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New York Plans Surveillance Veil For Downtown
News.com is reporting that a security system modeled after London's "Ring of Steel" is coming to New York City. The plan, to include license plate readers and over 3,000 public and private security cameras, aims to aid officials in tracking and catching criminals. "But critics question the plan's efficacy and cost, as well as the implications of having such heavy surveillance over such a broad swath of the city. [...] The license plate readers would check the plates' numbers and send out alerts if suspect vehicles were detected. The city is already seeking state approval to charge drivers a fee to enter Manhattan below 86th Street, which would require the use of license plate readers. If the plan is approved, the police will most likely collect information from those readers too, Kelly said."
Anything that helps keep me safe against terrorism is alright in my book.
Sounds like a good idea to me, but I'm sure there are going to be a ton of protests about privacy issues.
Technology will always make abuse easier, just as it makes so many other aspects of life easier.
Technology will always make jobs of law enforcement easier, just as it makes our lives easier.
Technology will always act as a force multiplier for government, just as it magnifies the capabilities of the individual user.
Just to take one example: if a system of license plate readers can detect a plate that has been flagged by some agency and prevents one, e.g., car bombing, why is that not a valid mechanism to use?
Just because it can be abused?
Or because it could be abused "more easily" than individual humans reading license plates in public?
Or because someday, someone could "come to power" who would use it against [insert ostensibly oppressed population here]?
All technology - computers, databases, telephones, cameras, the internet, vehicles, helicopters, robots, radios, video cameras, heat sensors, weapons, tear gas, rubber bullets, office buildings, body armor, remote controlled aircraft, tape recorders, wireless transmitters, you name it - can and will be able to be, and in fact will be, "abused".
But it's not the technology that's being abused; it's power.
So instead of being luddites-by-proxy, why not recognize the issue for what it is, instead of pretending that government should not be able to leverage technology to solve problems?
There is no reason surveillance cameras in public places or license plate readers in stationary locations or on aircraft should be vilified any more than any other piece of technology. Whether the cost/benefit ratio is reasonable is another argument entirely.
But I cannot and will not fault the government or law enforcement for using technology such as this, whose costs it can ultimately justify to the public's satisfaction, in public places to attempt to fulfill their charge to society.
Whether or not such systems actually do deter crime or terrorist activity, or whether they are worth the money, is really what is at issue. Not kneejerk reactions about 1984 likely to dominate some (most?) debates on this issue.
This isn't some plot to turn America into a police state. It's an effort being undertaken by local, state, and federal law enforcement and security professionals to attempt to protect the public. That is the first and primary goal. There are no ulterior motives that rise to any meaningful level. Let's keep things in some sort of perspective.
If it was your job to protect the people and property of New York City, what kinds of initiatives would you be undertaking? Hint: if your answer is along the lines that it's much better to stomach the errant terrorist attack every now and then rather than take proactive action to attempt to prevent them using whatever means you have at your disposal, you probably won't be in that job for long.
So think about this, and try to put yourself in the place of an urban security expert or a law enforcement official or a city mayor. There are valid points to be made on both sides of that debate, about costs, effectiveness, balances with privacy, and so on.
But none of them involve rants about police states or governments secretly wanting to monitor and control innocent citizens. Technology is technology. Implying that government and law enforcement shouldn't be able to use technology to the extent that it is legally allowable and its costs are justifiable is absurd.
One other point is that while things like cameras and checking ID may not always deter or prevent a crime or an attack, it often greatly assists in the investigation after the fact. We need only look as far as the London car bomb plot to know that cameras in public spaces (among a great many other tools) can be an aid. Cameras have been a valuable aid in such instances as long as they have been used. The real issue is cost effectiveness.
Could the $90M be spent a different or more effective way in a city like New York? Befo
The terrorists will NEVER figure out a way around THIS!!! After all, they'd have to STEAL someone else's plate and put it on their vehicle! Or make up their own plate. Why, either way, it's next to impossible!
Boy, we're SOOO much smarter than the terrorists!
My blog
...will it help with the God-awful smell that is NYC?
Since most people are talking about terrorism,
the greater majority of terrorist attacks have involved some form of public transport between planes, trains and automobiles aren't cars the least of the trouble?
This sounds more like an additional taxation on driving (exactly what they are proposing for Manchester England, and what is already in use in London.
liqbase
I mean, really, at what point do we say "you can't put cameras there" and have no one say "well, if you're not committing a crime then it shouldn't bother you?"
Regards, Ian
Sigs are too short to say anything truly profound so read the above post instead.
When you pull up a license plate, you get the make, model, year of the car, and the driver's name and address. That was 25 years ago. I can only imagine what kind of information is available now.
No, I wasn't a cop. I was a tax collector. (I'll enjoy Hell: I'll get to meet all the politicians, Al Capone, etc....)
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
BUT - from the looks of things, the license plate readers are there as a check to see if the drivers had paid their little extra tax for the privilege of putting along on the streets of Manhattan.
I almost expected to see it hit this side of the Atlantic sometime, but I'm still kind of surprised; figured that the CCTV's were another 10 years off.
Only time will tell if it actually does anything to increase general safety or not (does anyone have any crime stats showing the diff before/after CCTV in London, BTW?)
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
But try photograph and/or videotape a police officer, and see what happens.
(They can have my camera when they pry it from my cold, dead hands)
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,284075,00.html
Straight Talk: Videotaping Police
Tuesday , June 19, 2007
By Radley Balko
Last month, Brian Kelly of Carlisle, Pa., was riding with a friend when the car he was in was pulled over by a local police officer. Kelly, an amateur videographer, had his video camera with him and decided to record the traffic stop.
The officer who pulled over the vehicle saw the camera and demanded Kelly hand it over. Kelly obliged. Soon after, six more police officers pulled up. They arrested Kelly on charges of violating an outdated Pennsylvania wiretapping law that forbids audio recordings of any second party without their permission. In this case, that party was the police officer.
Kelly was charged with a felony, spent 26 hours in jail, and faces up to 10 years in prison. All for merely recording a police officer, a public servant, while he was on the job.
There's been a rash of arrests of late for videotaping police, and it's a disturbing development. Last year, Massachusetts Attorney General Tom Reilly threatened Internet activist Mary T. Jean with arrest and felony prosecution for posting a video to her website of state police swarming a home and arresting a man without a warrant.
Michael Gannon of New Hampshire was also arrested on felony wiretapping charges last year after recording a police officer who was being verbally abusive on his doorstep. Photojournalist Carlos Miller was arrested in February of this year after taking pictures of on-duty police officers in Miami.
And Philadelphia student Neftaly Cruz was arrested last year after he took pictures of a drug bust with his cell phone.
As noted, police are public servants, paid with taxpayer dollars. Not only that, but they're given extraordinary power and authority we don't give to other public servants: They're armed; they can make arrests; they're allowed to break the very laws they're paid to enforce; they can use lethal force for reasons other than self-defense; and, of course, the police are permitted to videotape us without our consent.
It's critical that we retain the right to record, videotape or photograph the police while they're on duty. Not only for symbolic reasons (when agents of the state can confiscate evidence of their own wrongdoing, you're treading on seriously perilous ground), but as an important check on police excesses. In the age of YouTube, video of police misconduct captured by private citizens can have an enormous impact.
Consider Eugene Siler. In 2005, the Campbell County, Tenn., man was confronted by five sheriff's deputies who (they say) suspected him of drug activity. Siler's wife surreptitiously switched on a tape recorder when the police officers came inside. Over the next hour, Siler was mercilessly beaten and tortured by the officers, who were demanding he confess to drug activity. Siler was poor, illiterate and had a nonviolent criminal record. Without that recording, it's unlikely anyone would have believed his account of the torture over the word of five sheriff's deputies.
