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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.'"
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.
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.
In Soviet Russia jokes are formulaic and decidedly non-humorous.
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).
Protect my Privacy by invading yours? Sounds like our current foreign policy.
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.
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?
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.
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.
NewslilySocial News. No lolcats allowed.
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?
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.
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
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.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........