A Law to Spy Back on Government Surveillance Cameras?

mattnyc99 writes "As the Senate begins debate today on wider new surveillance legislation, Instapundit blogger and University of Tennessee law professor Glenn Reynolds has an interesting op-ed as part of Popular Mechanics' cover story on the looming power of spy cameras in America. He cites numerous court cases to argue that our privacy concerns may be backwards, and that there should be a new law for citizen rights — that if Big Brother can keep an eye on us in public spaces, we ought to be able to look back. From the accompanying podcast: 'Realistically I don't think we're going to get much in the way of limits on government and business surveillance. So I think we should be focusing more on making it safe, on making it a double-edged sword.'"

Comments

Don't worry

[elrous0]

I'm sure our brave Democrats will hold hearings on it just as soon as they cave to the President's latest totalitarian demands once again.

Re:Don't worry

[lstellar]

^ Troll please.

As for TFA the idea sounds interesting at least, if not completely sound. I believe our OSS community has proven to beyond a doubt that innovation + retrospection by others truly creates a product that works. "Big Brother" is not evil because we do not want to be protected from terrorists or the criminals or the boogie monster- "Big Brother" is evil because there is no one watching them.

Re:Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

'Realistically I don't think we're going to get much in the way of limits on government and business surveillance.

WHY THE HELL NOT???

Doesn't the government work for US?

RIP America, you were a nice little break from the lenghy story of oppression and slavery that is the history of the human race.

Re:Don't worry

[nilbud]

Most countries don't have a CIA NSA USS DEA ATF FBI and 2.2 million people in prison. That oath of allegiance thing the kids do every day, creepy, and what's with the damn flags everywhere? You yanks need more unions and more socialism and a lot less tanks and uppity pigs waving tasers around. Isn't it better to give poor people $13,000 in free money and health care every year rather than paying that to lock them up ($26bn a year). Look how alarmed they were 9 years ago when there were 1.3 million in prison http://www.jacksonprogressive.com/issues/lawenforcement/prisonindustry.html Oh the good old days. 1 in 32 people in the states are either in prison or on probation, all the rest are subject to warrantless wiretaps and the most fearsome disgusting weapon against freedom of all time, fox. I blame it all on that Ronnie Reagan and Bush Sr., selling crack to Americans and supplying Iran with weapons, he set the precedent for Cheney/Bush. Come back Richard Nixon all is forgiven.

Re:Don't worry

[cayenne8]

"As for TFA the idea sounds interesting at least, if not completely sound. I believe our OSS community has proven to beyond a doubt that innovation + retrospection by others truly creates a product that works. "Big Brother" is not evil because we do not want to be protected from terrorists or the criminals or the boogie monster- "Big Brother" is evil because there is no one watching them."

I disagree.....we don't need "Big Brother" watching us, to protect us from the "terrorists or the criminals or the boogie monster", they only need to be watching the terrorists, the criminals or the boogie monsters.

Watching everyone is like guilty until proven innocent. If they have probably cause on a US citizen, sure, there are laws and procedures for doing that, but, there is no need for a dragnet to watch everyone, even IF we could watch the watchers.

Re:Don't worry

[CohibaVancouver]

Isn't it better to give poor people $13,000 in free money and health care every year rather than paying that to lock them up ($26bn a year).

It makes good fiscal sense, but doesn't make cultural sense. In the USA, personal freedoms trump collective freedoms every time. So even though paying more for inner-city schools helps society as a whole, it doesn't happen in the USA because it goes against their individualist grain. Ditto spending money on programs instead of prisons. Goes against the national culture.

Re:Don't worry

[Artifakt]

This isn't about cowardice. The Democrats will easily sweep both houses and the presidency, and then they will have all the POWER the republicans have lovingly accumulated for them. Why fight that?

Re:Don't worry

[jaxtherat]

I disagree.....we don't need "Big Brother" watching us, to protect us from the "terrorists or the criminals or the boogie monster", they only need to be watching the terrorists, the criminals or the boogie monsters. Unfortunately I think the tricky thing is that it is almost impossible to discern a 'terrorist' from 'us', up until the very last minute. Don't confuse terrorists with hostile nations, they are very different things.

Also keep in mind that people are very rarely born a terrorist or a criminal, they generally start out as one of 'us', and then become one of 'them'...

This is a very tricky topic, and neither side (either the social libertarians, nor the prudent conservatives) really has all the answers.

To be perfectly honest the level of paranoia and human rights/privacy violations that are currently happening in the US scare the bejeesus out of me, but at the same time I look at it this way:

If I was in charge of the most economically powerful, and previously untouchable country in the world, and all of a sudden 9/11 happened how would I react? I have no idea. I might start implementing ultra paranoid and reactionary national security policies too...

For the record, I'm Australian, and (somewhat) a leftie. Last election I voted Greens and the Secular party.

Oh, and btw, TFA is quite intriguing.

Re:Don't worry

[FredThompson]

Uh....no. That idea goes against human nature and does NOT make good fiscal sense.

Any money "given" to "poor people" must first be taken from people who produce. "Guaranteed" income destroys an economy and a culture by removing the concept of "zero" so money has no value and by removing incentive to achieve.

If it worked, the "war on poverty" in the United States would have ended long ago and highly Socialist countries would have the most advanced infrastructures and most productive people. Historically, societies which "give" "free" money to "the poor" continue to raise the amount of "free money" and the definition of "the poor" with the eventual result that they stagnate and collapse.

Re:Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

"You yanks need more unions and more socialism and a lot less tanks and uppity pigs waving tasers around."

And you need to go fuck yourself.

Re:Don't worry

[musterion]

Sorry Nilbud, Other countries simply "the Interior Ministry", or MI5, or the Committee for State Security. In good ol' socialist China they have far fewer locked up because they simply execute them for fraud, and other minor felonies.

Re:Don't worry

[falconwolf]

If it worked, the "war on poverty" in the United States would have ended long ago

While I support a war on poverty, the US isn't fighting one. The way the welfare system is set up in the US, it's designed to keep people dependent. If a person on welfare is able to get a job that pays a wage they then can loose what aid they're getting. I recall years ago I was working full tyme while attending college part tyme. My employer didn't offer health insurance so I looked into getting some for myself. The cheapest I found would have cost me 1/3 of my income, and I was barely able to pay for college. Someone I knew suggested I check with the county for coverage, so I went to the county health department. There they told me I made too much to be eligible for assistance.

Falcon

Re:Don't worry

[FredThompson]

Yeah, that was part of my point but I don't know how to make a "tongue firmly planted in cheek" emoticon.

Most governments end up being composed of people who want to have control over other people which leads to "social welfare" which is really what you describe, a form of economic enslavement which drains incentive.

I have a similar story to yours. My father lost his job when I was a Junior in High School. I qualified for grants for college but the house we lived in was considered too expensive for me to get the grant, even though we had almost no family income other than true necessities for a long time. They literally told us if we sold the house and moved out I could get a grant. Yeah...selling a house, moving and buying another house is...free and instant? The goal wasn't to get money to people for college as an investment in the futue, it was to control them. I was able to get a full ROTC scholarship which was probably the only way I could have paid for college. Other kids couldn't comprehend that I made a four-year commitment to the miltary in exchange for the full ride scholarship...but they took student loans. My payback period was done after four years and they had to find jobs with the uncertainty of paying off the loan. I still get a kick out of people who complain about the cost of college when I tell them their kid should, "go in the military. That's what I did." The really funny ones are the kids who want to get into communications security but not have military or police experience.

Re:Don't worry

[ravenshrike]

Of course it is, and you can bet your ass that Lyndon B Johnson knew that when he created it. The system was set up to flim flam the poor inner-city population into believing that they owed everything to the Democratic Party. And hey, it's worked pretty fucking well so far.

Re:Don't worry

[rtb61]

You really are weird in your world view. The most 'productive' societies are the ones that use slave labour, low labour cost ratio, so what exactly is your point.

The war on the poor is to ensure that there are always under privileged people imprisoned in poverty to provide labour for those people to lazy to get up and get their own food, to lazy to make their own beds, to lazy to wash their own toilets, to lazy to form meaningful human relationships instead preferring body servants and generally to lazy to be of any real value to society beyond their incessant greed which is of course a burden for every one else but in their eyes and the eyes of their public relations BS artists something to be celebrated.

The only question to be asked is whether the most highly socialised 'democratic' societies have the healthiest and happiest populations and ignore the BS socialism as a marketing term societies. Rich people to not produce and never have produced, they just occupy a position that they have created within society, where they can earn a parasitical living off those that do produce and who in tern need to produce far more than they need to in order to feed the parasites, and of course the more they are feed the larger they grow and the more they demand.

So where is the 6 hour per day 4 day working week that all the increases in labour productivity, automation and computerisation should have produced, what happened to that, instead we have longing working hours for less money and having to pay for more bloated luxury yachts, mansions and private island tax havens and the reward for us 'fear terrorists', obey and do not question, worship corporate profits, and the most ludicrous of all 'the rich have been blessed with profits' by God.

Re:Don't worry

[jo42]

Looks like the truth hit a nerve, nyet?

Re:Don't worry

[nilbud]

Oh Anonymous Coward, you're so clever.

Re:Don't worry

[elrous0]

Because they will no more speak for the American people than the Republicans did. It's just one group of thugs replacing another.

Re:Don't worry

[elrous0]

Kurt Vonnegut in Slaughterhouse 5 had a very insightful observation once about a common mentality in the U.S. In discussing British attitudes toward Americans in the war, he made the observation that American is made up of a very small percentage of people who are rich and a huge percentage of people who are pissed off that they didn't become rich. The idea is that, if you're not rich and successful in America, you are a failure as a person. This leads to a very angry, bitter attitude among a huge segment of the populous. The Brit soldiers, by contrast, accepted their place "on the ladder" and didn't really kick themselves for not rising higher.

I think there are relative merits to both positions. Americans would be a lot more positive and less bellicose if they weren't always kicking themselves and weren't so aggressively ambitious. But, conversely, the Brits also are prone to the pitfalls of fatalism and malaise resulting from a lack of ambition. There are real downsides and upsides to both the idea of "The American Dream" (where any individual can, and should, rise above his upbringing) and to a socially-stratified class system (where you know and accept your place in society and don't seek to improve it).

Re:Don't worry

[cayenne8]

" If I was in charge of the most economically powerful, and previously untouchable country in the world, and all of a sudden 9/11 happened how would I react? I have no idea. I might start implementing ultra paranoid and reactionary national security policies too..."

Speaking as an American, I'm much more afraid of losing rights I've had in this country for a couple hundred years, than of a few terrorist strikes. Once lost, those rights rarely if ever come back, even after the 'crisis' is over.

I mean, sure, 9/11 was horrible, but, we have many more deaths from car accidents, and crime annually each year we don't get up in arms about....so, frankly, I figure my chances are almost nil that I'll get whacked by a 'terrorist'. I figure my chances of losing some of my Constitutional rights as almost 100% (some already lost, some in the pipeline to be lost)...

Re:Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

don't pay much attention to current events do you? it would be easy for the govts of the US, UK, France, Germany, AU, etc. to keep tabs on terrorists and leave most of everyone else alone. However, it wouldn't be 'politically correct' to engage in such profiling. I'm afraid the West won't wake up in time to rid itself from the enemy that has infiltrated its societies.

Re:Don't worry

[ksheff]

[blockquote]The way the welfare system is set up in the US, it's designed to keep people dependent.[/blockquote]ding! ding! ding!
We have a winner! It's all about keeping people dependent on govt programs and the politicians that support those programs a locked in voting block.

Re:Don't worry

[Artifakt]

My closing question was rhetorical. The point is, we can't afford to dismiss what the Democrats are doing as cowardice, when it is likely motivated much more by power-lust. We have gone pretty damned far down a bad road already, and can't afford many more mistakes about the motivations of those guys taking turns holding the lantern in front of us.

Re:Don't worry

[ivan256]

And then they'll use the power to pass these same surveillance laws, because if they aren't opposed to them when they've got the slim majority, they're not going to be opposed to them when they've got a vast majority either.

Partisanship is awesome. It gives people something to argue about to distract them from what's actually going on.

Re:Don't worry

[FredThompson]

Methinks you didn't read what I typed. I pointed out the "war on poverty" is a complete failure and, quite frankly, I agree that "free" pablum keeps people babies. How you could think I made any other statement is beyond me.

You and I have a very different view of what constitutes productivity. Ten years ago I was in Cancun and watched about 20 men using hacksaws on an I-beam for about a week. Was that productive? Depends on how you measure it. They were exerting effort and earning more income than they would have if Cancun was still a jungle but they weren't accomplishing much, immediately. Such a task would have been accomplished in a few minutes with proper tools. The goal of their employer wasn't to get that particular task done, it was to meet local political stability.

Now, as to your comment that slave labor societies are the most productive, that's just flat out false. The more freedom people have to pursue their own ambitions and derive greater and greater reqard for meeting the desires of the consumers, the more productive the society. If that were not the case, the wealth of the world would be reversed. Them's the facts, chief. That's why the U.S. is the world economic powerhouse after only a couple of hundred years and far older socieities like Rome and China aren't.

(Yes, yes, I know it's fashionable for simplistic "analysis" of China from fearmongers to claim China is a true powerhouse. They're not. What is happening there is very similar to when Lenin opened up the USSR to foreign investors. China has huge problems with how they are destroying their environment, starving for energy and a billion or so people who they are trying to keep out of the cities so their government doesn't collapse. There are reasons their cities are walled. Their Communist system can't survive under the twin pressures of Capitalism and the starving mobs. It's a slow process, just like the way we bankrupted the USSR.)

Nothing forces you or anyone else to work "longer and harder" other than their own choice. If you want to work "6 hours per day for 4 days per week", find such a job or create your own business. People do it all the time. Nothing stops you other than fear and herd mentality. Unemployment in the U.S. is around 5% which is, for all intents and purposes, full employment. Those who are left, in the vast majority, are not good employees. It's quite common for "simple" factory jobs to have a 50-75% failure on drug tests and basic math. There is actually a shortage of responsible, productive workers in the U.S. and the capable have a far better position to seek higher wages than just a few years ago.

Real wealth is at an all-time high for Americans. There are only 2 ways to generate wealth: steal it (taxation and "closed shops") or provide goods and services which other people willingly pay for because it benefits them. You seem confused on the basic principle of wealth creation. Your comment also "speaks with a forked tongue" in that it decries economic slavery while also eschewing personal responsibility. You post reeks of, "I want "you" to give me prosperity."

Don't whine and complain. Go create the personal destiny you want.

Re:Don't worry

[FredThompson]

Well, yes, that was my point. I probably should have pointed out the difference between the "public" reason and the "actual" reason for the "war on poverty." The Democrats also opposed the Civil Rights Act and other, similar, legislation then saw it as a way to destroy social integrity of the "lower class" families. As a side note, I grew up in the South and remember seeing Klansmen runnig for office on TV in the early 1970s.

Interestingly, the definition of "poverty" in the U.S. continues to slide upwards. I remember when my family had a single window air conditioner in the early 1970s and TWO phones. Now, something like 80% of the U.S. has central air conditioning, color TVs, cable or satellite TV, cell phones, etc. That's not poverty at all. That's high luxury for the late 1960s. It's certainly not real poverty.

Social Security is similar. It's a Ponzi scheme which was based on a German system. It hasn't tracked social change as people live longer and are more healthy plus the administrators keep expanding their money transfer system while softly encouraging the lie that it is a "trust fund." The best thing that can happen to that is complete collapse. Hopefully, it won't bankrupt the U.S. the way the Ponzi scheme in Albania drove their collapse.