Earlier this year, Iraq war veteran Elio Carrion was shot three times at near-point-blank range by San Bernardino, Calif., deputy Ivory Webb. Carrion was lying on the ground and was unarmed. Video of the arrest and shooting, however, was captured by bystander Jose Louis Valdez. Webb since has been fired from the police department and is on trial on charges of attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm. The video is the key piece of evidence in his trial.
While it's possible that police and prosecutors would have believed Carrion's version of events over Webb's even without the video, it seems unlikely. Webb is the first officer to be indicted in the history of the San Bernardin
No on drives in New York City, because there is too much traffic.
Bloomberg and his thieving Republican cronies...
Wait - he's not a Republican anymore? And he only changed to the Repubs to get elected in the first place?
Nevermind.
"As God is my witness, I thought turkeys could fly." A. Carlson
Privacy though anonominity in public is a relatively recent phenomenon, and we seem to take it for granted. But most of the world's population for most of its history - including the folks who wrote the US constitution - have not lived that way. Most people spent the majority of thier lives in a radius of a few miles, and were recognized on a daily or even hourly basis by someone who knew them.
We are used to having privacy in public even though we have neither earned it nor voted for it. It is a totally unrealistic expectation that we should be able to maintain it. It is just a freak of timing that we have it at all - the technology that made big cieies possible happened before the technology that made cheap cameras possible.
As long as they stay out of my property, it's ok with me.
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin, Historical Review of Pennsylvania (1759)
"They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Ben
That said, there is a precedent from which we can (at least partially) check to see if it is actually effective at its stated goals... does anyone know of (non-propagandized to either pro/con) stats to see how effective these critters are at reducing crime in London?
I sincerely hope that somebody in NYC at least looked, and not just plopped out this pronouncement as some sort of public exclamation that "we're doing something about it!"
Otherwise, if they turn out to not be effective (or not enough to justify the expense), then the benefits side of the balance ends up just that much lighter, no?
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
Part of this (driving below 86th St) is part of Bloomberg's environmental stop global warming initiative. When you consider the fact that all American vehicles put together (not just SUV's but every vehicle) only account for about 6% of Co2 emissions ( in the neighborhood of underground coal fires in China that are blazing out of control) this starts to look more like a money/power grab disguised as environmentalism.
In fact, many environmentalists who really hate Bush are not that far away from him. They just want to take away your freedoms in the name of environmentalism instead of fighting terrorism. Of course, on this site there will be thousands of apologists for destroying the constitution in the name of the environment, but not for stopping terrorists.
AntiFA: An abbreviation for Anti First Amendment.
They'll be needing a lot of those. I wonder what kind of software is used to tie it all together and perform searches?
Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of congress. But then I repeat myself. -- Mark Twain
weirdest thing I ever saw: scientology advertising on slashdot.
If they want me to spend my money there, they will not do this. I have already curtailed a previously-planned trip to London because I do not want to partake of their police state where anybody can be detained by police without reason. Now NYC wants to duplicate their Orwellian setup? Then I won't go to NYC. And I'm just the type of affluent daytripper (I live near Philly) that NYC is constantly trying to get to come spend money in Manhattan. Sorry guys, you can either get my money or put a camera on me, not both.
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
You know, life in NYC is so difficult. Here let me run through the million and 1 annoying things about living here:
- You want to live somewhere? Cool. So does everyone else. Rents are ridiculously high -- Manhattan rents START at $5 per square foot per month in rent -- and that's for a REALLY crappy tenement built in the 1920s with ROACHES and it may or may not have an elevator. "Luxury" apartments (what in other places you would consider just barely acceptable normal places to live) start at $10/sq foot per month.
- You want to go to the movies? Awesome! Plan on either buying your tickets 5 hours in advance online or not going at all or going at midnight on a Wednesday the second week the movie is out. Almost all the good shows are sold out. Oh also movie tickets start at $10 for your basic crappy theater.
- You want to have a car in Manhattan? Sorry it's impossible because there is NO PARKING. However, you can perhaps keep a car in one of the other boroughs like Brooklyn or Queens -- but don't forget to move your car twice a week because of "alternate side parking rules". It sounds simple enough but the average car owner in Queens spends about $250 per year on parking tickets because this alternate side system inevitably leads to your forgetting to move your car and getting a ticket. I personally spent about $400 in parking tickets last year. That's the cost of insurance in most states.
- You want to go to the beach on the weekend? Well you probably don't have a car (see previous point) so you either have to rent one (plan on spending at least $100/day for a crappy economy car) *or* you can take the Long Island Railroad with all the other schmucks. There's nothing like schlepping a cooler up and down stairs to catch a train that makes you just feel like a winner. Oh and if you do rent that car plan on spending 2 hours each way in bumper-to-bumper weekend traffic on the notoriously overburdened LIE.
- They say the subway is great. They are people that haven't really lived in NY for longer than 1 year. The first year is fun -- the subway feels new and exciting and it's very NEW YORK so newbies get into it. However, after taking it for 20+ years to school, work, etc I can say it is a horribly dehumanizing experience. I have gotten yelled at, pushed, mugged, lost, been stuck in trains for hours, and been subjected to all sorts of gruesome sounds and sights and smells. Also, at rush hour it's really a very unhappy experience since it's so crowded you literally have to push and fight people for a spot to stand. It's really quite uncivilized.
- The nightlife is cool, but people are jaded and cold and it's a bit of a superficial existence.
- And NOW Bloomberg wants to charge us money to drive down below 86th St. He is creating a straw man problem -- there is NO PROBLEM with traffic in Manhattan! Most people don't have cars anyway, and the pollution argument is just stupid (it really is -- I agree people shouldn't be driving -- but charging them money to drive in Manhattan is idiotic and doesn't help with pollution at all -- or if it does it's a drop in the bucket). Bloomberg just wants to create new and exciting ways to charge people money and to rip off the common taxpayer. He already doubled most city fines (everything from sanitation to parking to health and safety fines, etc). Now he wants to invent new fines. It's madness!
- The police here really don't care. Unless it's a major felony -- you can call them and you will be treated as if you are insane for having called them.
- Spying on the citizenry is just going to make it even more fun. Since the police hardly give a shit -- now they can have all this high tech gear with which to harass us.
...it seems to be lost on many people that the surveillance network in London isn't what stopped the recent terrorist plot, it's merely what helped them track down the people responsible. If some random jerk hadn't gotten into a knife fight near the car-bomb, the plot might have succeeded even with the cameras.
These things don't add any safety. They just make vengeance through the criminal justice system easier.
Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
You nailed it!
These cameras are just a means for the contractors who are hired by the state to make money.
Why, a friend of mine was nailed by a traffic camera in Tifton, GA for turning right on red in a right turn lane with a yield sign - after stopping. Now, he has to go to court to prove his innocence - just because some contractor has to lie to make money.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
I drive there all the time. Guess I don't count.
I drive a Jetta, and I don't think I could throw a rock out my window and NOT hit a car that looks exactly like mine. Hyperbole aside, I literally run into cars that look just like mine at about 20% of the places I go. I've actually found my car numerous times by trying to use my keychain to unlock a different car. It shouldn't be that hard to pick a very common make and model of car and then steal a tag that looks just like it.
Heck, just get one of those generic white American utility vans, and you have your choice of business to steal a tag from.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
If we win the "War on Terror", what is the Decommissioning Strategies of such a heavy surveillance system?
Yea, I figured as much there isn't one. (Brought to you by the Forth Amendment of the Constitution doesn't apply to us folks)
In case you all forgot "Fourth Amendment: guards against searches, arrests, and seizures of property without a specific warrant or a "probable cause" to believe a crime has been committed. "
Too many people, few agree on anything, ideological directions fragment. Soon the nation is composed of people who violently disagree and want to get violent. The nation, without any ability to control itself, enacts "committee logic" on foreign policy (good intentions covering benefits for itself, horrible corporate followthrough) and makes a plethora of enemies. The leaders can't unite people on sane ideas so they talk about big scary concepts like terrorism, nuclear war, evil dictators and perverts. Conclusion? The nation goes to war against itself. Technology just makes it easier.
technical writing / development
Nothing is so great that nobody will oppose it. Nothing is so terrible that everyone will oppose it.
