don't object to privately operated security cameras.
As long as the cameras (and personally identifiable data in general) are hard enough to access that they will only be used to prosecute major crimes, most people would be perfectly happy. After all, since the beginning of time, officials could interview other witnesses and find out who was doing what, and when.
The privacy concerns really come into play when the cameras are online, and easily accessible. Then it's a force multiplier for the authorities, allowing them to track hundreds and hundreds of people with only trivial effort, as well as prosecuting every trivial violation of the law the cameras see.
In other words, it's not the cameras, it's the databases.
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" Without these cameras this killer would probably be stalking the streets of Philadelphia today."
How can you be so sure. Did Serial Killers never were arrested before that cameras were invented?
Now, let's see the question from another angle:
As you might be aware, lots of serial killers have been proven to have perfectly normal lives, with jobs, wifes and kids. From the outside, a psycho looks, most of the time, just like your average joe: a good employee, a loving and caring husband and father.
Now, just for one moment, let's suppose your psycho joe works for law enforcement. What a wonder, isn't it? a psycho with lots of data and live footage of just about anyone he decided to chase. Over time, every psycho wannabe will pursue such kind of job. Now, add to this scenario:
Corrupt police officers watching possible informants of their misdeeds.
Blackmailers watching cheating husbands and wifes.
Corrupt elected officers using this data to watch their adversaries.
The IRS.
Isn't it too much power over our lives? are you really willing to give your freedom away for the illusion of security?
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I am getting so disgusted with how people's fear, insecurity, and single-minded drive for personal safety is driving public opinion and laws toward a police state. At the rate things are going now, ten years from now we will live in a society of 0% crime and 0% fredom. Surely a state-monitored camera in every house would reduce crime? Think of the lives it would save! Lets do it!
Idiots. They don't realize what they are losing because their fredoms and rights are being nibbled away a little at a time, all in the name of personal safety.
Did you know, if you toss a live frog into a boiling pot of water he jumps right out, that's no surprise. But put him in a pot of room temperature water and he stays there, even while you are slowly turning up the burner. An hour later you have one dead frog. It's amazing how similar this is to how the sheep behave.
The proponants of things like this try to present it as a choice, you either do as we say or you deal with the consequences. You can either be safe OR you can live in a cage. They don't discuss the possibility of being safe without living in a cage. This issue is a small one, but that's how it works, your fredoms are chipped away a little at a time over a long term, and leaves you staring back at 20 years ago wondering who let it happen.
You did.
I work for the Department of Redundancy Department.
You have a guy in prison.
He'll tell you where the bomb is if you let him fuck your daughter.
So he fucks her and the bomb doesn't go off at the Lakers game.
With results like that, is there really a good basis for argument against pimping your daughter?
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
Actually, if you're going to be pedantic, the exact quote is "The cameras are correlated with an increase in total injury crashes, with the increase being between 7% and 24%."
So your statement that "more accidents are reported when there are cameras present" is a nonargument, because when people are injured in an accident, the accident gets reported anyway.
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1. A private camera footage, can be archived, thus enabling someone to build a pretty detailed account of your life
2. Who guarantees me the cameras are not being used to spy me? once they are there, they can do everything they want.
3. Once you have those cameras, is just a matter of time until facial recognition software gets good enough to be able to pinpoint everyone and build huge databases of personal habits of just about everyone.
4. A private camera in a private space is another thing. A private space is, by definition, private. A street is a public place, and that means it's everyone's property. Just as I can object for being watched at my home, I surely can object being watched and tracked in a place that is just as mine as it's your's place also.
5. If a policeman starts following me, I have a reasonable chance to notice that take protective measures like going to the court. With a camera, what are my chances?
6. If the government wants to unjustly incriminates me (maybe because they *need* to arrest *someone*), what will block them from using carefully selected footage to use as an "evidence" against me?
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In a truly free society new technologies must come with laws that require transparency
Bullshit. If you mean all new technologies must have laws then what you're saying is before any innovation is allowed the politicians must have their own interests met first... I don't care to subject the pace of innovation and the growth of the economy to a bunch of politicos out for themselves or their single consituency.
If you mean only technologies used by the government... then you need overriding laws that can be applied to various situation. Otherwise, if a police force used technology in a new and innovative and non-intrusive way they'd be subject to have having the case tossed out of court because they used the technology without governing laws.
I'm confused. I thought they only needed 1 camera and some really good software. You know, "zoom in on that reflection of the lamp post and enhance contrast, removing noise and distortion based on the shadow information and weather report".
Being safe isn't a boolean true/false dichotomy. Safety, like security, is a matter of degrees, each degree costing us geometrically more than the last degree. At some point you are face-to-face with the Law of Diminishing Returns.