Re:Don't worry

[FredThompson]

Yup, pure Socialism as a method of mob control because the "powers that be" were afraid of people who are free. Ayn Rand's "Anthem" and Theodore Sturgeon's "Microcosmic God"...

Re:Don't worry

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh congratulations, you're not as bad as Communist China or the Soviet Union under Stalin and the Chekas. Having pointed that out, you can now simply not worry about being better than you are now. You must be very proud!

Reverse Surveillance

[Raindance]

Well, I think anyone really interested in the idea of reverse surveillance should read Obama's innovation plan.

From the "open government" part of the plan:

Requiring his appointees who lead Executive Branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public, so that any citizen can watch a live feed on the Internet as the agencies debate and deliberate the issues that affect American society. He will ensure that these proceedings are archived for all Americans to review, discuss and respond. He will require his appointees to employ all the technological tools available to allow citizens not just to observe, but also to participate and be heard in these meetings.

There's more, as summarized by Ars:
        * Put government data online for citizen access, analysis, commentary, and action. The document cites environmental data on pollution as one type that could be made available.
        * Effectively "crowd-sourcing" (though that term isn't used) some amount of agency decision-making by tapping the public's distributed expertise.
        * Build an online database that enables citizens to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials.
        * Give "the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House web site for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation."

Re:Reverse Surveillance

[garcia]

How well will Obama's plan work once it's chewed, digested, and shit out the other end by Washington? It'll end up being nothing like the original and will more than likely become something that strengthens the lack of public oversight of the government.

Yet another pointless footnote for a Presidential candidate that will never see the light of day. He might as well have said "Read my lips," just to make sure it dies.

Re:Reverse Surveillance

[elrous0]

Is this the same Obama that voted to reauthorize the "Patriot Act"?

Re:Reverse Surveillance

[Hijacked Public]

No, this one is trying to get you to vote for him as President.

If he wins, he'll go back to being that other one again.

Re:Reverse Surveillance

[Anonymous Coward]

How well will Obama's plan work once it's chewed, digested, and shit out the other end by Washington?

It will read identically to how it did before with the simple swap of "every citizen" and "your household, car, and place of business" for "any government representative" and "halls of government."

It will also mention the new drug detectors to be installed in your toilet.

HTH! :(

Re:Reverse Surveillance

[LWATCDR]

"* Put government data online for citizen access, analysis, commentary, and action. The document cites environmental data on pollution as one type that could be made available."
Nice but a lot of data is already on line. Most people never use it.

"* Effectively "crowd-sourcing" (though that term isn't used) some amount of agency decision-making by tapping the public's distributed expertise."
Wonderful take a look at Digg sometime. Without some way to vet the source of the expertise you have no idea the value of it. Slashdot's system is far from perfect. I have had a post of mine that was totally wrong get high mods when someone that corrected me be modded down. For the most part it will just be ignored.

"* Build an online database that enables citizens to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials." It would be useful but will never happen. The democrats like their pork just as much as the Republicans do. My democratic senator fought long and hard to keep an old aircraft carrier that the navy wanted to mothball. He used fighting terrorism as the excuse but the real answer was that it was stationed in my home state.

"* Give "the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House web site for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation.""
Go read the comments on your local newspapers website sometime... We can really hope that most of these will be ignored.

Obama maybe a good choice I haven't looked too hard at him yet since I am a registered Republican. My wife is a registered Democrat and really isn't thrilled with Obama or Clinton. Since she has her degree in Political Science I tend to listen to her on opinion on things like legal policies and such. She tends to listen to mine on Science, Energy, and the Military because of my background.

Over all I am disappointed that things like energy policy and competing global have been largely ignored why Immigration has jumped to the forefront.

Re:Reverse Surveillance

[ilyanov]

Why can't publicly funded surveillance feed be made public in real time?

Re:Reverse Surveillance

[sydbarrett74]

* Build an online database that enables citizens to track federal grants, contracts, earmarks, and lobbyist contacts with government officials. There's a pending bill -- co-sponsored by McCain and Obama -- called the Federal Funding Accountability and Transparency Act (S 2590) that does precisely this. An inferior companion bill (HR 5060) is in the House. Call your Senators and ask them to co-sponsor S 2590, and call your Representative and ask him/her to support legislation that mirrors the Senate version.

Ugh

[SamP2]

So if before I was only worried about law enforcement violating my privacy, now I can add the entire US population to the list.

Sorry, I just don't see how two wrongs can make a right here.

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

The CIA was involved in this Privacy and America

Re:Ugh

[rho]

Ahh, you don't know anything about Instapundit, then.

Two wrongs do make a right, so long as the "right" person gets the wrong. Which is the "right" person? Well, you'll have to as Glenn Reynolds.

Re:Ugh

[Anonymous Coward]

Here's the difference: the population are forced (potentially leathaly) to comply with surveillance, government workers have the choice to work there or not.

It seems quite reasonable

[smittyoneeach]

...that the people should have the right to collect information, especially when it
a) involves them personally, and
b) the outcome of conflict resulting from the situation at hand can have big, big effects on life.
Yet it would seem that one of the requirements that will only be realized later is that you need to protect the government itself from denial-of-service attacks brought on by cunning thugs.

Two wrongs don't make a right

[jockeys]

Us doing it to them doesn't really make them doing it to us and less wrong.

The medicine is still nasty underneath all that sugar.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[Penguinisto]

While you are correct, I suspect that it would never come to that...

Having seen my fill (and then some) of governmental bureaucracy, I can tell you right now that the very thought of putting video cameras into ever gov't bureaucrat's office would make the gov't workers' union scream bloody murder, and thus if the two were tied together (gov't watching us in public only if we can eyeball our gov't workers in (in)action), neither would get off the ground.

While having 24/7 webcams of hundreds of thousands of napping gov't bureaucrats would be boring to say the least, the bureaucrats themselves would be frightened enough at the prospect to immediately become privacy's biggest ally.

/P

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[0xdeadbeef]

The ability to monitor the government is a necessary foundation for free and open society. It is not a second "wrong", it's a fundamental right that has been increasingly trampled upon.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me tell you why it's OK. I watched a cop drive very erratically - call her cop A. I got pulled over by cop B and cited for a bogus traffic infraction. Cop B said Cop A saw me break the law; but, cop A did not even show up at the location I was pulled over to issue her citation. Cop B made up a charge and charged me.

If I'd had a camera or a voice recorder of the conversation between me and cop B, Cops A & B would have been fired. Video would have been even better.

YMMV WRT Recording conversations. Consult an attorney before doing so.

Do unto them before they undo to you!

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[sumdumass]

He didn't say it was a second wrong. He said it doesn't make the other wrong any less wrong.

But I disagree on the necessity of openness. As long as there is trust, you don't need to check up on them. But without trust, you need transparency which is why your comment makes sense. And there is an amount of transparency that isn't fully blown like webcams on every government employee that can get the job done sufficiently. Because it can be done isn't a good enough reason sometimes.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

And the ability for a government to monitor its citizens is a necessary foundation to enforcing the law. The first is not "wrong", it's a fundamental right that has been increasingly recognised lately.

Of course, I don't believe that for a second, but stating that "monitoring the government is not wrong" will not stop those who do.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[Sandbags]

This whole argument just pisses me off. Here's the correct answer: If you're in public, then you're not guaranteed any privacy rights!!! ...but besides that: ...there might be cameras on the streets watching your every move, but just for all you paranoids out there, YOU ARE NOT BEING FOLLOWED, YOU ARE NOT BEING MONITORED FOR YOUR BEHAVIORS, YOU ARE NOT BEING VIOLATED! How do I know? Well, IT'S NOT POSSIBLE!!!

The horsepower required to perform facial recognition or other tracking of moving people in real time for hundreds of cameras in a metro ethernet environment is insane! Even if it were possible to do that on a camera by camera basis, to correlate all that information into a real time tracking system and allow a single individual in the network to be located by request is again, almost impossible. Even in a small environment, like a casino, it's very hard to track a single person this way. It's done mostly manaully, not by automated computer.

To take a system, make it city, county, or worse, state based, and collect that much information, over a disparate network would be nearly impossible. A computer to crunch data from over 1000 cameras would be massively expensive and unrealistic. A database to catalog and store tracking information for that many people would be beyond the scope of any existing database technology. Do you have any idea how much information we're talking about???

OK, think of this in terms of MMO (something every /.er should understand...) A typcial zone, which tells YOUR computer where YOU are, and actually sends a simple coordinate system and instructions, not full frame video, will lag when only a few thousand people are in the zone. The central system knows who you are already, and knew your starting location, and was given hints all through the process, but even powerful grid systems with hundreds of nodes can't keep up. You're contantly feeding it GPS style updates to that information and if your connection lags, your PC sends the system your last known location (or vice versa), yet still you lag. their software and you are perfectly alligned and each know what the other is doing. To do this by video tracking, by anylizing frames from multiple individual cameras, trying to correlate even a 2D map of the city and track each individual in real time, and from only 1 side of the camera (you're not giving they're system any hints or coordinate information feed are you?), and to do this for upwards of a few MILLION simultaneous "mobs" is frankly impossible. Just taking a single still image one time across the city and trying to identify which person was the same person from 1 angle as another camera saw from another would take hours of processing, let alone doing it in real time 10 times per second. ...and you want it to not only track the objects (people, cars, etc) but in real time look them up in some massive (non-existant) database and put names to faces? BULLSHIT! We'll be on Mars before a system like this was possible, let alone getting the CIA or other black ops body to use it without some low paid city engineer being aware of the abuse of that system and letting us all know.

What a metro camera system can do is allow an individual camera to basically monitor itself. It can identify simple behaviors: a car runs a red light, a car has no license plate passes by, a car with an APB out on it passes by, a loiterer has been standing at a bus stop and several busses have passed by, someone passes through a storefront window (i.e they're breaking in). the camera can then notify central dispatch of a potential issue for which a real cop can be sent to the scene, put his human eyes on it, and react appropriately, all while he himself knows he's being recorded doing it. The reverse is also true: you dial 911 and give them your location (or if your phone is GPS enabled, they get the info from there). The closest cameras to you locate you automatically send the video feed to an oper

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[Anonymous Coward]

To put this in perspective, we're talking about the organization which holds the special right to employ actual, physical force against you as its means. Unless that organization is completely open, transparent, and accountable, your society is headed directly for oppression.

Re:Two wrongs don't make a right

[jdjbuffalo]

While I certainly agree that it's not possible to do this today. In 20 - 50 years it may well be possible to track your every move from when you leave your home until you get back there.

I don't think there is anything wrong with steering our laws in the direction we want monitoring to end up. I'd rather deal with it shortly before it becomes reality (when we know what can and likely will be done) then wait 10 - 20 years for it to be abused and then decided all of a sudden that we need to do something about it.

I'll grant you that you can't possibly do this for everything in our world but this is one where I think we can already see the direction a lot of this is going and can make changes now so that it's not abused. Perhaps we can't block all the bad things yet but at least we could start moving in the right direction.

Ewww....

[antifoidulus]

I cannot be the only one that REALLY does not want to see Cheney's "intimate moments".....

Re:Ewww....

[mishelley]

I'm sure there's a paying audience for that somewhere out there...

Re:Ewww....

[HangingChad]

I cannot be the only one that REALLY does not want to see Cheney's "intimate moments"

At least it would be over quick, not like Iraq.

Re:Ewww....

[Malevolent Tester]

I cannot be the only one that REALLY does not want to see Cheney's "intimate moments"..... Especially not when he shoots his friends by mistake.

(Why is there no -1 Horrific Mental Image mod available?)

Re:Ewww....

[morgan_greywolf]

remind me to register 'politicianporn.com' later, okay?

Re:Ewww....

[SL Baur]

Why is there no -1 Horrific Mental Image mod available? Somebody usually posts a link to the goatse guy every article. Won't that do? You must be new here.

Employee supervision

[Harmonious Botch]

Just a modest proposal: Every government employee - except for those working on confidential stuff - should have a 24-hour PUBLIC webcam on his desk ( The camera need not point at the desk, just at the person ) , his car, or wherever he/she works. Police / sheriff / prison employees / corrections officers, etc or anyone who may at some time have someone in custody should have two separate cameras in case one malfunctions.

Re:Employee supervision

[gardyloo]

Scary. I say this probably because I was a graduate student at a state University. Because of that, I was considered a government employee. So were all the shop workers, janitors, and professors. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to watch my fellow employees (well, maybe some of them).

Re:Employee supervision

[Anonymous Coward]

I would really have liked the showercam for my 8th grade French teacher, Miss Galando.

Re:Employee supervision

[Anonymous Coward]

Scary. I say this probably because I was a graduate student at a state University. Because of that, I was considered a government employee. So were all the shop workers, janitors, and professors. I certainly wouldn't have wanted to watch my fellow employees (well, maybe some of them).

I'm pretty sure none of you would qualify as "appointees who lead Executive Branch departments and rulemaking agencies to conduct the significant business of the agency in public".

Re:Employee supervision

[0100010001010011]

What's so scary about it? You're at your desk. Doing work. I am paying you. I should be able to watch you.

If you're slacking, watching porn, fapping, NOT working, I have a right no know.

It's not that I'm going to sit there and watch you 24/7, but I should have the option. If my boss and my IT department can watch where I go on the internet and walk into my cube at anytime, why is it unreasonable to think that the person who pays your paycheck can do the same?

Re:Employee supervision

[gardyloo]

If my boss and my IT department can watch where I go on the internet and walk into my cube at anytime, why is it unreasonable to think that the person who pays your paycheck can do the same? A moderately good point, and not one I have a ready answer to. However, the IT dept. at University and one's professors (who are the equivalent of your boss) and co-workers can also walk in at any time. Still, even at a federal job, a right to privacy should be respected.

      One advocatus diaboli argument would also be that much of graduate research involves labwork and teaching duties. Do we also need cameras (infrared or other frequencies for darkened labs) to watch labs and classrooms? Another is to state, "Well, I pay taxes so you can have highways to drive on, public sidewalks to walk on, classrooms in which to learn, and public libraries in which to read. Why can't I watch you all the time to make sure the money isn't being wasted?"

Re:Employee supervision

[gardyloo]

And thank goodness for it. Because then all my spurious Wikipedia edits would be more easily tracked!

Re:Employee supervision

[Anonymous Coward]

How many devils?

Re:Employee supervision

[0100010001010011]

Why not? From what I gathered from the summary, all they want to do is not let the government prohibit from letting us do this. I don't think that the government should fund every single webcam everywhere. But if there's a Cop that has repeatedly pushed the boundaries of physicalness with suspects, it shouldn't be illegal, imho, to follow the cop around with a camera. He's serving me (and not vice versa).

If I want to setup a webcam on my local road and a webcam in my (future) childrens' classrooms and I pay for it, there shouldn't be a law against it. Unless it can be shown that it is directly disruptive.

If it comes to a situation (which happened in my life) where it's my kids' word against a teacher's it would be extremely 'disruptive' for me to request to be able to sit in on the class to see who is telling the truth. Now if there was a webcam and I could check in on my kid or the teacher both would probably act in their element and quickly forget the camera.

"If you have nothing to hide then you shouldn't fear anything," true, but I think that only applies when you're not on my dime.

I know it's cliche and from a movie: "People should not fear their government, their government should fear the people"

Or what Tommy J said: "When the people fear the government you have tyranny...when the government fears the people you have liberty."