(IANAL)
Yep. I think this could all be avoided if they'd just put up "No Stealing" signs around town. I guess a few "No Being Mean" signs would be beneficial, as well.
That wasn't satire.
Similar to the upcoming US election results
Thanks for the notice that you ARE a police state.
I'll visit Geneva and spend my income OUTSIDE the Gulag.
Cheers,
Kilgore Trout.
P.S.: Patriots don't let patriots waste federal tax money on imperialism.
Another brick in the wall.
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
Becasue, after all, it's stop all terrorist activities in London...
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
I am with Linus on this one.
RMS should not dictate what freedom means to us all. Linus always has is eye on the ball and I totally agree with him 100%
This system would make a lot more sense if the public could tune into the complete records of the webcams. These cameras are looking at public places, and are being operated by public safety, claimed to be in the public interest. The public should be able to hit these webcams if not in realtime, to give police a jump on criminals, then at latest the following day. Which would give police time to convince a judge on the record that the occasional segment from a camera needs to be censored. Perhaps even ongoing random deletions to hide patterns of "cameras of interest" which could clue criminals which cameras caught something being used against them.
But of course we should start from the premise that these cameras belong to the public, that their data belongs to the public. Then reasonable demands of justice and legitimate police process can be met within our existing system of warrants.
In fact, we should go further. All the police, their vehicles, and buildings should have webcams monitoring all their activity all the time. It should be available for anyone in the public to go through. That will not only keep police more honest, but also harness the millions of voyeurs to look for public evidence of crimes, and notify police when they see something in public. And of course there's huge potential for people to make our own "reality show" material, with the world's most exciting background sets and extras.
--
make install -not war
The questions we face with the emergence of this surveillance society are not nearly as simple as you have attempted to frame them here. It is not enough to simply fight when the abuse happens, but we must also fight the possible abuse that can occur. It must be fought against, if for no other reason, then to make other people aware of what could happen should these sorts of plans go through. This is not to create a sort of "I told you so" syndrome, but to raise awareness.
I can, in some ways, sympathize with those who want to expand the abilities of law enforcement by using this technology but they are, as we ourselves do, using this technology as a shortcut to do the work that is needed. But the simple truth of the matter is that the policing of the laws has never once benefited a society by going through shortcuts. The only conclusive method of stopping crime is a hard one to accept because of the human cost of it. It involves putting people at risk. It involves getting them to go into these places that we do not want to go ourselves. It does not and cannot involve people looking at the world through remote eyes.
We may want to believe that we can create safety through constant, unrelenting surveillance. But all this does is to create a situation much like censorship laws do: It only drives those who we want to keep close to the surface underground and makes them that much harder to find when something bad does happen.
your house can be searched without warrent
If my house is going to be searched, I'd prefer it be without Warrant. That goes for Skid Row, and especially Winger. Keep those faggoty 80's hair bands out of my house.
Why should citizens make it easier for law efforcement to do their jobs. It's their jobs, and they should get on with doing with what they have now. I reserve my right to walk in public and upon seeing no one expect that I am alone.
Scenario
We could let the Law Enforcement folks randomly arrest folks periodicaly. Imagine how many crooks they'll catch through interrogation. They'll let the innocent go, why keep them under arrest. It would be your civic duty to submit to the arrest just like voting. However, maybe they could just do their job and we can forget the random arrests.
Likewise we can forget the non-stop public surveilance nonsense and they can just do their job.
sweeping generalizations aside, there are quite a number of new york city dwellers who do little to no driving so that this is essentially an imposition on Other People. and who cares what happens to Other People?
that Im afraid of, its the unknown faces in the future that will have access to this "tool" im afraid of.
Thanks to file sharing, I purchase more CDs
Thanks to the RIAA, I buy them used...
What keeps you there? Family? It doesn't sound like your making 750K or anything.
I am usually a fan of fix it instead of move, but in this case, move. The quality of life just sounds so damn low, and ifpeoples tart moving outin droves, suddenly the city will be more caring.
While you could pay me enough to live there, it would be more then anyone would pay, plus a car and driver.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Would you like to have a police officer sitting on every single street corner?
Or more?
I'd rather take that much extra safety into my own hands than give up certain freedoms.
Being in the biz, CCTV 99% of the time only helps after a incident. Never before (i.e. prevention) an incident. Safety? H*ll no! And if you look at the UK incident, well, they got some good leads, but all that CCTV information to sort through by hand is a nightmare in itself--than just basic intel, good connections (sources) and some common sense to work with the community.
Terrorism is a mind game (i.e. determined people drinking the the faction's 'kool-aid')...
All the signs seem to point to privacy being a forgotten concept in the near future, maybe within 25 years. It is becoming impossible to do anything without someone knowing, there's too much tech coming out that makes it too easy to keep track of people. And the thing with tech is, once it's been invented, all the laws and policies in the world won't keep it from being used. So we're going to see increasingly sophisticated surveillance solutions come out of the research labs, and all the viable ones will see use in the real world. In the end it'll be so ubiquitous and hard to detect you just can't protect yourself against it: for example, Airborne bacteria engineered to print out circuitry that can record sound, EM emissions, track keyboard presses, you name it. Of course, for now, you can try to make it harder to watch what you're doing. On the internet it's easier, since you can use encryption, Freenet, Tor or other solutions, but to avoid a camera in the street, you'll have to wear a mask, alter your gait, change your general body shape and who knows what else. In any case, laws will not stop surveillance from increasing, it's just too easy. The only option for anyone who cares about privacy is to make snooping impossible somehow. But already, most people don't care enough to do that. So what'll happen? People will adapt. The current media system is doing a pretty good job of preparing the younger generations for the surveillance society, with all the reality shows ("Big Brother"), publicly-accessible social networking sites and what have you. People are living their lives in front of cameras and it's all getting broadcast on TV, who cares if some government agency or private operator tapes you in the streets, in the office, at the toilet...? Maybe this insistence on privacy is becoming just one of those quaint little hangups people in eras gone past had.
Okay, We'll lock up every single person in the country, it captures muslim terrorists, and people will starve because food is no longer being produced or imported, and you're all for it you fucking idiot.
The problem with surveillance societies is that all of those laws become enforced, when before only sufficiently important ones were. Sure, selective enforcement of different laws bites, but being hit with full enforcement of an encyclopedia of law will bite harder.
tasks(723) drafts(105) languages(484) examples(29106)
"We can categorically state we have not released man-eating badgers into the area." - UK military spokesman, July 2007
And it isn't because of "terrorists". Again I should know better, but I'm consistently shocked, especially these days by the large disconnect between the will and interest of the public and the legislative efforts/agenda of government as well as the general apathy regarding it.
I ahve a problem with McVeigh, but I notice the issue of having daycare in government building wasn't addressed after that.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Does anyone believe that the average citizen in Soviet Russia had any more security than the average US citizen?
Despite the near total and constant surveillance?
The Government watching you does not make you any more secure.
Freedom is Security.
Will this be used to maintain picket zones? What kind of data aggregation will take place? How many databases will this tie in with? Which organizations will have access to this data? What systems will be used to cull license plate numbers/face recognition/and other such patterns? How many people will be employed to watch these cameras? What are the metrics for results that they see as being acceptable results? The UK/London results were quite bad but the government groups that they were responsible thought the numbers were acceptable enough for a larger rollout. There are all kinds of questions that should be asked - besides the initial WTF?! that goes along with such intrusive surveillance system.
