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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.'"
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.
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
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
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?
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.
excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
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)
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.
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
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
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.