Re:Employee supervision

[gardyloo]

Good. And because RFID chips are reasonably painless to inject, and the carrier would quickly forget about them, why not track every public servant? Your kids could also be tagged, as could you (since you're using those public thoroughfares, and your parents definitely put in considerable funds and effort bringing you up). No disruption!

Re:Employee supervision

[Sancho]

It's hard to define or even prove waste in some jobs. There are studies suggesting that short breaks (reading Slashdot?) during the day actually increase productivity overall. Most good managers realize that keeping their workers happy and productive means not riding them constantly and giving them leeway with their time on the job.

Although we all may be paying a government worker's salary, that doesn't mean that we are all, collectively, that person's boss. The only time that I don't believe this is when it's an elected position, or a position where the person holds a disproportionate amount of power over citizens. It makes a great deal of sense to allow the people access to politicians--maybe not in their offices all the time, but certainly any time they're making decisions regarding laws and procedures for the US.

Re:Employee supervision

[0100010001010011]

But those go BEYOND when they're on my dime. Those invade on their personal privacy.

Now making them wear a RFID chip when garbage men are on the clock to ensure they don't have to take any 'side routes', not a problem.

Re:Employee supervision

[sumdumass]

It is really a miscarriage of justice to think you pay their paychecks. You don't. You pay taxes and the government spends that money without so much as consulting you. And even if you want to argue the principle behind it you still don't pay their salaries.

Unless you make something like $200,000 a year in taxable income after deductions, you won't come close to paying a government workers salary. At best, you will only get part of it done and that is if you aren't using any other services that costs too. The majority of Americans don't pay enough in taxes to even cover one person's salary in each tax year.

So really, you don't pay any government employees salary. You don't get a say in who is hired, who is fired, or what they do on the job.

Re:Employee supervision

[Bassman59]

Just a modest proposal: Every government employee - except for those working on confidential stuff - should have a 24-hour PUBLIC webcam on his desk ( The camera need not point at the desk, just at the person ) , his car, or wherever he/she works. Police / sheriff / prison employees / corrections officers, etc or anyone who may at some time have someone in custody should have two separate cameras in case one malfunctions.

What's to stop, say, the Bush Administration from declaring that everything they do has national security implications and thus everything they do is secret?

Oh, wait, they already do that ...

Re:Employee supervision

[metamatic]

You're at your desk. Doing work. I am paying you. I should be able to watch you.

And as a shareholder, I'm investing in you based on the promise that you will make money for me. Therefore I should be able to watch you. Sound fair?

Re:Employee supervision

[0100010001010011]

And I don't have a problem with Slashdot or some mental breaks (such as this slow as heck week when 1/2 the office is gone). If I'm watching a government employee I'm not going to be calling their boss every time I don't see them typing.

I keep seeing a common theme of "well they're going to catch me slacking." The summary has nothing to do with catching people slacking off. It has everything to do with catching people abusing power.

I may raise alarm if I see two teachers getting it on in my kid's class room between periods (I may disapprove, but as long as it's two consenting adults..)
I'll definitely raise alarm if I see my Mayor, between the hours of 8 and 4 (or something reasonable) doing blow off of a strippers ass 5 days a week.
I'll definitely raise alarm if I see a cop walk up to someone. Look around to see if anyone is watching and then lay into them with a club.

I don't care if you slack off. The entire point of my post was, if I'm paying for it (or even just part of it) I should have access to it. I know that people don't work at 100% efficiency all the time. But imagine how "American Gangster" would have gone if citizens had access to all of what the dirty cops were doing?

So it may be unreasonable to go stand over the shoulder of the grad student. But if I paid for his research and as long as it's not a matter of national security. I should be able to get a PDF of what ever he worked on. I should be able to look at all the data and go "cool, I paid for this".

If I don't think it's worthy research, then I can complain to the senator that allocated that money to him. If the senator doesn't 'listen' to me. I vote him out next time around. That's how the government should work (IMHO).

Re:Employee supervision

[Libertarian001]

Tell you what: Let's you and I set up identical businesses. We'll have the same starting funds, produce the same widgets/services, same capital expenditures, etc. Then you implement that policy and I'll implement one that actually respects the employees and recognizes that, no, you do NOT have a *right* to spy on people. Let's see who wins. Aaaaannnnd....Go.

Re:Employee supervision

[Sancho]

And I don't have a problem with Slashdot or some mental breaks (such as this slow as heck week when 1/2 the office is gone). If I'm watching a government employee I'm not going to be calling their boss every time I don't see them typing. The problem is that you are more rational than most people.

I keep seeing a common theme of "well they're going to catch me slacking." The summary has nothing to do with catching people slacking off. It has everything to do with catching people abusing power. Right. Well most low-level government employees have almost no power. There's no point to having video cameras pointed at all of them.

The leaf that is this post came from the branch containing this one, which postulated that even graduate students doing work would be watched, and this one which suggested that it was perfectly reasonable.

The entire point of my post was, if I'm paying for it (or even just part of it) I should have access to it. I just don't think that I can agree with this in the general case.

So it may be unreasonable to go stand over the shoulder of the grad student. But if I paid for his research and as long as it's not a matter of national security. I should be able to get a PDF of what ever he worked on. I should be able to look at all the data and go "cool, I paid for this". But this is perfectly reasonable, in my book.

I guess it comes down to privacy and recognizing that the people who work for the government are still individuals. I think that it's perfectly reasonable to have access to works that were paid for involuntarily through your taxes. I don't think it's reasonable to have a camera pointed at a government worker 100% of the time that they're doing anything work-related.

Re:Employee supervision

[samkass]

I dislike this attitude, and would not consider the government a very good employer if it started treating all employees as a priori criminals. In the end, the government is just another employer. What matters to an employer? Results! What are you measuring with your cameras? Presence. And the two are hardly correlated.

I think employers get better results when they care less about what employees are doing minute-to-minute but have some metric for tracking success at a job function. And I want the government to be an employer that gets results.

Keep your cameras away from the workers, Mr Pointy Hair!

Re:Employee supervision

[0100010001010011]

I still hold that it is perfectly reasonable. As you pointed out, no one is going to care about that low level government employee. No one is really going to care about this grad student. But where do you draw the line between 'no power' and 'i should be able to watch them.' I'm not saying I should be able to or that I'm even going to, but if I am paying part of that research I should have some sort of accountability.

Now as you point out, watching a grad student is going to bore me to sleep and be useless. But paired with the PDF of their findings, I can give an intelligent response to if my money was spent well.

However say you carry the same logic over to the police. No webcam, but just 'results'. Well I may see that they caught the murderer or that someone confessed, but without seeing all of it (in a completely open environment) I can't intelligently form an opinion if it was done justly.

Re:Employee supervision

[Anonymous Coward]

That is one of the stupidest ideas that I have ever heard. There are so many things wrong with it that it is hard to know where to start, so I will just pick two points. First, this is an excellent way to drive good people out of government and ensure that future government employees are people who have no other job prospects. Do you really want the government to consist of people scraped from the bottom of the barrel? I certainly don't. Second, this is little more than voyeurism: people with nothing better to do spying on people who are actually doing something. Is that the sort of society that you want to live in: one where anyone can get their jollies by spying on you at work? I don't.

http://mrsquid.blogspot.com/

Re:Employee supervision

[Gideon Fubar]

Try a logged GPS in the truck.. seriously.. RFID is totally inappropriate here. For one thing, it raises huge privacy concerns, and the technology is also not (yet, maybe) useful for tracking beyond a 2ft range.

I remember a while back, a guy in Britain (was it Steve Mann? i can't remember..) was advertising an rfid tracking system for kids.. it involved implanting the kid with an RFID tag which could be queried remotely... but it had to be within range of a specific mobile device with built in GPS, or else it was useless.

Despite all the advances we've made, science still isn't magic.

Re:Employee supervision

[JasonTik]

Just a relatively general commment: From the replies I've seen thus far, I'm almost curious how many people noticed him begin with the words "Just a modest proposal..."

Re:Employee supervision

[kn0tw0rk]

While in principle I agree with govt employee's being seen/monitored, at what granularity of detail should there be?

For some jobs it may be ok (eg janitor), for other jobs it may not be feasible (anything IT with security implications?), or there are some areas which can be publicly monitored like the coffee/break out areas.

But until there is complete 2-way transparency where the watched can see who is watching them, there remains accountability issues from both sides of the fence.

Re:Employee supervision

[Sancho]

Like I said, you're a more rational person than most. There are sites devoted to humorous random webcam images, humorous Google Street View images, etc. I'm fairly certain that if such a plan were enacted, there would be a page devoted solely to finding government employees picking their noses, for example. Individuals are still entitled to some amount of privacy, even when they're on the job, and even when they're on the clock for the people.

Then, of course, there's the possibility of sensitive information being leaked--if you work for a university which receives federal funding (thus requiring that video camera on you) and you have to pull up student records, FERPA information could leak.

It's pretty hard to draw solid lines in issues like this. Much like pornography, "I'll know it when I see it." The appropriateness of being able to monitor a person's working life ought to be directly proportional to the amount of danger abuse of their power can pose. Purely economic reasons just aren't good enough to me--although money is certainly important, if the only damage they can do is waste taxpayer money, I'd prefer that privacy win out, and that their bosses evaluate their work. It's a system that is already in place, and that works pretty well.

It's reasonable to watch police--they have a huge amount of authority and power, and not much in the way of accountability. It's reasonable to watch politicians, as their actions directly affect the lives of everyone in the country. It's probably not reasonable to watch a student worker in a computer lab at a university. The line is somewhere between police and that student worker. If you can find a good place to draw it, I'd be all ears.

Re:Employee supervision

[LordSnooty]

Super idea, but are you prepared for the inevitable collapse in public employee numbers if such a crazy scheme were enacted? What, would YOU work under such conditions? Absolutely barmy. When I buy a bottle of bleach I'm effectively paying for the "paychecks" of Unilever employees, shall we stick a webcam on their desk too?

If you don't think these people are pulling their weight, better management is the answer, not some cack-handed "reverse surveillance" scheme.

Re:Employee supervision

[LordSnooty]

If my boss and my IT department can watch where I go on the internet and walk into my cube at anytime, why is it unreasonable to think that the person who pays your paycheck can do the same? A moderately good point, and not one I have a ready answer to.

Here, I'll have a go - just what influence would Joe Bloggs sitting on his backside flitting between porntube and Snoop Central have over our errant employee? Is it not the case that the IT manager is simply in a more appropriate position to take action? Y'know, what with him being a MANAGER and that. I'm amazed people are seriously considering this as workable and a good thing.

Re:Employee supervision

[Anonymous Coward]

If my boss and my IT department can watch where I go on the internet and walk into my cube at anytime, why is it unreasonable to think that the person who pays your paycheck can do the same?

Because you don't 'pay their salary'. At best, you give money (under threat of arrest and imprisonment if you refuse, but that's another topic) to the government, which distributes the money among it's Branches. Some of that money eventually ends up at the department where the person you want to watch works. Their boss pays their salary with that money.

So, as you can see, you are actually several steps removed from 'paying their salary'. And, in any case, the amount of their salary that comes from YOU, specifically, is miniscule. A hundred-thousanth of a penny, or something. So, you would only get to watch them for a proportional amount of time each day, or about a nano-second.

Re:Employee supervision

[mastershake_phd]

That is one of the stupidest ideas that I have ever heard. There are so many things wrong with it that it is hard to know where to start, so I will just pick two points. First, this is an excellent way to drive good people out of government and ensure that future government employees are people who have no other job prospects. Do you really want the government to consist of people scraped from the bottom of the barrel? I certainly don't. Second, this is little more than voyeurism: people with nothing better to do spying on people who are actually doing something. Is that the sort of society that you want to live in: one where anyone can get their jollies by spying on you at work? I don't.
 
Well, it sure beats a world where cops do this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abner_Louima when they think no one is looking.

Re:Employee supervision

[dbcad7]

First of all the government is not a corporation.. but in using that analogy, a taxpayer is more like a shareholder than an employer or a customer. The problem is, you can't sell your shares if you don't like the way the company is run.. and worse yet, you are forced to invest whether you want to or not... then of course we also have inside traders (lobbyists) who's' trading outside the system give them a larger say than the average shareholder.

It could be also argued, that you don't know where any of your "particular" tax dollars were spent.. for all you know the taxes you in particular paid for the last 15 years were not spent, and others dollars (as well as debt) were used, and your big nest egg is actually paying a salary... who's to say ?

One last note.. The term "public servant" is supposed to mean you work for the public.. so a public servant has a whole lot of employers who pay his salary... now it may be "laughable" to the guy with the 200k a year job, but it's really not funny... and yes you damn well do have a say as to hiring, firing, and what they do on the job.. the government isn't omnipotent "yet".

Re:Employee supervision

[nEoN nOoDlE]

I don't know if you were being sarcastic or anything, but you were modded interesting so I'll respond. I know these people are working for tax payer dollars and you want oversight, but you're probably working for private dollars and I don't think you'd be working there for too long if your boss had a webcam on you all day while at the office. Public servants still should have their right to work without a webcam pointed at them all day, because otherwise it would just be a shitty job and we wouldn't get many public servants.

Re:Employee supervision

[falconwolf]

I think employers get better results when they care less about what employees are doing minute-to-minute but have some metric for tracking success at a job function. And I want the government to be an employer that gets results.

I want government to not work, period. The less government does the less it will mess things up.

Falcon

Re:Employee supervision

[Clockwork Apple]

Next week, when this becomes RIAA policy on how much we are allowed to listen to that 15.99 CD, you know, when the cost of maintaining a studio is so high. I mean really, the customers arent even making a dent. So, pick your fav 12 seconds of your fav song from your fave band, and enjoy it as much as you like. On headphones. Once.

Re:Employee supervision

[arminw]

.......If I don't think it's worthy research......

For you to make such a judgment, you better know at least as much as he/she or his/her professor on that subject of research. If not your opinion on that matter is worthless.

Re:Employee supervision

[rtb61]

Actually the law enforcement officer is a different case altogether. They should be nothing stopping governments from fitting officers with helmet video cameras which they have to activate prior to making an arrest, and as a minimum would automatically activate when an officer removed their taser/handgun/batton from their holster. Especially considering it would be no more expensive than a taser torture/punishment/control device

The other principal of watching all government employees and politicians all of the time should of course be considered satirical unless they attempt to force that concept on private citizens in which case the effort should be trialled on them for a few years first.

Re:Employee supervision

[sumdumass]

First of all the government is not a corporation.. but in using that analogy, a taxpayer is more like a shareholder than an employer or a customer. The problem is, you can't sell your shares if you don't like the way the company is run.. and worse yet, you are forced to invest whether you want to or not... then of course we also have inside traders (lobbyists) who's' trading outside the system give them a larger say than the average shareholder.

Well, I didn't say that the government was a corperation. While I agree with your overall point, it really has nothing to do with someone not being able to demand cameras watching government employees just because he pays taxes which he thinks equated to paying their salaries.

It could be also argued, that you don't know where any of your "particular" tax dollars were spent.. for all you know the taxes you in particular paid for the last 15 years were not spent, and others dollars (as well as debt) were used, and your big nest egg is actually paying a salary... who's to say ?

The problem is, we are subjects of the government and they aren't subjects to us. I know a lot of bleeding heart liberals and well meaning conservatives and just about every other ill informed fanatic wants to think the government exists to serve us but it doesn't. The only thing keeping that myth alive is that is gives hope to people who would otherwise give up and there are enough smoke and mirror illusions that some people cannot distinguish between fiction and reality. The fact is, the government serves what they govern. This means the feds serve the United States of America and the states serve whichever state they are in the local government serve the locality. Now, here is the smoke and mirrors. The people are part of the U.S.A and the State and the Locality. So by definition, they will be served when it is in the interest of what is being governed. But there is no guarantee for it.