"but money is the God of Algiers & Mahomet their prophet." - Rich. O'Bryen June 8th 1786
I broadly agree with comment, yes of course this new data collection will enable abuse (e.g. a small few policemen are likely stalkers etc) so along with this shiny new plan why not an "anti abuse plan" ? One that describes in detail access logging & auditing - i.e. every query run on this ought be visible to every user - thus it can be determined if they use it inappropriately - etc.
Same way we expect our online bank to offer us good security - as well as their service we ought expect our law enforcement authorities to offer us the service along with protection for ourselves. Anti abuse features ought be architected in upfront and be part of the proposal !
Like the ones in the planes? You remember, the ones above street level?
Or maybe the ones in the trains - below street level? Or the ones driving with legally licensed tags, carrying their shiny, new, and officially issued Real I.D.?
I seriously hope you were being funny. If not, you're just a fool.
Excuse me but, I don't recall London's "Ring of Steel" stopping the attempted car bombings a week ago. And these were carried out in stolen cars, for which the London license plate monitoring software should have immediately flagged.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
I agree. People too often try to evaluate laws in some sort of abstract vacuum; as if it's either a "good law" or a "bad law" in an objective sense. While that may be an interesting intellectual exercise, it serves no purpose in the real world. Laws can only be evaluated within the context they were created and with the enforcement mechanisms that they were supposed to work with.
I can't think of anything that would destroy society faster than universal, omnipresent law enforcement. I really mean that; I don't think it's even a "slippery slope," it's a gaping chasm, where the bottom is complete social collapse.
Bringing in lots of new enforcement technologies is not always good, if they're used to simply enforce the same laws that have always existed, and were created by people who assumed a completely different enforcement scheme. If we really want to bring a lot of new technology into law enforcement, then we need to carefully re-evaluate our laws at the same time. Doing one without the other is a recipe for disaster. (Unfortunately, most people -- myself included -- do not have enough trust in our current government, either on the Federal, State, or local levels, to trust them with any major overhaul of our laws, particularly the criminal code; until this is remedied I don't think anything else can or should occur.)
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
Over and over again, the correct question to ponder is whether the 100% successful law-enforcement is a desirable goal.
Or whether, perhaps, the possibility must be left out for the "subversives" to change the system at some point...
So, do we want to properly punish all of drug-dealing, bribery, copyright infringement, murder, jaywalking, rape, speeding, arson, fire-hydrant parking, terrorism, tax-evasion, etc.?
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
Time for me to grab my crowbar and go camera hunting. Screw their anti-terrorism surveillance.
Internet: Serious Business
In the past they've shown that they can be trusted not to abuse their survellince for their own sexual gratification. After all this is based on a British program.
Your ad here. Ask me how!
You know...frankly, I'm just not THAT scared of the terrorists. Is everyone else so frightened of them that this kind of sh*t sounds like a good idea???
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Certainly some future Nichols and McVeigh can also rent a truck - but trucks have license plates too!. Sure, it won't stop 'em before the fact, but it will make catching them after the fact a whole lot easier - you won't have to depend on a random traffic stop or hoping enough remains of the bomb carrying vehicle to make an ID.
Catching them is important as preventing them in the first place.
Since London calls its system the "Ring of Steel", New York should come up with a better name -- one which evokes its similarities with the London system, but is sufficiently different to avoid confusion. I suggest "The Iron Curtain".
--Osama.
You bring up an excellent point about choking. Perhaps instead we can install a network of tiny cameras inside of forks?
Freedom is not security, security is not freedom. Freedom is pretty much the absence of security, and security is the absence of freedom. Just because freedom and security are both nice things does not mean they are the same nice thing.
Freedom means being able to make your own choices. Making one's own choices instead of doing what one is told entails risk. I am really failing to understand how or in what way freedom is security. Perhaps you could explain your analogy a little?
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
And I noticed that you completely avoided my example of Soviet Russia.
Their citizens could be monitored anytime for any reason. By your "logic" they should have had more security than the US citizens of the time. But they did not. They had less.
Freedom is Security.
(Note I'm from NYC)
The terrorism argument is bull because a known terrorist would have to be a moron to get caught by this system, and unknown terrorists are just that, unknown.
The environmental argument is bull as other slashdotters have already pointed out.
The crime argument is, in fact, bull because NYC is safer than it's ever been, crime rates are some of the lowest in the city's history.
The bottom line is Bloomberg is a corporate son-of-a-B and is only interested in wasting large amounts of state money in order to take more from the average citizen.
My goodness how everyone on /. gets high and mighty when it comes to this issue. Ask anyone in London if they are bothered by the cameras and they'll tell you they dont even notice them. If I sit on a corner and write down licence plate numbers, I can just as easily find out as much about you as the police. These are public places and if you chose to act in a private manner don't do it in public. To those that say this doesnt prevent crime, they're right, but I like the odds the police have of finding a criminal when they have more than some faulty eye-witness to go on. Honestly who rights are you really defending?
This way, lots of people will get practice making license plates and be already trained when they get to prison. Now if we could just train them ahead of time to clean the highways...
That is a clever analogy and as clear an explanation as I have heard on the topic. Wish I had mod points for you, but this will have to do:
MOD PARENT UP.
Please.
All the techniques ever used to make men moral have been themselves thoroughly immoral... (Nietzsche)
It sucks without Big Brother and it'll suck more with. Any big city does though. If you want privacy and a life free from all encompassing zoning laws and such, move out into the country. We can paint our houses whatever color we want and the air is better for us anyway.
"He who can destroy a thing, controls a thing." --Paul Atreides, Dune
The city is already seeking state approval to charge drivers a fee to enter Manhattan below 86th Street, which would require the use of license plate readers.
So Lower Manhattan might turn into a tyrannical police state. All the more reason to find other, cooler parts of the city in which to live and hang out!
I wasn't sure I'd see the day where I feel safer in Harlem than downtown NYC, but here we are.
Seems a bit more creepy here.
"Please, shut up. Just when I think you can't say anything more stupid, you speak again." -Archie Bunker.
Why would one have to "worry about one's physical and mental well being" if one had Freedom?
The only way to have less Security is to either choose such or to not have the Freedom to choose more.
Freedom is Security.
I wasn't posting my comment as proof that the authorities are infallible. I was merely stating what information was available when I had access.
Oh, and guess what, those cameras are pretty accurate, so you better have a really great argument when they nail you blowing a red light.
I prefer Flambe as apposed flamebait.
Are you suggesting that the way to stop terrorists is to get into knife fights?!?!?!?!
(Yes, I am joking, and do agree with you.)
the public at large will love it. You'll be marginalized when your opposition is labeled as paranoid at best or aiding the enemy at worst. It will spread to other cities who demand safety and protection.
When will you get out? Why do you stay? These questions deserve answers.
First, remove your tinfoil hat...
I don't know what city you live in, but there certainly IS a gigantic problem with private cars and trucks congesting the New York's roads. Apparently you haven't noticed this since you're on the subway. The problem is there is more business going on between 8am-6pm than Manhattan's infrastructure can support. And there's a ton of rich people who don't give a crap about paying $40,000 a year in parking tickets.
Those rich people certainly wont care about paying $10 for their trip into the city every day. But I believe enough people will change their habits and take mass transit (which has improved remarkably in the last 20 years) that the congestion will ease. And the amazing thing about congestion is that you don't need to get all the cars off the road, just enough so that the road is below capacity. And then, like magic, the congestion goes away.
And that means no smog, no cars blocking the box, fewer drivers honking and cursing, faster buses. And since the toll money should be going to mass transit it also means, cleaner cars & buses, more personnel, more options, and better service for you.
It breaks my pluginses, my precious!
