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A Law to Spy Back on Government Surveillance Cameras?

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the who's-gonna-monitor-the-monitors-of-the-monitors. dept.

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.'"

4 of 229 comments (clear)

  1. Employee supervision by Harmonious+Botch · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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.

  2. it's our government by circletimessquare · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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
  3. I agree by gurps_npc · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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.

    --
    excitingthingstodo.blogspot.com
  4. Do we even have a Constitution? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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)