The government takes your taxes and outside existing law, there is no accountability besides the next election. There is nothing requiring them to do something they want beside the desire to keep a job past a certain period of time. And even then, they know that if they only piss certain segments of the people off, they don't have much to lose.

One last note.. The term "public servant" is supposed to mean you work for the public.. so a public servant has a whole lot of employers who pay his salary... now it may be "laughable" to the guy with the 200k a year job, but it's really not funny... and yes you damn well do have a say as to hiring, firing, and what they do on the job.. the government isn't omnipotent "yet".

The term public servant actually refers to someone that works for the bureaucracy that is the government. It is a job that would be done in the public sector but is done for the government instead. That is what separates the civil sector from the public sector employees. It has more to do with the sectors then the root civil inside civilian.

A public servant, or civil servant, the same thing, has one employer paying their salary, the government. And you don't have any say in their hiring or firing, discipline or their pay or anything associated with them. The most you can do is make a politician believe he won't be reelected if they don't demonstrate that they think the same way you do. You have no power more then that. And that power it often ignored because it is difficult to gather enough support to pull that off. This is why you see pandering to large groups and the politician not upholding their promised. Statistically, only a small percentage of large groups actually watch what is going on and as long as the politician can be seen on their side around election time, they get the votes.

Sit down and seriously think about what happens. Don't pull this romantic this is how it should be stuff, you will be wrong and with a broken heart. But seriously th

Re:Employee supervision

[OzoneLad]

It's not that I'm going to sit there and watch you 24/7, but I should have the option. If my boss and my IT department can watch where I go on the internet and walk into my cube at anytime, why is it unreasonable to think that the person who pays your paycheck can do the same? Paying for part of a government employee's paycheck doesn't make you special. Since government employees aren't exempted from paying taxes, a given public servant probably pays as much of his own salary as you do.

Also, the average public servant has no power whatsoever. Keeping an eye on all the peons that are just cogs in the machinery (and in fact aren't even replaced when a new President takes power) won't do much except perhaps cut down on some waste. It'll probably be a toss up whether the money saved would pay for all that bandwidth and all those cameras. And it certainly won't do anything to cut down on all those shenanigans the higher-ups in power get accused of all the time, because they'll be able to claim "National Security" prevents you from watching them.

Re:Employee supervision

[WNight]

It's a system that is already in place, and that works pretty well.

Works pretty well? It's pretty much a horrid failure. Collectively those low-level workers are the huge faceless system. Everything a government does goes through many low-level employees. There's no employee doing something they couldn't twist for gain, or just slack off and not do. If we can't watch the pieces and nobody's accountable we can't trust the system.

Of course, we're literally slaves. Try to leave the country without permission, or to not fight if drafted. With that in mind, the government isn't much inclined to be accountable. Constitutional best-wishes aside, governments still aren't based on the concept of individual freedom. Nobody gets a choice to accept government, or the social 'contract', or to even verify that it does what it says it's doing.

The president is an open liar. Caught. Proven. He's still doing it. What kind of accountability can there be in a system where we can't watch over the fucker's shoulder and *see* what he's doing?

The line is somewhere between police and that student worker.

I see no difference, except in scale, between the two. A policeman could beat, kill, or imprison someone unfairly, a government researcher could screw with vaccines or QA for them, or falsify their results for personal gain or sabotage. They could both cause harm, and if I'm paying them I want to make sure that they aren't.

I think you'd have to look at corruption statistics to decide who got monitored with video cameras. Some police departments are worse than others, or just politically charged, as are some public-works departments, election officials, etc. The goal though, would be everyone.

I don't think it's unreasonably intrusive. Many people, from hair-dressers to bank employees are always watched while they work. The jobs are still popular, so it's likely not that onerous. How interesting do you think some clerk doing a good job of filing is going to be to watch? And if there is anything juicy, it's probably good for the employees to take it outside on break anyways.

Personally I think we're going to end up in Brin's Transparent Society. Cameras everywhere, too small and easily hidden for you to be 100% sure of privacy anywhere. Not because this is particularly desirable, but because it's a natural progression of the technology. Surveillance is being used on 'us', we've got to start demanding (and just taking, regardless of the answer - or rather especially because of the answer) the right to watch those who are theoretically our servants.

Re:Employee supervision

[dbcad7]

Everyone is only as influential as they want to be. To influence others toward your point of view requires a great deal of work, unless it is blatantly obvious that your point of view is the correct one. To influence others to act on something requires an even greater effort... but as difficult as these things are, they can be they can be done.. of course you have to keep in mind that your point of view nay not be the correct one for everyone, and that no amount of effort would overcome the majority.

As to cameras... I would not wish that on anyone.. but it would sure be interesting if they were required when meeting with lobyists (including private citizens with an agenda)

Re:Employee supervision

[sumdumass]

Once again, I am in agreement with you. But I think the idea behind the Cameras was more of a "If it was tied together, they wouldn't pass anything with cameras on the public out of the same rational fears the general public would have". Well, maybe the civil sector would have more fears.

And yes, it would be nice if all lobbyist meetings and interactions with elected official or people representing them were documented and open for public inspection/discussion. However, I doubt there would be the smoking gun people think there is. While lobbyist have access that most of us don't, the big part of their power comes from how many other people they represent. If you represented 10,000 people, you would have more sway then me who represents the 4 other wacko's in my neighborhood. But the Jack Abramhoff's showed us that the campaign donation equivalent of 10,000 people is just as effective as claiming to hold the votes of 10,000 people. So maybe there would be something more.

An interesting take on this, not directly connected though, can be found in the American history of the civil service.

An unintended result was the shift of the parties to reliance on funding from business, since they could no longer depend on patronage hopefuls.

It sort of shows how it has always been about "money" accept the location from which if came had changed somewhat in a effort to correct other problems.

It isn't anything new or with intense detail but it points to how this isn't exactly the worst times in politics that some seem to think after being overwhelmed with reports of what they consider corruption. It seems that the rich and powerful or at least the businesses they own have always had some sort of influence on American politics. Definitely puts some perspective on some things.

Re:Employee supervision

[Sancho]

Collectively those low-level workers are the huge faceless system. And what I'm trying to point out is that those people do have faces. They have families, insecurities, fears, hopes, dreams, and they do not want to have their every move scrutinized. I may be in the minority, but I really feel sorry for celebrities who can't even step outside without having people watching them, looking for any mistake they make so that they can publicize it on the Internet. Now imagine that space isn't a consideration, that they just have a webcam on them any time that they're not at home, and that any yahoo on the Internet can be the one to find that nip slip or other embarrassing moment and post it all over the web for all the world to see. That's not the kind of society that I want to live in. I wouldn't wish such a situation on any person.

There's no employee doing something they couldn't twist for gain, or just slack off and not do. If we can't watch the pieces and nobody's accountable we can't trust the system. ...
Constitutional best-wishes aside, governments still aren't based on the concept of individual freedom. Do you see how you're perpetuating the issue? You make the claim that governments aren't about individual freedom, and you would make such a statement come true by requiring loss of what little privacy we have during working hours.

Regardless, you can look at outcomes to whether there is waste or espionage. There are ways to do it that don't involve a camera on the person.

The president is an open liar. Caught. Proven. He's still doing it. What kind of accountability can there be in a system where we can't watch over the fucker's shoulder and *see* what he's doing? If anything, this should show the futility of such a system. There is (alleged) hard evidence that a man paid from your taxes is not doing his job correctly, and yet nothing is being done about it.

Many people, from hair-dressers to bank employees are always watched while they work. The jobs are still popular, so it's likely not that onerous. Well, this is a problem of scale and intent. A handful of people have access to the security cameras at these businesses, as opposed to the entire world. And they're typically used for evidence after a crime has been committed, rather than to watch people in real-time.

How interesting do you think some clerk doing a good job of filing is going to be to watch? Many laws are written ambiguously because "It will never be used outside of this scope." Then, inevitably, they are. Who would think that a person documenting every tedious aspect of his life would be popular? Yet there have been multiple sites like Jennicam where this was done.

And this doesn't even get into issues of stalking.

Re:Employee supervision

[Kelbear]

Interesting, but I don't like the idea of constant surveillance on every government employee.

Aside from the cost and ease of circumvention(just type your illicit dealings on a blackberry under the table or on the toilet), it's just not something I would want imposed on myself, someone I know, or anyone who hasn't alread proven themselves a criminal.

But just for the sake of "what-if?" musings:

Perhaps an opt-in program? The longer you leave your camera on, you're graded with a higher "trust" percentage. Then use that trust rating provide incentives to the employee like possibility of promotion(since the more important your decisions are, the more trust-worthy you'll need to be) ass-covering when investigations roll in, that sort of thing. Then they can choose how much privacy they want vs how much trust they want. Some may even like the ability to prove they were working their asses off while co-workers slacked off and ruined the project. Same thing with elected officials.

Re:Employee supervision

[samkass]

Well, that's a typical Republican sentiment lately, and the Republicans do manage to be succeeding at failing. It's kind of funny to put Bush at the top then complain that government "isn't working".

As for me, I think government can and has done vast amounts of good in "greasing the wheels" of capitalism. It significantly reduces the risk involved in taking a good idea from concept to product to business, and that spurs growth and innovation. A libertarian country would be a great place to live, with everyone shacked up in their Freedom Cabins living freely on home-grown potatoes.

Re:Employee supervision

[falconwolf]

Well, that's a typical Republican sentiment lately, and the Republicans do manage to be succeeding at failing. It's kind of funny to put Bush at the top then complain that government "isn't working".

First off, I'm not Republican and though I voted twice for a Democrat presidential candidate I have never voted for a Republican candidate for president. Once I even voted against the Republican, in 2000 instead of voting for who I wanted to I specifically voted against Bush. So secondly I don't like and didn't want Bush to be president period!

As for me, I think government can and has done vast amounts of good in "greasing the wheels" of capitalism.

Yea, the government giving big agribusinesses like Archer Daniels Midland, ADM and Cargill billions of dollars in subsidies in taxpayer money is capitalism. NOT!!! How about this, try to start a dry cleaning business, and watch a bunch of regulations get in your way. While it may be easy, all that needed are customers, to start some businesses it difficult to start others because of regulations. At least it's not as bad as it is in some countries including in the EU.

A libertarian country would be a great place to live, with everyone shacked up in their Freedom Cabins living freely on home-grown potatoes.

Or in their own McMansion they were able to build because the government didn't make it hard to start a business and they were able to make a lot of money by providing a product or service people wanted to pay for, and didn't have to compeat with another company that received massive government subsidies. Such as ADM and Cargill.

Falcon

Re:Employee supervision

[WNight]

And what I'm trying to point out is that those people do have faces. [...] Do you see how you're perpetuating the issue?

No. In fact, I think of it as bringing accountability and recognition to the faceless cog. If this person isn't seen, they'll keep being an anonymous faceless cog in a cold uncaring system. If however, their actions would be less faceless and distant - more the actions of a member of the community, they'd be respected for their otherwise unnoticed work.

If these people have to consider that people will see them do what they do, they'll have to ask themselves if they want to be seen that way.

If we had videos of our prison guards torturing suspects they'd either 1) shape up 2) get social justice. (ie, beaten) As is, we're supporting a corrupt system that collectively breaks all the laws we individually hold sacred. As a faceless servant of the empire you don't take responsibility for your actions. You lose sight of how it's a human system - theoretically doing only what thinking humans would do. If you had to justify your actions, you might think about them first. If not, at least those who pay for the system (and are tarred with the same brush, ala US war crimes making US citizens look bad) could take out the bad apples.

If anything, this should show the futility of such a system. There is (alleged) hard evidence that a man paid from your taxes is not doing his job correctly, and yet nothing is being done about it.

Only because we're not really watching him. If we had a camera on the bastard 24/7 we'd have had enough to impeach during his first term. If we watched all of his underlings we'd be able to tell when his illegal plans really went into action. As is we've only got a few video clips of him, all forewarned and lying.

[only] A handful of people have access to the security cameras at these businesses, as opposed to the entire world.

By default, but do something of interest and watch your picture hit the news. Your privacy comes from not being interesting.

they're typically used for evidence after a crime has been committed, rather than to watch people in real-time.

That's their purpose, and it would be here as well. Watching someone work (in real-time or later) is simply how you'd do that. There are many civil servants, I think you'd get bored if you just watched them do paperwork.

there have been multiple sites like Jennicam where this was done.

If one of your workers is doing what Jenni was doing, I'd suggest you fire them and hire someone to actually do work and stop the striptease. This way you'd know. The video feed would get popular on Fark, you'd notice a lot of bandwidth from people watching a certain employee, you'd tune in as well, jumping back to check out the stored footage. If they're doing something inappropriate, you'd know.

If a large portion of us were suddenly watched at work we'd adjust. Armored Car drivers are watched. They can't just have sex in the back of the truck. Surgeons are watched. They can't just make a personal call during an operation. People adjust. I've sometimes had a desk in view of my coworkers, sometimes not. You just redraw the lines. Work isn't a personal space, even if the current lack of cameras there make you think otherwise. Neither is the bus. If I drove to work I could have more privacy. If I wanted to sing and not be critiqued, I'd use the car.

More importantly though, if I was tired of being watched, I'd give up the job handling everyone's money. Now I do work, intentionally, that can be judged in its final state so that I don't have to be watched. But, if my work could fall apart the instant I left if I hadn't taken proper care, but there was no way to tell before the disaster, I'd expect my clients to want to watch me work.

In conclusion. Some work needs to be watched. People who do that work simply treat it as

quite brilliant

[Dan667]

This is really a quite brilliant tact. Many of these entities was easy and if becomes a huge pain in the ass, they could get in trouble for abuse, or it is costing more money than it is worth (more likely the latter of the three), then I would expect that they would not be so gung ho about cameras.

it's our government

[circletimessquare]

so it's also our spy cameras. the idea should be greater transparency. most of the spy cameras out there pointed at public places are there for our safety, and, all paranoid schizophrenia aside, are used for our safety to catch crooks

so let us look at the damn cameras too

in fact, it might even be useful for strapped law departments: scenario: "person XYZ (show mugshot) on trial for armed robbery skipped out on court today: oh great america's most wanted watching public: monitor the security camera feeds for daytona and orlando. here's 3,000 of them. find our guy"

distributed computing. distributed security. people are motivated by the search for justice. so empower them. let average citizens sift the data and report on interesting findings... like: "these 19 guys at this security gate at logan airport were taking flight school lessons just last week in florida"

all i'm saying is that 30,000 busybodies with a broadband connection around the country can do a better job than 300 trained CIA analysts at langley

Re:it's our government

[ChronosWS]

Eh, not so much. 30,000 busibodies often won't be able to recognize the wheat from the chaff because they lack training. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. You can get an infinite number of monkeys to eventually produce Shakesperes works, but only if they know how to type first.

Re:it's our government

[loafula]

i don't think he's saying those 30000 are the judge and jury here. i think it's more along the lines of "xx number of people reported seeing these guys taking flight lessons in FL just last week... let's look into it further."

Re:it's our government

[JargonScott]

Yeah, maybe amicaughtornot.com.