I used to drive vans full of computer equipment through central London when they first introduced all the checkpoints. The cops would occasionally stop the van, with its blacked out windows, and demand to look in the back. Faced with tons of unusual looking metal boxes with cables, sockets and switches they would end up asking us what it was, "satellite decoding equipment" was often the answer, but we could have said "dilithium crystals" for all it mattered. unless every policemen is an expert in electronics, chemical analysis and explosives, they don't stand a chance of catching a well organized, confident and trained group of terrorists. If you pack a transit van with gas cylinders, nails and fertilizer, and write 'death to america' on the side of the van, you might be in trouble, otherwise, your chances of getting rumbled are close to zero. So the aim of this is to 'reassure the public', it won't do anything to actually make people safe.
DRM-free indie games for the PC and Mac: Positech Games
"No kids of his own, passing by two schools and seven day care centers on the way to work, slows down responsibly, route is two blocks longer than the computer generated shortest route (but is actually a few minutes faster with the usual traffic), that's enough. Many judges would issue a warrant to search a home or tap a PC connection just for that."
If you have to make your point by making up hypothetical scenarios then lying about what judges would do in response to them, why should anyone listen to you. No judges would issue a warrant is said scenario, and lying in an attempt to show otherwise is pathetic. Yet you did it anyway.
I don't know how you got modded up, but the people who did it are easily as stupid as you are.
...but not for terrorism purposes; it's primary purpose is to keep congestion down in the city of London, which it does so quite effectively. Also, the money (not all, but some) gets reinvested in the city's transport infrastructure too...
.Net? That's right slashdotters, even more reason to hate Microsoft...they built the system that watches where you drive!
The only bad thing about the system is as the thing is timed, you get tonnes of squatters waiting each side of the borders until it's free...but in the centre at least, traffic (when I lived in London) was noticeably less when it was introduced.
Also, did I mention the system runs on
throw new NoSignatureException();
Raymond W. Kelly's, Police Commisioner I can't find his contact info. Let's get it out there so I and others can peaceably let him know what we think of his sick pet project. I don't want to be under surveillance 24/7 when I visit the Big Apple. This is sick. It's like having thought police.
Look I understand that this is DHS money but honestly the return on investment on this for terrorism prevention is probably close to nil, or small enough that other locations for the system should be considered. It`s basically the wealthy and generally already safe population of Manhattan getting an added security blanket while the poor (and non-white to be honest) get screwed again.
So I'm guessing the latest fashion accessory for those visiting/living in New York or London would be a big-ass sombrero?
You're using her as bait, Master!
More and more we are starting to see a world like that portrayed in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oath_of_Fealty_(novel )
.yet in their defense they claimed that such reaction could prevent other OKCs and the like even though McVeigh and supporters specifically cited Waco
Think of it as Evolution in Action
How long before we see communities where cameras are in all aspects of our lives, after all trust in government is beaten into us by the press and academics. They go out of their way to portray distrust of government as a Physcological defect. Before 9/11 trust in government hovered in the 30% range... immediately afterward that trust shot up to nearly 75%... and in that time we saw some of the greatest erosion of our rights. The very same government that was seen as being able to protect us had just failed miserably yet somehow this was twisted by the media, academia, and politicians, to show how it was this distrust of government that got us into the problem in the first place. Look at the press immediately following Ruby Ridge or Waco. Everyone who was pushing forward theories or facts showing government incompetence or actual threat of government was labeled a loon or worse. We even had government and academia use the OKC bombing as an excuse for Waco even though Waco preceeded the other by years..
Fear is being exploited to make us trust government. We are not only surrendering our rights we are surrendering our right to question those who have the power of life and death over us. Our history is replete with examples of government agencies being used to suppress those who distrust the government who do nothing more than speak and assemble. How long before "benign" things like these cameras are used to monitor protests and act on them?
Our founding fathers distrusted government so much they specifically wrote the Constitution to give government rights and reserve all others for the people. The Constitution is a limit on government, not us. Yet we can see daily abuse of this document, see it twisted, by the very people we put in office.
Don't trust them for one minute. call me a malcontent, a whack if you will, but when you start giving these officials the near unconditional trust that some have you take away the power of others to speak out. By the blind acceptance enforced by media, academia, and politicians, those who would bring true and factual debate are cowered or made moot.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
"b) cameras won't even help after the fact, if they're a cell of suicide bombers. There's no one to track down."
This is wrong, Information about the how of a particular act went down can be gained by watching tapes of it occurring. That will most certainly "help" even after the fact.
The cameras are a pretty bad idea, but overstating your point like you did helps no one.
This has nothing to do with safety and everything to do with control of the population.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
Did anyone else envision a mannequin covered in a burka with a camera hidden under a veil when they read this title? I was thinking about all of the Palestinians who protest Israel wearing ski mask. I've often wondered if Israel uses IR technology to scan the faces of these people under their masks to ascertain their true identity. I wonder if they use a retinal scanning camera to track who's protesting in their black mask and matching AK 47?
- Yes, I am posting at a -1, and no I will not use a proxy to bypass my circumstances.
Also, religion != race. Just thought you might wanna know...
damaged by dogma
Okay, but I'm going to vote with my dollars. I won't buy anything from any company
based in NYC because I don't want their tax revenues supporting that sort of thing.
The ironic thing is that it'll be much easier to maintain that sort of boycott than
it is to avoid buying things with Made In China stamped on them.
What would the founding fathers would say to that?
Also you have to look at how easy it is to steal a plate (not as easy as you think it is, and in truth it would probably just be easier to steal the car)
Huh? Look, I don't know crap about stealing cars, but I have a big screwdriver sitting here on my desk, and that's all you need to take the plate off of most cars. (I've seen some people who use theft-resistant bolts, usually hex or hex-pin, and in high-crime areas smart people keep their plates inside their car, but most American cars just use flathead machine screws.)
With a power drill/driver you could take a plate off a car in a matter of seconds. If you only stole them from cars that are parked nose-in, and only took the front plates (which complicates getting to it slightly, but also hides you a bit), I suspect a lot of people wouldn't notice until they got home.
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
As of 29 July 2007, the sheriff was acquitted...
9 88541-5005961,00.html
http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,21
"A CALIFORNIA police officer who was filmed shooting an unarmed US serviceman after a high-speed chase has been acquitted of criminal charges.
A jury at San Bernardino Superior Court cleared former sheriff's deputy Ivory Webb of attempted voluntary manslaughter and assault with a firearm in January last year."
we wouldn't need this stuff. There's just too many and not enough law enforcement officers to do a good job. It would cost to much to employ enough as well. So call big brother or whatever, but if it gets rapists, murderers and child molesters off the streets, then I'm game. Also, I'd rather have someone caught red handed on tape for actual proof then the testimony of many officials. Yeah, I know, I'm skeptical, but it's hard not to be these days.
Nah, St. Louis has none of that. Nor does its surrounding metro area. It has less social annoyance, but much greater for police abuse.
However, aside from periodic flooding, St. Louis is also sitting on top of a 8+ point fault (New Madrid), with a 90% probability of a 6+ quake in the next 20 years. And it's not built for it (yeah, LA sits on the San Andreas, but we know the big one's coming, and have tried to build to deal with it).
General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
Privacy advocates will, of course, hate the idea of more CCTV surveillance. I too am a privacy advocate and I hate the inevitable slide down the slippery slope to total loss of privacy. However, I also try to be a realist.
TV cameras cost $50 or less retail, and probably $10 or less wholesale from the factory today. In 10 years they'll ost a penny and be much smaller than a penny. 10 years after that, they'll be the size of a gain of rice and sell for $1 per 10,000. 10 years after that, they'll be smaller than grains of pollen, powered by ambient light or RF energy, and $1 will buy 10 billion of them. They will be able to be released into the atmosphere and drift with air currents in to every room of every building on the planet. They will be as hard to keep out as real pollen particles. I first heard of the concept of dust particle CCTV surveillance in a sci fi story in Analog Magazine. Then, when I applied Moore's law to calculate how far in the future this fantastic scenario will occur, I was shocked to come up with a number less of than 30 years.