The problem with anything measured in degrees is that we won't always agree on when the limits are hit. Put differently, exactly how many lives must be quantifiably saved before it becomes worth it to see the government put a camera on every street corner? Everyone has a number. For me, the number is higher than that which I think this one serial killer would have killed. It's higher than the cost in lives of 9/11. It's not higher than the cost in lives of, say, WWII, however. Before I saw that many people kiled, I think I'd agree to the cameras. It's always a matter of degrees. My tolerance for risk is higher than most. I don't, for instance, see loss of our liberty worth it when traded for safety from terrorists. Perhaps it's becuase I underestimate what they are capable of. Perhaps not. Either way, the original question is a good one, but inevitably one that we can only answer for ourselves. I guess the beauty of our democracy is that in answering for ourselves we come to a jagged consensus that lets us make a communal decision and move on. It's worth noting that sometimes that consensus doesn't mesh well with our personal ethic (C.f., abortion, stem cell research, the war in Iraq, seat belt laws, and street corner government cameras). In the end, all we can do it make a personal decision and cast our vote. For my vote, I'll be pushing away from street corner cameras. If I'm on the losing side of the issue...well, it won't be the first time.
Tom Caudron
http://tom.digitalelite.com/
-Tom
Filming in public does not go against the Fourth Amendment. Your proposal does. That is the difference.
The question is, do the benefits outweigh the costs? Since all the cameras were in public areas, and since there is a lot of precedent supporting the idea that you have no reasonable expectation of privacy in a public place, I'm not sure what the legal objection could be...
Sure a camera network could be used by an oppressive government to help control a civilian populace...but so could a police force, and no one argues against the police on the grounds that they take away your right to privacy.
Regardless of our feelings about the subject, cameras are getting better, cheaper, and smaller. This sort of thing is only going to get more common, and it's hard to form a cogent argument against it since the privacy you lose is intangible, whereas serial killers being caught based on camera data is pretty tangible.
ad logicam Claiming a proposition is false because it was presented as the conclusion of a fallacious argument.
From the CDC:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/factsheets/suifacts.htm
"Suicide took the lives of 30,622 people in 2001 (CDC 2004)."
"In 2001, 55% of suicides were committed with a firearm (Anderson and Smith 2003)."
30622x55%=16842 deaths
"Why think about the actual issue brought up by the parent post, when you can just taunt Slashdot like that's relevant"
MicrosoftRepresentit (1002310)
Maybe you need more explanation than that elegant quote provides and you couldn't follow it, so here goes.
I'm not saying we definitely shouldn't have the cameras - in fact, in most cases I'm pro public-cameras but anti-wiretapping. But I am saying that anyone who thinks the topic doesn't deserve continued discussion or doesn't think that quote is relevant doesn't understand the issue.
Liberty:
In some hypothetical selfish dictatorship you might decide to execute 100 people if it's guaranteed to stop that serial killer, because your goal is not weighed against the good for the people.
In some hypothetical benevolent dictatorship you might decide to execute* 2 people even though only one of them is the serial killer - if you think the killer will kill more than 1 more person, the benefit DOES outweigh the cost when viewed across all people.
In the United States as envisioned by our forefathers we value PERSONAL liberties. So the benefits must not merely outweigh the costs but must _massively_ outweigh the costs to the individual. Under their model, the government wouldn't execute 2 people unless it would save not merely 2 but at least tens of other people, or more... This is the principle upon which we have the freedom of one person to speak when no one else wants it and one person to practice a religion everyone else might hate.
Taking away the ability for someone to walk from one house to another without being recorded is definitely a liberty that has largely been removed. Perhaps the benefits do massively outweigh the costs, but that calculation depends on factors such as how much oversight is placed on the camera operators.
Murder:
The only other point I want to note is that some people have said that since death is more or less the ultimate penalty, 1 death = infinite anything less than death. That's simply not the way the world works. If you want to know how much death is worth, perhaps calculate how much it would cost to reduce the average number of traffic deaths by one by improving cars - or more effectively by improving driver's education classes. Even better, simply strengthen the currently idiot-proof tests to get your license. That would cost the governments very little and put the responsibility on the driver to learn how to drive better. (Naturally a nationwide program would cost a lot and reduce deaths by alot - you'd need to divide to find a unit cost.)
Or the costs for better medical accountability to reduce needless deaths during medical procedures. Or the costs to stop someone in the US from dying of hunger. (Not to mention the much-lower costs to reduce some kinds of death in other parts of the world.) Or the costs for meat-safety inspections that are more independent of the meat-packing industry that cause deaths through foodborne illnesses. Or the economic impact of improving the health quality of foods and dividing by the reduced number of deaths from heart disease, diabetes, obesity and cancer.
The numbers will vary, but they're all lower than you'd think.
*Obviously if you can actually arrest them you could put both of them in jail and hope it sorts itself out - and there are a zillion other tricky police things to do, like letting them go and watching both of them really carefully. That's why this is a hypothetical. Maybe the killer is flying away in a little stealth plane with a hostage and you only have this opportunity to reliably shoot him down.
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