Re:it's our government

[Doctor-Optimal]

Eh, not so much. 30,000 busibodies often won't be able to recognize the wheat from the chaff because they lack training. Sometimes this works, sometimes it doesn't. You can get an infinite number of monkeys to eventually produce Shakesperes works, but only if they know how to type first. An infinite number of (typing) monkeys would instantaneously produce not only a complete set of Shakespeare's works but a complete set of all possible written work. And a lot of poo.

Re:it's our government

[mjwx]

Given some of the US's recent Intelligence triumphs, 30 busybody's with dial-up connections can do a better job than 300 trained analysts at Langley.

Re:it's our government

[nEoN nOoDlE]

Yeah! And why even report back to the authorities? If you find someone you saw on the news, why not just track them using the available camera data, get a group of your buddies, and bring the person to justice on your own! No need to waste some police officer's valuable time. I might be over-exaggerating but the last thing I want is 30,000 busy bodies looking through camera data for people SUSPECTED of a crime that they heard about on the fear-mongering news station. It's bad enough that police have access to this. Can you imagine when it's the nosy neighbor next door?

noooo

[dotpavan]

that would kill the "in Soviet Russia.." meme

Re:noooo

[Anonymous Coward]

So in this case, you watches you?

Re:noooo

[KudyardRipling]

Nothing short of an absolute radical change in human nature will do away with said meme.

Re:noooo

[JavaBrain]

Something like?

In Soviet Russia, government spying on you spying on government spying on you spying on government... ...on YOU!

Re:noooo

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe a stint in a Soviet-era Gulag?

Re:noooo

[Anonymous Coward]

that would kill the "in Soviet Russia.." meme

Oh, please. In Soviet Russia, memes kill you.

Re:noooo

[Anonymous Coward]

That's nothing compared with being screwed out of college by Ronald Wilson Reagan.

Obama's plan in better font

[Harmonious Botch]

http://209.85.173.104/search?q=cache:IMo5tMSMfO8J:lessig.org/blog/Fact%2520Sheet%2520Innovation%2520and%2520Technology%2520Plan%2520FINAL.pdf+%22Barack+Obama+understands+the+immense+transformative+power+%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=1&gl=us&client=firefox-a

Sousveillance

[Rob T Firefly]

This sort of thing is often known as Sousveillance.

It just so happens that this coming Monday, December 24th is orld Sousveillance day.

Not for me

[cadeon]

Protect my Privacy by invading yours? Sounds like our current foreign policy.

A simple solution to prevent undue surveillance:

[thatwouldbeme]

Simply display any copyrighted material on your person and then have the *AA use the DMCA to sue the bastards out of existence!

Oh, you cynical coward.

[apparently]

Yet another pointless footnote for a Presidential candidate that will never see the light of day. He might as well have said "Read my lips," just to make sure it dies.

Yes, we should compare Obama's actual proposed plan to yet another Republican sound-byte of a policy.
Even if the plan gets neutered (you will perform your duty and call your representatives to support it won't you?), at a minimum, Senator Obama is showing initiative in his understanding of technology and our country's need to embrace it.
How do you vote for any candidate? Do you just assume that every idea they have will be "chewed, digested" and wanked on in Washington?

Re:Oh, you cynical coward.

[Stefanwulf]

you will perform your duty and call your representatives to support it won't you?

I could be wrong, but based on what I read above, this doesn't sound like a plan that needs legislative support in any way, shape or form. A candidate is going to need legislative backing for tax breaks, or health care, or even funding for new programs, but the President actually has significant authority when it comes to deciding how the executive branch runs on a day to day basis.

Re:Oh, you cynical coward.

[sumdumass]

He would need to pay for it somehow. This is when it would be gutted.

But it is pointless anyways. All the wishful thinking in the world won't get him elected. He won't be the next president and he won't be the next vice president. This just isn't the time for a black person to have that office. And I'm not saying that to be a racist, I'm saying that to be practical. Once he has to start pandering to the black groups he will lose white supporters and if he ignores them, he will be called an uncle tom or some other slur which will bring the white liberal racist against him. He, as well as any black man, is in a political no win situation for the office of president until some things get sorted out and resolved.

Re:Oh, you cynical coward.

[dgatwood]

Without legislative support, it is a patch with an expiration date. With legislative support, it could become a very welcomed permanent limitation on the executive branch.

Re:Oh, you cynical coward.

[hondo77]

This just isn't the time for a black person to have that office. And I'm not saying that to be a racist...

No, you are. You may not realize it but that's exactly why you're saying it. Hate to be the one to break the news to you but somebody needed to.

Re:Oh, you cynical coward.

[sumdumass]

Pointing something out because it is true doesn't make someone a racist. Especially when they are describing other peoples actions.

Tell me, how does this make me a racist? Is it because I don't believe in the magic Negro? And yes, that is a rush reference which is actually some california journalist's label. Or is it because I see the limitations in other people? Or could it be because I think his own kind will be what holds him back?

Just because you believe doesn't make it so. I would have hopes that you knew this by now.

Re:Oh, you cynical coward.

[hondo77]

Tell me, how does this make me a racist?

Since you asked:

This just isn't the time for a black person to have that office.

That's why. That statement has nothing to do with a person's limitations. It's a blanket trashing of an entire slice of the population based on nothing other than the color of their skin. Not because of Obama's experience, actions, intelligence, agenda, or other qualifications. You've simply decided that since you can't handle the idea of a black man in the White House then it isn't Obama's time.

That's why you're a racist pile of shit.

Re:Oh, you cynical coward.

[sumdumass]

Blockquote> That's why. That statement has nothing to do with a person's limitations. It's a blanket trashing of an entire slice of the population based on nothing other than the color of their skin. Not because of Obama's experience, actions, intelligence, agenda, or other qualifications. You've simply decided that since you can't handle the idea of a black man in the White House then it isn't Obama's time.

That's why you're a racist pile of shit. Wel, I'm glad to see that your just an ignorant dumbass so me being racist by your account amount to nothing.

I didn't say a black person cannot hold because of anything I feel or did. I said it was because of what others would do and say. You somehow seemed to skip over the message and straight to shooting the messenger. It is because of people like you that racism thrives so well in todays society. I was bringing attention to and making people aware of the problems that would hold him back and you are blasting me as a racist. You know, saying the light is red or white doesn't make you a racist. It makes your someone stating a fact.

This probably puts in the white liberal racist category. Your probably the type of person I mentioned that wouldn't vote for him once that black racists say that he isn't black enough or that he doesn't know their plight enough, he wouldn't be black enough. People like you piss me off because you think your doing some services for the poor little helpless race but are really promoting the problem and your real motivation is some artificial ease of guilt for something you had no part in in the first place. Do you actually think things through or are you just a spastic reactionary who is incapable of discerning right from wrong as long as it has something to do with a "special cause"?

Spy Yourself

[mycal]

Spying yourself has never been easier. I've been playing with the Aviosys 9100a video serve with the after market Yoics firmware. I can pretty much install this
anywhere there is an internet connection, even if they people that own the internet connection don't know, and view it from anywhere else.

This thing also supports sound! Not bad for $80.

So go ahead and spy back! Until it is against the law that is.

See the Yahoo Group http://tech.groups.yahoo.com/group/9100/ and the Yoics Software at http://9100.yoics.com/ for this device.

-M

Re:Spy Yourself

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd rather not post a webcam of me masturbating all over the internet. OR HEAVEN FORBID, PROGRAMMING.

Re:Spy Yourself

[RealGrouchy]

YMMV, but the laws around audio surveillance are much stricter than those for video surveillance, especially if the audio is recorded, instead of just heard (e.g. by a security grunt).

- RG>

Re:Spy Yourself

[tehcyder]

I'd rather not post a webcam of me masturbating all over the internet.

You must be some impressive kind of jizz freak if you can cover the whole internet.

I agree

[gurps_npc]

We need the following laws: 1. It it NEVER illegal to make any audio recording of an on-duty government employee

2. It is never illegal to make a video or other recording og a clothed on-duty government employee.

3. It is illegal for any government employee to request or insist that such a device be deactivated. Attempting to do so results in a fine equal to one day's pay. If violence was used, they are too be dismissed immediately, even if it was 'justified' by other actions. I.E. If you tell them to stop filming and they hit you, then you hit them back, you get fired even though 'they started it.'

4. If a government employee takes possesion of a a recording device that is not theirs and a recording is damaged, it must be returned in 100% working condition, with a copy of any recordings on it, within 2 days. Failure results in an investigation by Police, or by Internal Affairs if they are police. If a court case finds that there is a preponderous evidence that the employee intentionally damaged the device or the recording, than that employee will be dismissed from their government position. If the court find they did it beyond a shadow of a doubt, they are to be arrested and tried for grand theft.

Re:I agree

[StarEmperor]

So anyone can make a recording of the on-duty government employee who's changing the launch codes for the nukes? Or the state-paid lawer who's talking with a client? Or the government doctor who is reviewing someone's medical records?

I agree with the sentiment of what you're advocating, but surely some things should be kept secret.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

What great ideas. Your moronic attitudes are why I got out of law enforcement work. Some little shit-biter hits you in the nuts, you take 'em down, while his buddy is filming - oops forgot to capture the assault - and claims abuse. And, no - that did not happen to me personally.

There are certainly corrupt and asshole officers - and your policy makes sure that they are the only ones to stick around. The rest of us, who believe in transparency of government and have no problem with filming (unless it cannot be paused for a fart or nose picking, yeah, I know you never do either but I don't want to be filmed doing it) are getting the fuck outta Dodge.

Enjoy your little world and wonder why the only cops willing to put up with such bullshit are increasingly stupid, violent, and corrupt.

Re:I agree

[hyades1]

This is a fascinating concept, and deserves further expansion.

Perhaps if public surveillance cameras of the kind used in London, England ever gain popularity in North America, the feeds should be broadcast uninterrupted on a portion of all that public bandwidth they're planning to sell off when television goes digital.

If there is no public record of an arrest on those cameras, then one must be made on a police camera that is surrendered to the arrested person's representative immediately. Otherwise, no charges. Period.

Re:I agree

[swillden]

It is never illegal to make a video or other recording of a clothed on-duty government employee. So anyone can make a recording of the on-duty government employee who's changing the launch codes for the nukes? Or the state-paid lawer who's talking with a client? Or the government doctor who is reviewing someone's medical records?

[Emphasis mine]

This should result in some interesting new security policies. Government employees will now be required to strip before doing anything that requires secrecy.

Re:I agree

[coinreturn]

We need the following laws: 1. It it NEVER illegal to make any audio recording of an on-duty government employee

Great idea! Let's call it "The Richard Nixon Law."

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Some little shit-biter hits you in the nuts, you take 'em down, while his buddy is filming - oops forgot to capture the assault - and claims abuse.

Maybe next time he won't turn off the squad car camera. Those things are there to protect both sides of the coin, you know.

Re:I agree

[Anonymous Coward]

1. Do I have to post my hours of employment so you'll know when I'm on duty, or are you just going to record 24 hours a day so you won't miss out when I come in early or leave late?

2. Does this also include when I'm giving advice to another employee or, if I'm a manager, doing appraisals, job reviews and the like? I'm sure that the entire world would love to see it when I console one of my fellow employees after one of their loved ones has died.

3. Someone could be fined just for asking to turn off the camera or if someone came up and punched them? That's certainly brilliant. It'd make civil disobedience much, much easier - all you'd have to do is have to do is punch all of the cops in a police line and they'd all be on report. Great fun.

4. That certainly lowers the bar for grand theft, doesn't it? Break, even inadvertently, a $10 web cam and go to prison.

Re:I agree

[GryMor]

If you have someone in a position where they can watch any of these activities, you have larger problems than them also recording them.

As described by the grand parent, there is no problem with removing the person doing the recording, if they would not otherwise be allowed to observe what the are recording. Additionally, the grand parent doesn't specify any restriction on moving recording devices not in the custody of some person, so feel free to remove any planted recording devices, and charge their owner with trespassing if trespassing was required to plant them.

As far as my principles are concerned, recording devices on a person, controlled by that person, are simply a prosthesis for that persons senses and memories. If your observing something, then recording it doesn't change the legality of you observing it. If you disseminate your recordings, it is no different from you describing your memories in exhaustive detail.

Re:I agree

[gurps_npc]

I said it was never illegal to record them. I did not say that the act of recording let you violate other laws.

In the same way, you can't arrest someone for speaking, but you can arrest them not having a permit for a demonstration.

Any government employee changing the launch codes should CERTAINLY be doing it in a private area where it was illegal for citizens to trespass.

You arrest the citizend doing that recording for trespassing etc. Not for the filming itself.

Similarly, you arrest the guy filming the lawyer for violating the CLIENTS rights, as you do the guy the guy filming the doctor.

But you can not arrest them for filming the state employeee.

Really not that hard to understand, your objection is rather simplistic and is exactly the kind of thing that judges know how to deal with.

Re:I agree

[fishbowl]

>If violence was used, they are too be dismissed immediately

s/dismissed/executed/

Re:I agree

[Torvaun]

The squad car camera won't make it to YouTube. While the courts may see the whole thing, and decide it wasn't abuse, the cop will still be tried in the court of public opinion, and lose. Even if they win, some dissenting jurors might send ticking packages.

Re:I agree

[jdjbuffalo]

*I'm intrigued by your ideas and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.*
Friendly jab: But please get an editor to correct your spelling and grammatical mistakes.

I would like to make one comment that I don't see brought up often. Your example of a "permit for a demonstration". This is one that I'm not sure how it ever got approved nationwide but it pisses me off (this is not directed at you just an observation of a problem with the laws). You should never have to get a permit to demonstrate against your government. This is a fundamental right that should not ever be abridged (as pointed out in the Constitution).

The main points that people have used to justify it are:
1. You need to notify the government how many people are going to be there so that they can plan on the proper safety for the public.
2. You need to know if the group plans on violence (or has previous had violence erupt at one of their gatherings)
3. They don't want you disrupting normal traffic flow.
4. People don't want disruptions to their daily lives
5. (I'm sure there is more that I haven't listed)

While, I have no problem telling the government, "were going to be there on Saturday the 18th and there will be approximately 1000 people there", it should not be a requirement. And even if they don't like it they don't have a right to tell me I can't hold my demonstration. If violence does erupt then they can handle that accordingly (granted there are some bones to pick here but I won't go deep into that). Currently there isn't anything on the books against it but some violence does start from plain-clothed police officers and not unruly citizens. Lastly many things have grown up around the idea that people don't want disruptions to their normal lives. They just want "those damned hippies to get out of the way" so they can go back to sticking their head in the sand and not worry about the governmental problems that affect their daily lives.

I would like to see this sort of thing addressed more in the national media so it starts seeping into the "national consciousness".

*Steps off soap box*

Re:I agree

[Tastecicles]

I was recently invited to a meeting of government employees, at which I insisted that I set up a video camera and record the proceedings. Only one objected, whereupon the Chair demanded that I deactivate the camera and put it away. I signed the TOP of the minute sheet on my way out of the door with a short statement to the effect that the meeting was biased in that I could not keep my own recording as evidence. The meeting ended before it even started.

Re:I agree

[entrigant]

So anyone can make a recording of the on-duty government employee who's changing the launch codes for the nukes? Or the state-paid lawer who's talking with a client? Or the government doctor who is reviewing someone's medical records?

Yes, but hopefully they're not stupid enough to do it while being recorded. Such a law would not stop them from going into a room and not allowing you inside.

Re:I agree

[nahdude812]

If you can get access to them to be able to do so, then yes, absolutely. This has the added benefit of helping to expose potential security hazards.