No law will be able to stop the widespread use of this technology. Trying to restrict use of TV cameras is like prohibition or like laws against fireworks. However, there may be a silver lining to this dark cloud. It won't be just government who exploits these things, journalists can bug the offices of every government employee from the president on down. More, individuals will be able to tap into the CCTV image of the quadrillions of cameras floating in the atmosphere. Everyone can watch the CCTV surveillance of everybody else. Nobody will be able to control it or restrict it any better than they manage to control the Internet today.
Time and time again science fiction has understated the rate of real life progress. It is hard for any of us to imagine the consequences of Moore's Law within the relatively short period of our own lifetimes.
...about strong central governments, surveillance and police states?
1) What is unthinkable now will eventually become normal.
2) If something can be abused, it will be.
3) "Power corrupts; absolute power corrupts absolutely." --Lord Acton
4) Temporary measures never are.
5) "Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? (Who watches the watchers?) --Decimus Junius Juvenal.
Think very carefully before deciding that the questionable "security" that such large-scale, coordinated surveillance offers is worth the potential for abuse.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Its turning out (and the bad guys will figure out) that there's nobody watching the monitors. Scotland Yard is replacing a few thousand patrol officers with tens of thousands of cameras, probably manned by a few dozen people. And not highly paid(?) and trained officers. Just some goofball willing to sit and stare at a screen for hours (think about law enforcement by Slashdotters for a frightening example).
The recent bombing attempts by the clown squad seem to demonstrate that the bad guys have figured out that there is nothing to fear. It was just good luck that these people who could't even figure out how to light gasoline on fire (two out of three times). Sure, they caught the subway bombers on CCTV. Days after the incident. Whoops. Too late.
If the bomb in the London night club district hadn't been a dud, a constable on patrol could have cleared the streets in the few seconds between the car being abandoned and detonation. CCTVs? Sorry, we're busy rewinding tapes for some shopkeeper who got robbed. All you've got is some moron parked on the sidewalk. Petrol? No, I can't smell petrol through a camera.
Have gnu, will travel.
This is standard bait & switch. They want to do this to make money/gain more control (allowing them to make more money). That it's to catch terrorists or criminals is: (a) a segway to the standard "if you're not doing anything wrong, why should you be worried?" (b) a way to get funding into the hands of your friends (ID cards and the proposed tube scanners aren't going to solve any crime problems, only funnel huge sums of money to defence contractors.) This is obvious if you look at London where the huge number of cameras and the already in-place surveillance veil didn't help one little bit in preventing terrorist attacks/attemtps. Although, it's convenient that all the cameras on the underground train platform when the cops killed Jean Charles de Menezes. Technology's funny that way.
Aw shucks, you probably just feel safe because it's modeled after the "Ring of Steel". I'll bet you wouldn't feel so safe if it were modeled after the "Ring of Bunnies".
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
that instead of congestion in lower manhattan, this would shift the congestion to just outside of the "barrier" (in both moving form and in parking) and further add to an already over-burdened subway and bus system. Just for example, it's not like the 6 is a roomy, comfortable ride during commuting hours to begin with, if that ridership doubled... *If* all this tax was directed into massive improvements in capacity on the key commuting lines, this might work out, but I somehow doubt a large revenue stream going unmolested long in any political situation.
Mods: think a bit here, go listen to the old song again and do some research on some of the true purposes of the modern education system, purposes for government misdirection and use of fear to increase their powers. Do this and maybe you will realize that not only is the parent not offtopic but put in the words of the days when it was written it's "Right ON, Dude!", which for today's Slashdotters would be an insightful mod.
"We don't need no thought control
HEY MODS
Leave those old hippies alone!"
You believe that someone else having complete control of you is "Security".
If your captor wishes to deprive you of food, there is nothing you can do about it. Your "Security" is the whim of your captor.
Your "Security" is the whim of your captor.
Freedom is Security.
DON'T FUCKING LIVE THERE
...when the camera footage mysteriously fails or isn't released by the government, to protect their agents provocateurs action, like the 7-7 London "terrorist" attacks. Then the herds can just be lied to, told whatever the hell fairy story the fascist goons concoct, and the bulk of them swallow it up because the TV newsreader told them to. Then, using huge budgets and web based agents (civil and military, and compromised newsies), they can troll weblogs and forums and continually perpetuate their lies and pump up the statist cheerleading.
June, friend, June.
Even the police don't have time machines.
Except for Jean Claude Van Damme and Ron Silver, of course.
I see no way for the orwellian "big brother" scenario to materialize in the United States, yet terrorists are beating down our door. If this system gets abused it will have the lid shut on it faster than you can say hot potato. As it is, it appeals to a lot of people who have had their car stolen in NYC, etc. It makes a whole lot of sense. So long as they don't give me tickets with these cameras, like the UK does, then I don't give a damn. More cameras the better.
How 1984.. So much for Isee, the site that allows you to avoid surveillance camera's... http://www.appliedautonomy.com/isee/info.html How likely is it that there will be the NSA databases using automatic face recoginition. Great way to track people and their relations. 3000 camera's must allow multiangle views on all of lower manhattan. You could build up a full body image of anyone passing by, detecting pregnancies, concealed weapons. Let's ask Google to feed the footage live to Google Maps for advanced 'looking out of the window' during work. The benefits are countered by the fact that you need to be able to trust the people watching the footage. I would petition the data of all camera's should be public (website and direct IP).
If this keeps up, the only person who will be able to get in or out of New York will be Snake Plissken.
Oh, say does that Star-Spangled Banner entwine / The myrtle of Venus with Bacchus's vine?
Really. What will implementing this system really do in regards to preventing or combating terrorism? Once completed, this system crosses a section of Manhattan off of a very long list of possible U.S. targets, effectively detouring any possible attacks to, say, L.A. Or it might end up being Chicago. The point is, if we are going to be attacked, terrorists will already know where NOT to attack. If this system is effective in preventing, it will simply be avoided and another major U.S. city will be targeted.
Now the only way this system will be truly effective is if it is implemented in every major U.S. city, which is quite a costly proposition terms of both national funds and individual privacy (Hello big brother...). So, when you get down to it, this system is either a pointless waste of tax dollars that has been engineered to make the public feel secure in that the government is doing something to protect them, or it is the first stepping stone to a frighteningly widespread surveillance network. Either way, no thanks.
-BamYO!
Then the shit hits the fan, dude. The shit hits the fan. That's why something like that is not likely to happen. Who wants to be the next Nixon? And if it captures "white political dissidents" (you) jacking off in public, YOU GO TO JAIL! Simple as that. The lesson here is YOU DON'T JACK OFF IN PUBLIC!
an interesting consideration is where and how the cameras are placed and how the departments owning the data will be using it. for example, will following cameras around require additional positions and/or will other officers be repositioned? will this actually take away from key law enforcement by taking officers off the streets and thereby making committing crimes of corruption easier? doesn't this also give rise to a specter of complicity on the part of the police division of the city (and beyond) government? this scenario gives every justification for police departments to focus on the general public and not on the crimes that affect much greater numbers via corruption and abuse of public (or privileged) position. this notion may seem paranoid on the surface, but consider that something will be happening with these cameras and that something will have a price tag. shifting slightly, one difficulty i have with enhancing the reach of law enforcement is that it augments the role of the government into individual's lives in a we-own-you kind of manner. didn't for the people, by the people once mean just that? many on this land mass have become convinced that the hierarchy presented by antiquated kingdoms is the model that all nations should embrace. that model invariably requires that the majority behave as though they are owned by the state. although i can respect the rough notion of a "social contract" inherently existing, i cannot accept that it implies strict adherence to principles that systematically remove basic individual rights (liberty and freedom of choice). i guess i have a difficult time digesting the idea that legislators and other positioned government officials gain continually more anonymity and (therefore) power and less accountability (how can prove what you're not entitled to know?) while the citizens (and any other humans) are put under more stress and more scrutiny, more laws and additional stratification, more taxation from more people and less for the public good. not to revert to trite observations; but, you probably already know the rest... yes, the same interests (if not familiar names) are only benefiting. is it all a show of whom owns whom? and yeah, i find all of this relevant to the news cyle for commercial media of "WE are increasing our watch of YOU using bigger than ever bank accounts and robots" (you can almost hear the refrain - don't you step out of line...)
