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Chicago Links School Cameras To Police
Farakin brings us a story about how cameras in roughly 200 Chicago schools are being connected to police headquarters and the city's 911 emergency center. The goal of the effort is to "consolidate video surveillance," and it will involve both routine monitoring and real-time updates to officers on their way to a crisis. According the the Chicago Tribune, "The mayor acknowledged the cameras provide only limited security, citing a spate of shootings in recent days that have claimed young victims during after-school hours." The story also contains a video in which Mayor Daley indicated that he expects the cameras to serve as a deterrent now that people know they're under the eye of the police.
Remember, Big Brother is watching.
I predict nothing will come of this but a bunch of kids getting in trouble for flicking off the cameras. Or maybe someone will get creative and steal some of the cameras, now that would be awesome.
Curiosity was framed, Ignorance killed the cat.
How about taking some of the Homeland Security money and putting it into alternate crime prevention programs, instead of trying to deal with situations where kids have already been turned into criminals?
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There needs to be a cause and effect for a government to justify this. In other words, this makes sense to fight crime in schools as these are inner city schools we're talking about but do we really expect inner city schools to be as bad as they are forever? There should be a clause advocating the removal of the cameras if the situation has improved for a long duration of time (say 2 years?). Otherwise it really does start a 1984 society and that's not good.
How many reading teachers could have been hired for the price of those cameras? This is sad, just sad.
Isn't adding surveillance to monitor a group a punishment of said group? One student flips out and goes on a killing spree, therefore all other students need to be monitored from now on -- that seems like a treatment, not a cure, for the problem.
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I think the intresting bit is at the end of the story, 50 police officers were to be hired, but budget reasons (cuts?) led to a delay of a full month before they could start training. Meanwhile a program to get cops on the beat and civilians to do the paper work was also delayed, again seemingly because of budget reasons.
Note that it is purely MY speculation that the budget reasons were cuts, but it is hard to imagine how for instance an increase in budget would cause a delay.
There is actually a rather neat trick that you can pull with this. I announce a new plan to hire 50 cops. Nice headline, people feel good about it. Delays are caused and the program is scaled back. Sometime later I announce that 40 cops have been hired. Nice headline, people feel good about it, 90 new cops on the beat... AHA! You spotted it eh?
If I am really good I also silenty get rid of 60 cops and score another headline NOT with the firing but with the budget savings I have been managing. Ain't I good, can you guess how the next election will go?
The problem is simple, you need to follow the news in depth and keep on a story and anything that might relate to it. For instance the increased budget for the DHS from which this camera system is payed, where does that money come from? Could it even be that the reason the budget office did not have the money for civilian office workers and the new cops was because the money went to the DHS instead?
But people hate in depth reporting, note how many people here scream bloody murder when a new development in SCO is reported or shout DUPE when an article is really an update. For many people news is what is happening now, but for a crafty politician that leads to an easy way to pull the wool over everyone's eye.
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So, slippery slopes don't exist and only tinfoil hatters believe in them? Right?
Morons. Giving your rights and freedoms away like it was candy.
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The school district added cameras and DVR's a few years ago and recently added the ability for the police to tap into the system in the case of a 911 call or triggered burglar alarm. From what the school district said at meetings, it sounds like the police cannot legally tap into the signal at will, only when there is an emergency call initiated. That doesn't mean the police won't peek (we have some questionable police officers in town) but I think they have better things to do with their time.
Getting beyond the school shootings scenario, the biggest problem at schools in our area is vandalism. Students sneak into the building, trash classrooms, equipment, the athletic field, etc. Now the DVR will record them, and if the alarm is triggered the police view the video feed to learn where they are in the school, how many there are, and if they are armed.
"We make our world significant by the courage of our questions and by the depth of our answers." Carl Sagan
What once was unthinkable will become commonplace. The first few years, kids will rebel, maybe even take down a camera or two, obscure its picture, that sort of thing. Given enough time, the kids are sufficiently inured to the cameras, and they wont even see them anymore.
Kids that dont notice cameras will grow to be adults that dont notice cameras. Thats the whole point of this exercise. Get em while their young.
It can be go tiem now plees?
They're not tackling the root cause of why they're having to do this. The fact is that an awful lot of kids in school in the US can get very easy access to weapons that allow them to kill people very easily. As long as the US at large is OK with accepting that kind of risk, and public anxiety quickly dies down after every shooting, then trying to half-heartedly try and film everything that people do is quite simply pointless.
It's also no deterrent at all. We've seen from the vast majority of shootings that those involved are quite willing to shoot first, and then shoot themselves so that there are no consequences. The notion that cameras are going to be a deterrent is well wide of the mark.
Once again school kids without rights are being exposed and desensitized to horrible human rights abuses they will learn to accept as "normal" when they become adults. The sickening jackbooted dehumanization of America marches on.
+0 Meh
Why are you blaming this on the teachers when all of the problems you mentioned are the result of policies set by the school board and inflexibly enforced by the administration. A fair number of teachers do overlook the stupid rules, and even if they don't it's not their fault that the punishment for them is ridiculously out of proportion.
It's the callous disregard for human life, stupid!
The Chicago police and video cameras don't prevent crime, they commit crime. And then do it again. And again.
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