A state lawyer and his client should be in a room where they can't be videotaped while having a counsel session.

The guy changing the codes on the nuke sure as heck should not be where someone can point a camera at him while he's doing it.

The government doctor should not be reading medical records in a place where someone with a video camera is able to spy on what he's reading.

GP didn't say that you have to give physical access to videotape at any time. But if you have the ability to video tape it, then you should be permitted to, and they should not be permitted to stop you (though if they enter a restricted area, you might not be permitted to follow, or if you entered a restricted area to video tape, they should be permitted to escort you out, same as they can do today).

I don't agree with GP's statement that if you have a video camera, you should be permitted to strike an officer and he can't retaliate. He should act toward you the same whether you have a camera or not. If you strike an officer, you're going to get arrested, and that is as it should be. He should not be permitted to destroy the video though, willful destruction of video by government employees either through action or inaction, without the consent of the owner of the video should be considered destruction of evidence, and carry appropriate penalties.

Workers acting in an official government capacity should assume at all times that any civilian observer has a right to make a record of their actions. They should assume that civilian observers are making a record, because this will certainly tint the color of their world.

What, oh what to do?!?

[headkase]

Where does one find information on the latest government travesties? Seriously, torture, detention without trial, ignoring checks and balances, elevation of corporate interests above citizens interests, lies, more lies, and it just seems to be getting worse each day. I'd like to be pointed to a resource where I could just get some facts for fodder to incorporate into a ye olde letter to the editor: if enough people could have their attention pulled away from the latest episode of Seinfeld for just a moment maybe the US could reclaim a bit of the integrity it used to have. A concerted effort by many citizens writing letters to many editors bypassing the politicians who don't seem to care about whats right if it doesn't get votes or donations may be one facet of a solution to stop America's current decline. If you had told me ten years ago what is going on today in the US I would have laughed in your face now I just shake my head in dismay. Time's archive of political cartoons is depressing but the events that inspire them just don't seem to be getting the attention they should demand in media and dialogue.

Re:What, oh what to do?!?

[toddhisattva]

if enough people could have their attention pulled away from the latest episode of Seinfeld for just a moment The 90s called and want their post back.

Re:What, oh what to do?!?

[jdjbuffalo]

I would love a comprehensive source for this too. Unfortunately, there doesn't seem to be one that is also non-partisan. The closest that I can come this is looking a popular news sites, fark.com and of course lots of Slashdot.

It would be nice if we could start one because I think it would help the average person who doesn't try or isn't able to keep up. This would allow for a better informed public so that they could see the direction we're heading as a country.

Re:A simple solution to prevent undue surveillance

[czmax]

Simply display any copyrighted material on your person and then have the *AA use the DMCA to sue the bastards out of existence! Wait, wouldn't this constitute knowingly causing copyrighted material to be distributed over a video surveillance network? I'm betting the *AA lawyers are at your door as I type. It was nice knowing you.

Paging David Brin

[StarEmperor]

The Transparent Society

Do we even have a Constitution?

[Anonymous Coward]

Endless gov't spying, yet another infringement on our rights by the gov't. Add it to the ever-growing list of violations:
They violate the 1st Amendment by opening mail, caging demonstrators and banning books like "America Deceived" from Amazon.
They violate the 2nd Amendment by confiscating guns during Katrina.
They violate the 4th Amendment by conducting warrant-less wiretaps.
They violate the 5th and 6th Amendment by suspending habeas corpus.
They violate the 8th Amendment by torturing.
They violate the entire Constitution by starting 2 illegal wars based on lies and on behalf of a foriegn gov't.
Support Dr. Ron Paul ($6 million yesterday).
Last link (unless Google Books caves to the gov't and drops the title):
America Deceived (book)

Re:Do we even have a Constitution?

[zopf]

The Government of the United States of America is clearly still in beta testing.

Glenn Reynolds is a fascist

[Scareduck]

Glenn Reynolds has been one of the president's principle cheerleaders for years, rah-rah-rahing for the gutted FISA amendment that basically allowed the government to do whatever it damn well wanted. Now he's publicly worried about state accountability? What a jackass and a hypocrite.

Re:Glenn Reynolds is a fascist

[Anonymous Coward]

Any argument coming from someone calling someone else a "fascist" can be immediately discarded.

Go back to Daily Kos or whatever.

Re:Glenn Reynolds is a fascist

[rossz]

You obviously haven't been reading anything Glen Reynolds has written. He isn't a Bush cheerleader. Sometimes he agrees with him, sometimes he doesn't. This is because he uses his brain and actually "thinks" about issues. You should try it sometimes.

In the vein of reverse monitoring

[paranode]

I think that every cop car should be required to have a tape that is rolling whenever they pull someone over. I think they should have the detected speed displayed on said camera as well. This way no cop can lie about what they are pulling you over for and they can't get a conviction if the evidence is not present. Some jurisdictions have this but I don't think it's required for the most part. I would even take it so far as to say every cop should have a recording device on his person somewhere at all times to verify the authenticity of his story. They work for us and if they want surveillance we should make it work to OUR benefit also.

Re:In the vein of reverse monitoring

[sumdumass]

Interestingly, I live in a district that allows the cops to turn them on and off. My suspicion is that they are on all the time but they only acknowledge it when it can help them not you.

Some people think this is an unfounded line of thought. I just point them to the government setting up a corruption hot line for our area so people can anonymously report corruption to the FBI. This came after two cops where busted for dealing drugs that they obtained from busting other dealers a county away. But the county sheriff in office before the current one of my county is still serving time for his corruption convictions. The local police chief got by with resigning though.

I would agree that every action of the cops should be monitored.

Re:In the vein of reverse monitoring

[kent_eh]

I think that every cop car should be required to have a tape that is rolling whenever they pull someone over.

Don't most already?

Watching the Watchers

[strangedays]

I believe that it should be public policy to record all police activity, both to protect officers against false claims of abuse, and also to help protect the public against the possibility of such abuse.

The same policy is needed in the many other agencies with draconian powers of search seizure and arrest. In other words, any official with opportunity and motive for abuse of power should be monitored and recorded whenever they are on duty.

There is long standing precedent that an employer has the right to monitor employees. What the agencies and government choose to forget, is that they work for us, the people. The technology to monitor their actions exists and can become ubiquitous, it should be available via the net to any citizen that chooses to review it. There have been many examples where the fortuitous presence of a video camera, has revealed extremes of behavior in security personnel. Most notably... a major agency recently chose to deliberately destroy video evidence, despite the likelihood of a major public outcry... Clearly avoiding monitoring is something they desperately want to do... I wonder why...

There's too much "Us", and "Them", in the security agency mindset. Agencies and many officers appear to believe that anyone who is not an agent are merely citizens, whose rights can be abused at will. This unfortunate attitude needs to be discouraged. Regrettably I believe that our security agencies leaders have lost respect for our laws and our courts and that they display a callous and cynical disregard for this issue.

Sadly... one interpretation of the many current security scandals is that most agencies feel they can avoid or circumvent any laws they simply don't like, or find inconvenient. If challenged they always seem to trot out the weak excuse that they needed to do so to protect us. Personally I want them to do their job and protect us all; while staying within the law of the land. Sadly, I think it's clear that we need live video monitoring as a real protection.

I believe we can trust most officers and most agencies do the right thing, most of the time, but it's also clear that it would be foolish to continue extending trust blindly, nor do we need to.

Lets make "evidence" (That which is seen) work both ways, because its not about "us" and "them", its "we the people". The people must watch the watchers, and now that we have the technology and opportunity we should do so.

Re:Watching the Watchers

[jdjbuffalo]

Thank you for the wonderfully insightful post!

With regard to the "Agencies and many officers appear to believe that anyone who is not an agent are merely citizens, whose rights can be abused at will", I think this sort of thing starts at the top. "The president doesn't like to follow all the laws of the land so why should we, the enforcers"? While I'm not naive enough to think that this attitude hasn't been going on to a degree for decades, I think this President has certainly re-enforced the idea of "the ends justify the means at almost any cost".

One day in New York.

[neo]

One work day, I took a picture of every camera (except for 3 where I was thrown out of a store) that could take a picture of me. Here are my results: http://www.flickr.com/photos/neoliminal/sets/72157600350750369/

Enjoy looking at them looking at me.

Re:One day in New York.

[martinX]

I love the shot of the four cameras together. Looks like a panopticon Doc Oc :-)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/neoliminal/544945881/in/set-72157600350750369/

Re:One day in New York.

[neo]

That's my favorite too.

Re:One day in New York.

[zopf]

Freaky!

sad drive home last night

[blhack]

Does anybody other than me think that our founding fathers would be upset, and ashamed of us for letting all this bullshiat happen?

I was driving home last night (101, north scottsdale arizona) and passed by some of the new speed cameras that have been put up in that area. The speed limit on the road is normally 65 MPH but it is currently at 55 because of construction. It was very late at night, and there was literally NOBODY on the road, and no construction workers of any kind. So i was driving 65 MPH...which is a completely safe speed to drive in the conditions I was in at the time. The WHOLE TIME i was driving home i was freaked out that I was going to get popped by one of these stupid things.
That is a small example, obviously
Howabout the fact that they set up the "surprise!" speed trap vans all over the place now in tempe, and south scottsdale? Or the fact that there are red light cameras at almost all of the intersections in tempe/scottsdale?
okay thats another small example
Howabout the fact that kids are getting shocked with enough electricity to knock them to the ground and incapacitate them for a few seconds when the talk back to an angry cop?
Okay thats also a really small example.
Howabout the fact that I think twice every time i go to a chemistry website, or a website with any types of schematics/blueprints because i just MIGHT get flagged as "suspicious" because by using information from both of those sites i could cause havoc.
Yeah, thats not TOO big of a deal.

Stuff like this honestly makes me sick to my stomach. :(

Re:sad drive home last night

[Sloppy]

The speed camera thing is weird. My objection isn't so much with the cameras themselves, as with the other aspects of the situation.

First, you were driving safely, but illegally. That suggests that arbitrary speed limits are not useful. You didn't do anything you'd be ashamed of. You didn't do anything wrong. So why are you worried and nervous? You're worried because you know some bully might take advantage of you, anyway. Yeah, I wonder what TJ would say about you living in fear of your government.

Also, here in Albuquerque, one of the "interesting" things about the speed cameras, is that they issue civil citations instead of criminal ones. All the usual rights you'd normally have when defending yourself from government's power, don't apply. No innocent-until-proven-guilty presumption, no court-appointed defense, arguably no double-jeopardy restrictions, etc. You're guilty and have to spend money on court costs (which is typically more than the fine itself), a lawyer, etc just to get a real trial. It's a blatant abuse, and yet, all people talk about is whether or not the program is "effective." Fairness is an extraneous issue.

The authors of the Bill of Rights would be amazed by that.

The cameras are no big deal, compared to all that.

Re:sad drive home last night

[blhack]

Thats exactly my point. I am totally 100% behind a program that will make the streets a safer place to drive. There are lots and lots and lots of idiots out there who drive WAY too fast, weave in and out of traffic, cut each other off, follow too closely, etc. etc. Anything we can do to stop that is great. Same thing with drunk drivers...get them off the streets. I am just opposed in principal to something like a speed camera.

I am of the opinion that people should be punished for doing things that hurt society, not because they had the ABILITY to do something that could hurt society. A La me being at a party last night and literally drinking half of one beer 4 hours before I left the party and being FREAKED out when i was at a traffic light next to a cop because I'm underage. In arizona, if he had decided to pull me over and check, i would have had a mandatory jail sentence, a mandatory ignition interlock device (in car breathalyzer), and a mandatory 1 year suspension of my license. ALl of this because I am under the arbitrary age of 21 and had a trace amount of alcohol in my blood.

Whats worse is that this POSTING could probably get me in trouble. Look at the guy that recorded himself doing 219 MPH in his lambo a couple of weeks ago. The guy didn't hit anyone, he didn't hurt anybody, he didn't cause any problems of any kind...he COULD have, yes, and the guy is a jackass for that....but impounding his car and throwing him in jail because he COULD have hurt somebody?
Or howabout people who get caught street racing in arizona? THEY CRUSH YOUR CAR! they don't impound it, they don't even auction it off...they crush it. You do not get to collect anything out of it, nothing....your property is seized and destroyed simply because it COULD have been used to hurt somebody.

Re:sad drive home last night

[Vegeta99]

Because even if we don't have speed limits, you still have to drive a speed that is reasonable and prudent.

219 miles an hour is not either of those. Racing off of the race track is not either. If I hit something going 75MPH? It's gonna hurt. 219 MPH? It's not going to hurt because I've been liquefied before my nerves can even depolarize.

Re:sad drive home last night

[blhack]

hitting somebody at 75 MPH is going to do a lot more than hurt. both parties involved will more than likely end up dead.

My point with the jackass 219 lambo guy is that he DIDN'T get caught doing it, and he DIDN'T hurt anybody in the process. What scares me is that this guy is getting prosecuted simply because he COULD have caused damages. In my opinion, penalizing people for things that they COULD have done is simply absurd. To me, this is even worse than the concept outlined in 'Minority Report'. In that movie, people were being punished for things that they WERE going to do. The guy I'm talking about isn't even given that much (a nearly 100% probability that he will kill someone). What is happening to this guy is the equivalent of pre-crime officers showing up at someone's house after the crime was supposed to have occured, finding that the would-be murderer had had a change of heart, and then proceeded to throw him in jail regardless.

Re:sad drive home last night

[Smordnys s'regrepsA]

The most horrible thing about those 101/intersection cameras are how blindingly bright and distracting the flash is at 1:30 in the morning - when your reactions are already sub-par. It is actually illegal for someone to have a "fish eye" bit of different color on their brake lights because the distraction may cause an accident. (Here's some Cali laws, too lazy to search for the Arizona Laws, or the specific one I'm thinking of.) How can this be any better?

I almost feel like getting into an accident every time someone around me sets one off, simply so I can sue them out of existence. I just want to concentrate on the other drivers, instead of searching for cameras and religiously checking my speedometer.

Re:sad drive home last night

[tehcyder]

Or the fact that there are red light cameras at almost all of the intersections in tempe/scottsdale?

I don't know how red lights work in the US, but here in the UK I have no real sympathy for anyone who gets caught going through a red light, you get enough warning with the amber light to stop in time (unless you're driving like a twat).

Re:sad drive home last night

[Vegeta99]

no, no, it's not like minority report at all. How do you know he didn't hurt anything? All those "i'm kool my kar goes fast!!11" videos i've ever seen just showed a speedometer and a little bit of a highway.

How do you know that he didn't go speeding by some 90 year old grandmother with an infant grandchild in the back like a fucking speeding rocket and shuffle her car off the road because 4000 pounds moving at 200 mph has one hell of a fuckin wake?

Didn't think about that one, did you? That would be why civil engineers set the speed limits, and not you, not the cops, and not the goddamn lawmakers. Sit down, shut up, and start using a calculator.

Indeed

[Travoltus]

What we need are larger and more visible protests.

The recent traffic jamming of intellectual property fascism in the EU and the Super-DMCA grinding to a halt in Canada, is proof that the people can still get their way. Or at least a compromise. Though defending privacy now is going to take a more radical amount of action.

Re:Indeed

[m2943]

Don't believe for a moment that these issues are settled. Unlike people, corporations never give up. Corporate interests have forever to try to get this to pass, and they are going to keep at it. Sooner or later, through some unlucky constellation of political circumstances, popular distractions, etc. it will probably pass.

force multiplier?