"Will this be used to maintain picket zones?"
Picket zone? As in protesters? Maybe the violent ones.
"What kind of data aggregation will take place?"
Hopefully, lots. Why not?
"How many databases will this tie in with?"
All. Why not?
"Which organizations will have access to this data?"
Law enforcement, national security, foreign intelligence. Why not?
"What systems will be used to cull license plate numbers/face recognition/and other such patterns?"
Free market solutions. The best man has to offer. Why not?
"How many people will be employed to watch these cameras?"
As many as are necessary and practical.
"What are the metrics for results that they see as being acceptable results?"
I think this system aught to catch on, and start to be deployed in other cities. The best metrics I think are comparing effectiveness to other cities. Also, the London system has been effective, as evidenced by the recent terrorist activity and the ability to catch those criminals. The larger rollout was obviously a good decision, in hindsight. This is common sense to me.
This video technology has become very cheap. It hasn't been possible to do something like this on a grand scale up until very recently. This was bound to happen, and this is the next generation of crime/war fighting. Can you imagine if every major metropolitan area had a plane circling at 50,000 feet with a telescopic camera on it. A call to 911 comes in, "my purse has been stolen", seconds later there is an eye looking down at the thief.
Never fails... Try and correct someone and come out looking the fool instead- especially on Slashdot.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/security
I am not merely a "consumer" or a "taxpayer". I am a Citizen of the State of Texas
Nobody gave dumb-dumb anything. He and his pet neo-chimp have this delusion that this stuff is there for the taking. The real question is why we haven't yet taken it back- it belongs to the country.
If you really want privacy outside, well... there's plenty of undeveloped in this country. I don't think they're going to cover all of it with CCTV any time soon.
Beauty is just a light switch away.
Instead of turning 24/7 surveillance cameras on our own citizens, where privacy is eraces, everyone becomes suspect, and "enforcement" becomes automated, why not:
1. Adequately enforce our nation's borders.
2. Keep tabs on visa holders and other non-permanent residents.
3. Deny visas or any other means of entry to any citizens of a nation that supports or harbors terrorists, or frequently falsifies documentation or neglects background checks for said emmigrants.
These laws are mostly in place already. They're just not being enforced. These practical and necessary approaches would do much more to protect our lives from suicidal jihadis than Big Brother ever would.
TheBrits had health care before they had massive surveillance.
I'd like to take this one step further and make a suggestion for our politicians to show their good-faith interest in establishing such laws... volunteer to go first.
What kind of data aggregation will take place? How many databases will this tie in with? Which organizations will have access to this data? What systems will be used to cull license plate numbers/face recognition/and other such patterns?The purpose of using the databases is to help make the needles stick out in the haystack of our lives. For example: License Plate Number provides an index to a person's name, address, and driver's license number. From that, it would be easy for the government to determine what the person's social security number is. That, in turn, connects to all of a person's financial information (income tax returns) and accounts (bank, credit card, debit card, stock market, investments, etc.)
Rather than make ALL of that information readily available to everyone, I propose that only a token demonstration of their sincerity is needed: start by passing a law that requires ALL legislators, senators, mayors, governors, and judges be REQUIRED to have bright Orange License Plates on ALL of their personal vehicle(s). And, that ANYONE can videotape them, at ANY time, in ANY public venue whether Pthey are driving, have just parked and are walking on the sidewalk, are walking through the park, whatever. If you are doing nothing wrong, then you have nothing to hide, right? And since you are in a public area, you have no expectation of privacy, right?
IOW: When YOU (lawmakers) make it easy for US to watch YOU, then I will *consider* making it easier for YOU to watch ME.
And, BTW, I'm astonished that given all the interest in video games that I've seen expressed on /. and with all the heightened realism that today's videa games can display, I've noticed an amazing omission. All the posts I've seen just assume that the videos are acurate depictions of reality. Just how much computing power does it require to "enhance" a video recording to make it contain what "they" want it to contain? Sure, it's beyond Joe Sixpack, right now, but with the continuing improvement in computing power and video-processing application, int he hands of a skilled professional, it wouldn't take much to create whatever "they" wanted. Simply plant a suspicious artifact in the video "recording" and take it from there.
P.S. I made a conscious decision to exclude police from this suggestion as they put their lives on the line every day. Their line of work will naturally result in some people with "resentments" who might wish to exact revenge. So, for that reason, I excluded them from the suggested list of participants in the OLPC (Orange License Plate Club :-) But, I add the proviso that if they break the law and violate our confidence in them (e.g. corruption), then they are entitled to a free membership, too.
"Anonymity? You don't have that when driving a car on a public road - you've already got a license plate that the boys in blue can check on at any point. The technology would just automate the process. It's not more invasive - just more effective."
More effective *is* more invasive. There's a huge grey area in between what can theoretically be done with technology, and what becomes convenient / cost effective to do. A large part of people's current tolerance toward what are actually fairly invasive security measures is the feeling that "but relax, nobody's going to waste time monitoring YOUR mail/driveway/cellphone/computer. You're just not that important. Don't be paranoid."
This is only a sensible argument as long as the technology remains expensive to use. Once automation gets cheap, ubiquitious tracking is likely to become the default option because it's more expensive to pay a technician to turn it OFF than to just let everyone's daily lives spool into nsa.google.com and have the search algorithm sort it all out.
You are not a brain: http://books.google.com/books?id=2oV61CeDx-YC
Also, the colorful splat over the camera lens has the psychological effect at the population, a statement telling the people they don't have to put up and shut up.
While laser is definitely attrative, paintball is more practical.
Anyone who thinks they are really safe in the world is a fool. No one is really safe anywhere. This is a dangerous place. We quail about those killed by weapons in this country, less than a few hundred per year, and demonstrate by the hundreds of thousands about losing about three thousand soldiers in the last five years in the middle east. Ask a middle easterner! Ask an Iraqi and be prepared to hear a bitter laugh before he tells you that over a million of his countrymen have died and maybe millions more will also die; but his countrymen will not stop fighting for thier country. They have to. They have no choice. We lose over fifty thousand people to car accidents every year in killed alone. Many more to injuries from those accidents. If these had been war casualties think of the size of the demenstrations over it. But these are not war casualties. Where are the demonstrations of masses of idiots wanting to outlaw the cruel cars and trucks for killing them. As for New York City. I have no love for that hellhole. I know what it looks like from a freeway...Beiruit in the seventies. Fires everywhere. Sporadic gunfire from thousands of locations spitting out in the night. Abandoned hulks on the roadside pushed there by public vehicles by authorities meaning to remove them laterand never did so now they sit as rusting rat habitat. Disabled cars and trucks with furtive shapes crawling all over them , the maggots of the night, armies of looters too lazy to work yet somehow able to pack out cylinder heads from heavy trucks unlucky enough to become broken down sometimes only minutes before. Half dead drug addicts wandering the roadways like zombies many not knowing where they are...and yet some not as bad off as they look...hoping someone...some foolish and unlucky someone..will stop and ask if they need help...before their gang mates grab and stab them. No I do not like New York City! It is a running sore of savages that no amount of expensive cameras will tame. New York is not London. London can afford to house its few criminals and have a hope of reforming them. And they do not want to spend the money on police salaries.