[circletimessquare]

"all i'm saying is that 30,000 busybodies with a broadband connection around the country can do a better job than 300 trained CIA analysts at langley"

i could have said it better. rather than replace the 300 CIA analysts with 30,000 America's Most Wanted aficionados with broadband, why can't the 30,000 web vigilante's serve tips to the 300 CIA analysts? A lot of security is drudgework. Offsite some of the drudgework to random passionate yahoos, and the analysts can use their well-trained minds to do more well-trained things

It's win-win. How many people out there would stare at a boring camera feed all day "in the war on crime, in the service of the CIA"? Lots of people. And if a random joe shmoe catches a really good tip, fly the guy to langley and put their photo on the wall, like an employee of the month, and send out a press release. 30,000 more free eyeballs will join the program

more eyeballs, motivated by nothing but justice, zero $ expenditure, replacing drudgework to free trained analysts to do more important things: i can't see how this idea is anything but win-win, for America's Most Wanted Fans, for the CIA/ FBI, for everyone. except actual criminals

Watching the Watchers.

[eriks]

Yes, the watched need to look "back" at the watchers. In fact that is the more important activity. Any government needs to be held accountable by it's people, otherwise it becomes facist, rather quickly, as history demonstrates.

Further, I think that any cameras that "surveil" a public place should have their RAW output available to the public.. some of them do, either by design, or due to poor security, but there "otta be a law"...

Not a "right"

[multisync]

... but a responsibility

I find it strange that we are debating whether citizens should have the "right" to record the actions of others in public spaces. We are constantly being told we should have no expectation of privacy ourselves in public, yet we are so used to asking for permission for everything that we hesitate to do what I think is our responsibility to do: document the actions of law enforcement and shine a hard, critical light on examples of abuse.

The recent death of a Polish immigrant at Vancouver International Airport demonstrated that. A concerned citizen's video recording of the incident gave Canadians the opportunity to see how quick the RCMP were to deploy their tasers on an exhausted, confused man who - while agitated (for good reason) - posed no immediate threat to himself, the police or anyone else.

Another valuable lesson from this incident: never, never hand over you camera to the police. The photographer who captured the killing of Mr. Dziekanski agreed to give his camera to the RCMP on the condition that they return it within 48 hours. They did - minus his memory card. For two weeks, the cops dragged their feet, until a public outcry forced them to return the card.

When the public finally saw the video, it provided a great example of how law enforcement put their spin on what takes place prior to a death at the hands of one of their members. It also gave credibility to the reports of other citizens who have been tasered without justification.

Ad hominems make you look stupid

[smitth1276]

First of all, the link you provided doesn't support your assertion at all, unless you are trying to attribute the opinions of the interviewee (Harvard Law Professor Jack Goldsmith) to Reynolds himself.
 
Secondly, Reynolds' opinions are usually delivered in a very measured, reasoned way (he's a law professor), so he never "rahs rahs" anything, and to the extent that he will openly and consistently support any given policy he does so with legal justification, usually from a decidedly libertarian perspective.
 
He's a great blogger... I highly recommend that you try reading him sometime.
 
(And calling someone a "fascist" because they disagree with you--perhaps believing that the government should be able to listen to a call between two terrorists in Pakistan when it happens to pass through a US switch--makes you sound like a really, really unintelligent person. Just a bit of advice. It also conclusively illustrates that you don't even know what the word "fascists" means, which is a bit of a bonus.)

David Brin -- Transparent Society

[A nonymous Coward]

Main thrust of his book is just that, turning the camera war inside out. The main point is that as cameras get smaller and cheaper (Diamond Age, was it?), they will be everywhere, and in effect, the world will be turned into a little village where everyone knows what everyone else is doing. So universal surveillance will happen regardless of what we might want. The rich and powerful will be able to hold it off for a while longer than average citizens, but not forever.

In the meantime, he suggests that all those police control rooms full of street camera feeds need two corrections. One, the camera feeds themselves should be made public. There is no excuse for the police to see what is on public cameras and keep it secret from the public. If cops are zooming in on windows, average citizens should be able to see that same window. These are not cameras planted pursuant to a warrant, these are public cameras.

Second, put a live feed for the pubic in that police control room. If the cops in there are goofing off or zooming in, it needs to be made public.

I personally really look forward to smart dust cameras as in Diamond Age. Very few people want to see what I am doing enough to invest the time in monitoring whatever cameras have been planted in my house. But EVERYBODY and his dog wants to see what Dick Cheney or Paris Hilton are up to. It will be the first time in history that the rich and powerful have the most to lose. It's going to level society in amazing ways.

200 Million Employers

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

When the average employee works, they get one (maybe a few) bosses checking up on them. They can easily get used to each boss's quirks and preferences, and learn not to rub them the wrong way.

The average government employee has 200 million employers watching him. They have the resources to watch him 24/7. Not only that, but many of them are opinionated and trigger-happy (mostly metaphorically speaking), and the group sends conflicting messages to the poor lowly employee. Politics is a hard game.

Same as your boss

[mangu]

Unless you make something like $200,000 a year in taxable income after deductions, you won't come close to paying a government workers salary. At best, you will only get part of it done

And your boss, who supervises your job all the time, doesn't pay your salary either.

This is one of the lamest political arguments I've ever seen. You don't pay the whole of America's military expenditure ($400 billion/year), so you shouldn't have any opinion on that matter, right?

Re:Same as your boss

[sumdumass]

Your boss is an officer of the company that pays you. So yes, he is entitled. but this isn't close to what you were claiming. It would be more akin to I buy product X therefor I pay the salaries at the company that make product X so should you be able to look at what they are doing. And of course the answer to that is only if they want to let you. Just like with the government.

This is one of the lamest political arguments I've ever seen. You don't pay the whole of America's military expenditure ($400 billion/year), so you shouldn't have any opinion on that matter, right?

Opinion yes, not a right to demand. I was addressing this part of the comment specifically why is it unreasonable to think that the person who pays your paycheck can do the same?. You are not the person who pays their paycheck so this argument is flawed. find another argument. I didn't take issue with anything else said so stick to that. But if you insist on making these phony arguments that you pay someone's salary, be prepared to be ignored or laughed at because don't.

Re:Same as your boss

[mangu]

It would be more akin to I buy product X therefor I pay the salaries at the company that make product X so should you be able to look at what they are doing.

1) If I buy product X and it doesn't perform as expected then I can return it for a refund.

2) I buy product X by my own free will.

3) There are many products to buy, only one government to pay taxes to.

Until the day when I can choose whether to pay taxes or not, or choose to whom I will pay taxes, or demand a refund if my taxes aren't well used, I want a closer look into what government employees are doing.

Re:Same as your boss

[Anonymous Coward]

Until the day when I can choose whether to pay taxes or not,

Move out of the country. *Poof* You no longer need to pay taxes.

Re:Same as your boss

[Anonymous Coward]

Die. You no longer need to pay taxes.

Re:Same as your boss

[Anonymous Coward]

>>Until the day when I can choose whether to pay taxes or not, or choose to whom I will pay taxes, or demand a refund if my taxes aren't well used, I want a closer look into what government employees are doing.

Maybe this little fantasy of yours keeps you warm at night (One day, I'll be able to spy on ALL OF THEM, or else I'll STOP PAYING MY TAXES!!! Evil laugh here!!!) but it hasn't really gotten much further than that, has it? It won't either. You're not interested in anything except shouting randomly at life. Doesn't matter what it is, you just want to shout and sound important.

Bullshit.

[apparently]

All the wishful thinking in the world won't get him elected. He won't be the next president and he won't be the next vice president. This just isn't the time for a black person to have that office.

It's the job of progressives to drag the rest of country into the 21st century. If people want to make this election about race, they need to be attacked again and again on their racist, ignorant stances. Did Rosa Parks think "Golly, it's just not the time for black people to sit where they rightfully please"?
Did Dr, King state "I have a dream...but maybe someday later, not right now.".

Shame on you for even suggesting that Obama is "the black" candidate. He's as legitimate a candidate as any other, with the support to prove it. He just happens to be black. You can't expect a candidate to win if you assume the worse from the beginning. Apathy kills progress, and hands the country over to the ignorant element of our country.

Re:Bullshit.

[sumdumass]

Lol.. I guess you didn't pay attention to the reasons why. Oh well, you found a point that you think is worth arguing with me over so I will appease you.

First, If Obama is the democrat candidate, he will lose. You will be handing the country over to the republicans. Whether these are the dumb ones you talk about or not, it is who will control the presidency.

Next, it isn't about racism perse. It is about what races expect. White people will expect him to act white. Black people will expect him to act black. The vocal malcom X crowds will expect 40 acres and a mule. What will happen is, if he is too black, it will turn white people off. If he is too white, it will turn black people off. Right now, the middle ground between the two don't overlap enough to satisfy both crowns because of the 40 acres and a mule crowd. They will call him uncle tom, cracker fucker and all sorts of names that will cause a small portion of the black community to turn away from him and a larger portion of the white liberal (racist) who think they need to support the 40 acres and a mule crowd to redeem some action they think their ancestors did. In the end, even of the against them crowds don't vote for the other candidate, they will be a large enough force to allow the other guy to win.

This isn't a racist view, it is a realist view. If his campaign hasn't already looked at it, they are in more trouble then I thought. And BTW, it isn't our fault that radical elements of any race actually retard the integration of the races while they think they are helping it. But it is a fact that we have to acknowledge.

Re:Bullshit.

[apparently]

It is about what races expect. White people will expect him to act white. Black people will expect him to act black.

I don't expect any of the candidates to "act white", because I don't know what in the fuck that is supposed to mean.
So please tell me, how do white people act? Do they walk and dance funny?

Re:Bullshit.

[hamburger lady]

well, they can't jump. and they can't dance.

and the drive like this (all hunched over the wheel).

sonofabitch! come on!

Re:Bullshit.

[sumdumass]

Well, acting white is acting like you and me assuming you are white. Democrat presidential candidate Joe Biden already made some of this clearer

You can find out more about acting white at these places.

http://actingwhite.blogspot.com/
http://www.hoover.org/publications/ednext/3212736.html
http://www.blackcommentator.com/100/100_cover_acting_white.html

For example, when psychologist Angela Neal-Barnett in 1999 asked some focus-group students to identify acting-white behavior, they listed actions that ranged from speaking standard English and enrolling in an Advanced Placement or honors class to wearing clothes from the Gap or Abercrombie & Fitch (instead of Tommy Hilfiger or FUBU) and wearing shorts in winter!

And notice, "acting white" isn't a term the white man came up with. To them it is the norm. It is a term minorities came up with to chastise other minorities that are on the track to escaping the problems associated with minorities. They also found a term, "acting black" that they think they are doing. And surprisingly, this so called acting black is somewhat the opposite of acting white with the same respect. Naturally, white people see acting white as a positive because it actually is by definition. And because of the contrast and usages of the terms, acting black is somewhat of a negetive in the white community.

You have no idea if I am white or black but I willing to bet that you already decided I am white. That's ok though, I don't care what you think of me. But don't act like there isn't a problem here and don't act like the problem won't rise during the election. History shows this all to well with people as recent as Condeleezza Rice beeing called a house niggar. but goes backe to colon powel and even clarence thomas. Her are a few links talking about it. I call it intra-racial racism by people upset over the sucess of other people in the same race. Sort of like clayton bigsby,

http://www.alternet.org/story/20579/
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,126953,00.html
http://209.157.64.200/focus/f-news/774455/posts

Now, I didn't exactly tell you but I showed you that there is a difference. You should read each link and ponder what I said. Then You will see things as I have stated. but don't just take what I linked to, do a google search for acting white and house slave or house nigger. Now, I warn you, you will find racist comments. But you will be surprised at who is making them. Well, maybe "you" won't be surprised, but I was.

learn Latin, tardis

[BitterAndDrunk]

It's the genitive case of diabolus.

Re:learn Latin, tardis

[bersl2]

fortasse litteras italicas facere debuisti.

Already done

[mangu]

* Give "the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House web site for five days before signing any non-emergency legislation."

In a way, a part of that has already been decreed by a federal court.

Surely agree

[wikinerd]

I agree with sousveillance. In fact for me the problem is not so much the invasion of privacy, but rather the monopoly of surveillance. I don't really have much of a problem with cameras (although I am a bit unsure about microphones just above the seats in subway stations - how exactly do they protect the subway's property and the public?), but my problem is actually who has access to the recorded data and who gets the monopoly of surveillance...

For example: A supermarket here has two signs, one saying "you are on CCTV" and another saying "you can't operate recording equipment here". The first sign (CCTV) is ok. But the second sign is problematic: Suppose I want to put a camera on my head and let it record 24h and send pics over a 3G or WiFi connection to my server, in case someone attacks me and kills me on the street or on a mountain, so that the police etc can see the pics from the camera and catch the killer (this is good for society as well, not only for me, in fact sometimes I think that everyone should have such a safety device). If a supermarket tells me that operating my own personal safety camera is not ok, then it should at least accept liability in case someone kills me while inside their premises. I'm paranoid here to make a point, and in fact I don't have such a safety device on me, but I could have one if I wanted, and my question is: Why should I give up my safety to buy a banana? Why should I trust that the supermarket is a safe place and not operate my own safety camera? One could argue that I have much more important assets to protect (my life which is one-off) than the supermarket's company (their material property which can easily be repurchased in case of a criminal attack). So, why on earth should the supermarket operate cameras but not me? One could say that the supermarket is the owner of its land and can decide the rules, but my answer is whether it is reasonable to expect to give up one's safety just to buy something to eat.

To give a real example of frustation with unbalanced supermarket policies (unbalanced in the meaning that the policies are designed only with the supermarket in mind, not taking into account customer needs), it has happened to me many times to enter a supermarket to buy something to eat while being on travel, of course always carrying my laptop bag because I never get out of my home office without a laptop or subnotebook, and employees always come to me and ask me to give them my laptop bag to keep it while I shop because they are afraid of shoplifters. My reaction in all cases is either to explain my reluctance and refuse to give them my laptop and continue my shopping (I specifically say "will your manager sign me a paper accepting liability of such and such thousands euros in case you lose my laptop or you damage it?"), if they let me do so under their supervision, or if I see that they don't like this (until now in 100% of all cases, and from their part this is ok if they merely follow company policies, the problem is the company policy not the individual employees) then my reaction is to not buy anything and leave, never to buy anything from the same shop again. I can't understand this paranoia in big supermarkets. I mean, in small independent shops the owner either just discreetly supervises people as they buy stuff, and this is the proper and reasonable thing to do (someone comes to buy stuff from you, you want to protect against shoplifters, the reasonable thing is to stay near them while they buy stuff and watch them, not to demand them to give you their bags or anything). In big supermarkets and department stores they demand that you surrender all your bags to them, as if bags are now some sort of dangerous weapon or something... My answer is that they already have cameras, but if they really feel so nervous they should hire more employees to oversee customers as they buy rather than take away customer's property even temporarily. Shoplifting is a serious crime that must be tackled, but passing the cost to the consumer is not ac

Re:Surely agree

[Anonymous Coward]

Good luck in getting video recordings of you from a supermarket, etc. I once was had an accident in a Wal-Mart supercenter parking lot. Some crazy lady came speeding down the row at like 30 miles an hour - where it's marked only to drive at 10 or 15 mph. I've got a shopping cart full of bleach and vinegar since I was getting ready to do some spring cleanup in my apartment. By nearly hitting me, she startled me. The cart goes rolling down the hill, since it's got lots of heavy stuff in it, I can't catch it as it rolls past my arm's length. I go running after it, but before I can get it, it's bumped her van and left a small dent in the door. She comes out all crazy and I just go silent and stuff and don't talk. Eventually, a cop comes over after 911 call. Cop takes her and my info, and it ends up that I'm the one that's held responsible since it was "vandalism"... over $1000 in damages that I'm held responsible for since that crazy b1tch nearly ran me over!!! I asked Wal-Mart for the video of it, etc. to show insurances, and the cops. Nope.. no can do without a court order. Luckily, my renters insurance paid for it somehow, as a liability type thing, even though it didn't happen in my apartment. I got lucky since I was broke at the time. Video of it could have proved that it was her fault.