They do not have thousands of square miles of ruined and burned out building, potholed streets that could swallow a Hummer without a trace except its parts showing up in chop shops with minutes. London does not have over three million empty jail beds to house all the lawbreakers in New York City. Neither does New York City! In London, cameras look over property worth money. In New York City, the cameras would be the only object worth any money for miles, and ravening hordes of ragged thieves would not hesitate to take them. They would kill each other to get them. New York City has the equivalent of three full army corps, ten divisions of troops in its police department and it STILL cannot keep order. It could'nt jail all its bad guys and girls even if it wanted to. And it does not want to. The citie's lawyer/police/courts/judge force form a formidable economic cash flow to the city. There is no industry and the population is all really a surplus whose only fate is to be warehoused as cheaply as possible. The function of the legal system is really as a pump to make shit roll uphill so that when they let 'em out they can steal some more of what is left of the place on their way down to arrest again in order to begin the cycle anew. And the downtown area, that is where the biggest thieves are. Thieves hate to be stolen from. Suiciders! Fugitaboutit! The only thing NYC women would die for is Jessica Simpson's hair, and the only thing NYC men would die for is a hubcap from a Ferrari....or a date with Paris Hilton.
How is Britain "a police state where anybody can be detained by police without reason"?
I think that you'll find that that's complete bullshit. However, if you want to find evidence of a western, developed world nation where long-term detention without charge (and, even detention without charge and any prospect of a trial) is happening today then look at the USA, because that's exactly what's happening at Gitmo.
If you want to talk about how Britain and the US handle terrorism then let's do that. A good starting point would be to look at how they each treat guests to their country.
When an American visits Britain, they're not treated like a criminal from the moment they set foot on British soil. On the other hand, the moment that a Brit sets foot on US soil, he's "greeted" by a lengthy (two hours plus isn't unheard of) wait to even speak to a customs officer, who'll invariably be rude, after which he'll be finger-printed like a common criminal.
Make up an excuse for not wanting to visit Britain (the weather's not as nice as Florida or California, it's expensive now that our dollar has tanked, this guy on Slashdot was rude to me) but don't literally make draconian shit up and use that as your reason and then go round telling everybody that Britain is a police state when you're talking out of your behind.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
The Ring of Steel in London was set up to counter terrorism carried out by the IRA (you know, those guys that were so romantically portrayed in Hollywood movies as lovable rogues). And, for its time and its role, it was pretty effective.
However, that sort of network, which acts as an effective deterrent against terrorists who want to get in, plant a bomb and then get out without being detected so that they can strike again another day, is not as effective as the sort of terrorist who's happy to martyr himself in the act by blowing himself up.
The recent trials of the would-be bombers who tried to detonate devices on 21st July 2005, shows that surveillance can play a role in helping to defeat terrorism, but obviously it's nowhere near being an effective method of catching terrorists in the act or of nullifying suicide bombers whose devices work properly.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
Kind of depressing discussing which of our countries is most fecked up, but hey, you may note "I have already curtailed a previously-planned trip to London because I do not want to partake of their police state where anybody can be detained by police without reason" - but at least we still have Habeas Corpus. You guys claim the right to disappear anybody you want, fly them to a third country which isn't covered by your jurisdiction so you can torture them in ways that would be illegal on your home soil, then ship them off to your military base in Cuba and reserve the right to keep them there forever without access to independent representation. Don't you think that's a bit at odds with your government's claims to be bringing democracy to the world?
Quite a few people are quite scared about visiting your totalitarian state too...
I heard recently that a study by some Dutch Uni has proven that crime rates do not notably alter, only that more cases are solved AFTERWARDS. So a lower crime rate is apparently not on the cards.
It will be, of course, a great relief to you that when you're dying in the gutter from bleeding to death via a knife wound they will be able to find out who did it. That is, until they wear hoodies - banning that in the UK hasn't quite worked.
But hell, it'll make mony for someone, and the next step towards 1984 has been achieved. Well done.
By the way, it's also a preparation for a congestion charge system as it exists in London. But nobody has dared mentioning that one yet, I think..
Insert
We are spending billions on "Homeland Security" and we are making our society and our people less free. Ninety year old women have to remove their shoes (just like everyone else) just to get on an airplane. We are doing all of this, including putting cameras on our streets in an effort to counter terrorisim!
I think, no I know, that the real terrorists we have to worry about are the pols who have done this to us. We are less free today than we were before 9-11-2001. The guys in the airplanes did not do that to us, GWB and his cronies at every level of government did it.
It was my understanding that that if you are a follower Islam, you are a Muslim, not an "Islamist" or something similar. Islam = noun, Muslim = adjective. Why do people keep using the term? I had never even heard the word before 911/the current debacle in Iraq. "Muslim extremists" seems more accurate.
With the first link, the chain is forged.
I see a lot of comments on CCTV being unable to prevent crime. There's not a lot that will prevent a crime if the person in question is determined.
The idea is that CCTV acts as a visual deterrent and thus aids in the reduction of crime. It's simple logic, do you steal the audi in the shadows or the audi with the cameras pointing at it and 5 big men standing next to it.
BTW, I'm not an advocate of CCTV/Big Brother and the ideas of a 1984-esq environment anger me.
Biomech
And you'll notice that all the 'freedoms' listed for security are negative, freedom from something. Freedom as a concept transcends that definition, including positive freedoms, freedom to do something. That is all I am trying to point out, freedom->security is not a perfect mapping. I honestly can't believe anyone is arguing about that. Pedants. :-/
If you really want to argue, try to prove that one can never have freedom without security, or vice versa. Otherwise, you aren't saying much. We all know that security entails freedom from violence. That is not the end-all, be-all of freedom. And you know, there is a rather oft-mentioned quote around here, about giving up one for the other, maybe you've heard it? Awfully hard to do if they're the same thing.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
Howdy, This is not suprising . . . I expected it to happen, as it allready was in the works. I've been watching the cameras go up pretty fast here in Austin. Lots of those revenu gaining / liberty compromising Red light cameras. I try to flick off as many as I can....just to see what happens....if anything ..... could be my next holiday card snap.
....... Flash Dance Dance Off Flash Mobs ...... mini burlesque shows ... puppet shows ... very slow stop animation with hand held posters...... hrm
I been curious for a while, ever since the first traffic control cameras went up on major highways/intersections, is there any method or way to effectivly dismantle and/or block any of these types of cameras with out getting filmed or compromise. A little monkeywrenching for freedom and liberty. As I am not a retard, I plan to never carry out such a plan. I wonder what kind of sentencing/trouble could arise......I'm sure they will throw the whole book at some for such an action. Anyone out there have similar queries and/or success stories?
With so many more cameras being put up everywhere, time to organize some entertainment for the operators
Twitchings
The cameras they will probably use are made by PiPS http://www.pipstechnology.com./ They claim 98 % accuracy, but the accuracy is closer to 70 % in our testing so expect to get a lot of false positives.
"It's really helping in London, isn't it?"
Yes, it seems to be.
Based on your inability to see that, I can't really find a reason to say anything else to you. Being stupid like you are doesn't mean you can ignore reality, and discussing things like this with zealots like you bores me.
Okay guy, I can see I have to spell this out for you. I thought I was done with retards after I finished my internship...
MY DEFINITION OF "help" IS NOT THE SAME AS YOUR DEFINITION OF "help". You made an assumption and ran your cocksucker before clarifying what I meant by "help". See now why you're wrong?
As to your anecdote, IT'S ONE fucking anecdote. How about you broaden your thinking a little instead of assuming your short sighted assessment of the situation applies?
"But, then again, I'm "stupid" and "ignore reality", "
Finally, we agree on something.
Here is what happened, PAY ATTENTION. You decided to respond to something, but missed the point completely. NORMALLY, I would have attempted to elucidate, but you were a twat, so you got the hand.
This is YOUR fault for assuming you knew WTF I was talking about and shooting off your mouth. You didn't know. Stop assuming your ONE perspective is all encompassing and you won't get called stupid anymore.