Reverse Panopticon?

[pkaeding]

This is an interesting idea. While there are definitely very scary implications of having Big Brother watch everything, surveillance can benefit us as well. I am sure that many would-be thieves notice security cameras, and decide not to steal from that place, because the risk of getting caught is higher. I'm not claiming that it definitely reduces crime, because it is likely that the thieves simply move on to easier targets, but I think that making it harder/more risky to commit a crime reduces its profitability, at least for criminals who think rationally about it. Of course, many criminals don't think rationally about it, whether its because of drug addiction, mental illness, etc.

However, the whole idea of the panopticon is that the watchers can't be seen. There are too many cameras to watch for it to be cost-effective to watch them all. The reason they work is because there is the possibility that someone could be watching. If you could watch back, this paradigm wouldn't work very well.

In all, it will be interesting to see how this turns out.

Sorry...

[scooter.higher]

I hate to be the bearer of bad news... Nixon passed away. Back in 1994. I didn't want to be the one to tell you.

Re:Sorry...

[elrous0]

I have it on good authority that they saved his head for a comeback in the year 3000.

yes yes yes!

[H310iSe]

I've been talking to some of the pols in SF, CA about this same issue, I think it's brilliant to allow public access to all security cameras, it was Foucault's Discipline and Punish that first got me on the idea (he talks a lot about observation and social control structures and says one way to balance the power of omnipresent observation is to allow everyone to participate in the viewing - I'll grab the quote later if I can).

Since we can't realistically fight the spread of cameras we should instead control how they're implemented. Why can't we stop the spread? Because even if public cameras are not put on every lamppost there is ALREADY widespread security cameras accessed by the 'authorities' all the time - I run security cameras for businesses in the SF area and the police come to us constantly asking for surveillance footage from our systems (both inside and outside the club) and we comply.

This trend towards private cameras the police can access will only continue, if we make it public, at least we have a measure of control and we should direct that control towards opening the system as much as possible.

IMHO

very interesting position for a *lawyer*

[ceabaird]

Oh, don't attack the lack of legality (and according to the bill or rights, this is completely illegal - whatever the Supreme Court rules) for a supposedly democratically elected government to record it's citizens every move, just say that they "should" be allowed to spy back. Way to support the failed policies of a failed government. What next? They should be "allowed" to face their accuser in court? They should be "allowed" to see the charges and evidence against them? That this guy is seen as "an authority" and a "pundit" says a lot for the degeneration of intelligent, rational discourse and thought in the US.

Meta-Surveillance is ONe Answer

[ebusinessmedia1]

I have long argued for something I coined as "meta-surveillance". Essentially, this would permit any citizen to query the surveillance network for information about how, when, where, and why s/he was surveilled - and by whom. Exceptions would only be made for those under criminal investigation.

Granted, the latter point creates a problem, in that a negative response to one's meta-surveillance inquiry, if one were a criminal, would be a tip-off. Thus, there would always be some "loose play" in the system, but systems might actually be worked out that could adapt to these exceptions.

Either we open up to meta-surveillance, or we risk losing rights down the road.

I believe that most societies will ultimately introduce surveillance; it's the ones that won't let their citizens have access on-demand access to surveillance data that will be the most repressive.

btw, I'm not a surveillance fan, but plainly see the handwriting on the wall. We are approaching an era when just a few people with easy access to certain technologies will be capable of doing irreversible harm to the planet and our species. As this scenario intensifies, I think we will see surveillance used far more heavily than we ever imagined.

Some of what I'm suggesting was prompted by a read of Bill Joy's essay in Wired, some years ago. Here's the URL for that essay http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.04/joy.html

Re:Meta-Surveillance is ONe Answer

[arminw]

.....I believe that most societies will ultimately introduce surveillance.....

In earlier societies, people were told that God watches everything, even the thoughts. One way such a society accessed that information which only God was supposed to know, was by the confessional. Because most people believed in God and His omniscience, they mostly obeyed the rules they were told were really God's rules.

Nowadays belief in God is no longer universal. So now the powers that be are learning to place themselves in the position of God's omniscience by using technological surveillance to inform themselves of the comings and goings of their subjects. If there is a cop car behind them, most people will obey the traffic laws. The cop doesn't have to be in bodily form any more, he/she can be virtualized by all sots of hi-tech wizardry. It is well known that surety of punishment is orders of magnitude more effective in preventing wrongdoing that severity of punishment. If a person KNOWS 100% for sure their actions are known, they will be careful to make sure these actions can stand the scrutiny of those who have the power to punish them. Most kids as well as grownups resent being forced to be good.

Of course if all this technology were ONLY used to make people behave themselves it might be OK. As it is, the powers that be misuse it for self-serving purposes and that is where the bad comes in and privacy is needed.

Re:Meta-Surveillance is ONe Answer

[Laughing Pigeon]

Of course if all this technology were ONLY used to make people behave themselves it might be OK.

I disagree. There is also something like "dignity", I want to decide myself that I want to behave. I want to be innocent 'till proven guilty, I do not want to be considered a potential guilty one all the time and that is exactly what I feel like when my actions are constantly filmed and recorded.

Re:Meta-Surveillance is ONe Answer

[arminw]

......I want to be innocent 'till proven guilty.......

That's fine unless YOU know that you are guilty. Have you EVER lied to someone or taken something that was not yours? If so, then you ARE guilty, at least for violating God's laws. That's what people in former days feared and therefore tended to behave right out of fear. Fear works, but love is a better motivation to do what is right. If you love your neighbor, and yes even the government, you will not behave in a manner damaging to either. You don't necessarily have to like what either of them are doing, but you can still love them and by that love hope to change their behavior. Even if there is no change in others, you can have the knowledge of having done right and sleep better at night, whether someone is watching you or not.

Big Brother....

[Neanderthal Ninny]

1984 in 2008. George Orwell was correct but several years late. The picture of Big Brother is George Bush or Dick Cheney.

Employee trust.

[Anonymous Coward]

"What's so scary about it? You're at your desk. Doing work. I am paying you. I should be able to watch you."

I feel the same way. Signed: your boss.

But seriously the inderlying disease isn't being addressed in this cameras everywere society. It's like taking asperin to cure AIDS. What do all these cameras say about eroding trust? What do all these cameras say about an increasingly amoral society? Cameras are the symptom of a deeper disease. When are we going to have a discussion on that?

freedom in the US

[falconwolf]

In the USA, personal freedoms trump collective freedoms every time.

As TFA and others point out many Americans want to feel safe and don't care about privacy.

So even though paying more for inner-city schools helps society as a whole, it doesn't happen in the USA because it goes against their individualist grain.

Ah, I bet inner city school don't get more money per student than suburban schools, except maybe for charter or magnet schools.

Ditto spending money on programs instead of prisons.

To cut the prison population of the nation with the world's largest prison population in half just takes one step, get rid of all of the victimless crime laws such as drug laws. Instead of using taxpayer money to lock people up set them free where they will work and improve the economy. Then with less spent on prisons and more earning money and paying taxes, revenue can then be used where it's needed.

Falcon

Give me a break

[Anonymous Coward]

You paying taxes no more makes you the employer of every civil servant than you buying potato chips makes you the employer of every worker in a food conglomerate.

We need accountability in government, business, and society, but we don't need to erase privacy or pretend that every civil servant (or corporate drone) is somehow undeserving of normal human rights.

terrosrists

[falconwolf]

If I was in charge of the most economically powerful, and previously untouchable country in the world, and all of a sudden 9/11 happened how would I react? I have no idea. I might start implementing ultra paranoid and reactionary national security policies too...

The thing is is the US helped create and motivate the terrorists. The US aided and supported the terrorists who got their training in Afghanistan. More recently, shortly after taking office Pres Bush gave the Taliban, who were supporting and shielding al Qaeda, millions of US taxpayer dollars. In Israel, one of the Palestinian groups that's classified as terrorist, though I'm not sure I think it's hezbollah, was originally an Israeli registered charity in the 1980s. Israel wanted a religious charity to counteract the secular PLO. Now there are different Palestinian factions fighting each other along with the Israelis. Blowback can happen when you're not careful about your actions.

Falcon

Re:terrosrists

[jaxtherat]

All of which is quite scary, but to be honest with you, something that scares and annoys me more is the fact that our idiotic (Australian) federal government literally jumped at the opportunity to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.

No offence to our military, but on the world scale, our military might is equivalent to a slightly miffed lunch-lady with a rolling pin. So effectively we stuck our big fat noses into two wars that not only mean nothing to us, but that we also can have almost no impact on, apart from causing domestic unrest in the form of heightened racial and religious tension.

Examples:

Cronulla Riots
Sikhs being bashed in the streets because red-neck westies think anyone in a turban is a terrorist
Synagogues being torched

Re:terrosrists

[falconwolf]

All of which is quite scary, but to be honest with you, something that scares and annoys me more is the fact that our idiotic (Australian) federal government literally jumped at the opportunity to go to Afghanistan and Iraq.

I agreed with the US going to Afghanistan but not Iraq. However I supported Afghan for a different reason than what was used to justify, HAHA!!!!, the invasion. When Bush asked the Taliban to hand over bin Laden they asked to see any evidence he was guilty, but Bush refused. I supported outing the Taliban because they were repressive. However instead of invading I'd rather have supported Afghans who wanted democracy.

No offence to our military, but on the world scale, our military might is equivalent to a slightly miffed lunch-lady with a rolling pin.

And people can't even protect themselves Down Under. The Aussie sharp shooters can't even practice their sport in their country. At least they couldn't for the 2000 Olympics, instead they had to go to another country to practice from what I heard.

Falcon

Re:terrosrists

[iminplaya]

I supported outing the Taliban because they were repressive.

So is the Saudi government. When are we going to invade? What about China, Burma, Pakistan...? I can assure you we're not in Afghanistan because the government is repressive. It's more a of a revival of the Opium Wars, and pipelines, etc. And Britain has a much deeper interest in the area than the US. In fact, the US is the muscle in what is essentially a British action. Wag the dog. Lots of money at stake. And that's what this is all about. You won't find a moral soul within a thousand miles of any of this.

Re:terrosrists

[falconwolf]

I supported outing the Taliban because they were repressive.

So is the Saudi government. When are we going to invade? What about China, Burma, Pakistan...?

Ah, but the Taliban went further than all of these others you list. For instance, the international community sponsored and built a soccer stadium. But it wasn't used to play soccer, instead the Taliban used it to do public executions. Even Iran, which also has executions, didn't have as many or use facilities built by the international community for them. Also Iran, though actually ruled by the mullah, is at least nominally democratic. Afghan was still in a state of civil war, with various factions making up the Northern Alliance fighting the Taliban.

It's more a of a revival of the Opium Wars, and pipelines, etc. And Britain has a much deeper interest in the area than the US.

Oh, I agree we're not in Afghan simply because the Taliban refused to hand over bin Laden, however that is the state purpose for the US being there. Chevron was part of a group who wanted to build a pipeline through Afghan, however the Taliban wasn't letting them have their way.

Falcon

Re:terrosrists

[i_b_don]

I actually think you guys are pretty crazy.

The afgan thing wasn't motivated by a monetary gains or oil pipelines, it was purely political. The US government had to be seen as doing *something*. It didn't have to be the right thing. They didn't have to hit the right person, but they had to drop some really big bombs on someone and make it appear that they weren't powerless chicken hawks.

And in fact, the Taliban deserved to be bombed just because they where too stupid to see it coming. When the biggest badass on the street gets his nose snubbed, you don't stand in his way when he comes looking for the guy who did it... not unless you have some really bad ass friends to back you up, and the Taliban didn't.

Now Iraq was a different story... Bush and his criminal cohorts wanted to invade long before he did and used 911 (and fictional evidence) as a lever to open the door to invasion.

d

you don't have to trust your fellow man

[circletimessquare]

so enjoy your impoverished life... not necessarily financially

GPS

[falconwolf]

Try a logged GPS in the truck.. seriously.. RFID is totally inappropriate here.

Trucking companies do this now, use GPS in trucks. Shipping can be made more efficient and for long hauls companies can make sure drivers don't drive too long.

Falcon

a modest proposal

[falconwolf]

Ah, Johnathan Swift.

Falcon

Liking Glenn Reynolds make you look stupid

[Anonymous Coward]

      Glenn Reynolds is pretty much a right-wing authoritarian with a fairly convenient grasp of the law (the neologism "glennuendo" comes from his manner of argumentation).

        He calls himself "libertarian" to make it sound like his extensive knee-jerk support for right-wing causes is coming from some kind of neutral stance. It's a form of sock puppetry.

        He does appear to have a decent track record of support for increased government surveillance, warrantless searches, state-sponsored torture (he scape-goated abu Ghraib on the underlings who were following orders, pointedly avoiding any accountability for the individuals who actually ordered the torture), indefinite detention, unprovoked invasions, and assassination of civilians.

        On the assassination of civilians issue IIRC, Mr. "Legal Justification" got his lungs served to him by a bunch of non-lawyers who seemed to have a better grasp of the relevant laws than he did.

        Calling him a fascist is probably technically wrong. But he definitely appears to be in favor of turning the US into a militaristic police state.

Definitions

[The Monster]

"you can't operate recording equipment here". . . . Suppose I want to put a camera on my head and let it record 24h and send pics over a 3G or WiFi connection to my server

Well, if it's streaming the A/V over the connection, then arguably it isn't "recording". I'm getting old enough that I may have to use a hearing aid sooner than I'd like to admit. Add a camera to enlarge small print so I don't have to use reading glasses, and it's an Americans with Disabilities Act issue, and they can't forbid the use of the equipment to enhance my failing senses. That I just happen to choose a model that sends the audio and video in realtime to that server in my house is just a helpful byproduct of the system, you see.

Yeah, that's the ticket.

what happens to all these recordings?

[srijon]

We need a law requiring all surveillance recordings by companies/government to be destroyed after 30 days, unless a court order is issued to preserve the recordings, or the parties have given written permission. This would go some way towards balancing company/government "security" requirements with an individual's right to privacy. While we are at it, the same law should govern web usage logs...

Personal data should belong to the person!

[shanen]

Case one: They recognize me on camera. If they want to keep the image, they should store it on my computer and have to ask my permission if they want to look at it again in the future. Just as with a search warrant, though should have to tell me why. (They can sign the files to prevent me from tampering with it, etc.)

Case two: They don't recognize me. It's my personal information and they should *NOT* own it, but should be required to delete it.

Shutup and do something

[chord.wav]

Stop whinnying and DO something (legal)!!

I'm not in US, not a US Citizen... I just can't see all you people, grown adults, whine on an online website, while doing NOTHING to solve the problem. Get out to the streets or something. Stop being afraid of what others will think about you if you stand up for your rights. It's up to you to leave a better country for your kids.

Just an idea.

Being STALKED by government is bad enough

[Rockin'Robert]

Being rendomly STALKED by more idiots and/or crooks around the world is insane.
RR