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Eye In the Sky For City Crime Fighting
Tiger4 writes "The mayor of the City of Lancaster in the Antelope Valley of southern California is considering a high-definition video flying platform to aid in crime fighting. The aircraft, would circle the city constantly, able to zoom in on activity spots instantly. 'You never know when you are being watched or followed. It would be stupid to commit a crime. You see it with such detail,' said Mayor R. Rex Parris, who took a ride last week in a camera-equipped airplane with pilot Dick Rutan. 'I have every hope that Lancaster will be the first city to deploy it. I've never been so excited about anything.' Dick Rutan is the same pilot who flew around the world non-stop in the Voyager, custom built by his brother Burt Rutan at Scaled Composites in Mojave." The aircraft is nothing special, a garden-variety Cessna or the like, but "the camera is an example of technology developed for and used by the military making a transition to civilian applications, Rutan said."
Seriously, though, the whole idea is wrong on so many levels it's not funny anymore. Privacy aside, couldn't they at least use a platform that's better suited to long-term surveillance, such as a small (drone-sized), unmanned airship?
...never do anything stupid, so the Mayor pointing out "It would be stupid to commit a crime" is a really excellent example of how compelling the case is for using this sort of surveillance technology.
If politicians and police were honest about this they'd be doing a controlled experiment on these deployments, putting out these systems in ways that varied both in space and time that allowed them to determine whether these things had any effect on quality of life amongst the citizens, which is the metric that matters.
Instead, they are content to make stuff up, and the average person is so relentlessly anti-empirical that they have no idea what they are missing.
Blasphemy is a human right. Blasphemophobia kills.
Ask your friendly neighborhood drug lord.
The next version of the plane is then going to be armed with 20mm cannons. Why just watch crime when you can stop it dead?
The camera is an example of technology developed for and used by the military making a transition to civilian applications, Rutan said."
When you have the Military controling civilian security, the civilians become the enemy. This would normally just be a gross overstepping of the government, but to use it as a "transition" for EASing military is just crazy. Things are different in the Military. The rules, norms and expectations are completely different. You can't just take an MP out of the fleet, give him a badge and a gun, and expect him to take a squad car around the block with out incident.
-Rick
"Most people in the U.S. wouldn't know they live in a tyrannical state if it walked up and grabbed their junk." - MyFirs
The new fashion accessory that every criminal thug just has to have: an umbrella.
Remember RFC 873!
1. Someone to know the crime is happening and thus record it, send cops over, and prevent it.
2. No blind spots(good luck on a roaming platform. Last I checked, buildings still are 3d and thus will cause blind spots.
3. The criminals not to take the most basic of all precautions to hide there identity(sky masks aren't exactly hard to make or buy.).
So, in conclusion, it looks like some dumb ass company built this device and decided to market it to whatever sucker they could find. World keeps on turning.
So basically, -1 troll/offtopic is really slashdots way of saying "I hate that you thought of something before me."
The camera is an example of technology developed for and used by the military making a transition to civilian applications
I disagree however. Once government's start using military surveillance techniques on it's citizenry they are no longer a civilian government's but precursors to a police state. And the guys excited about it . . . I'm not sure whether thats scary or disgusting!
They either plan around it (unlikely) or commit impulsive acts when the opportunity arises. They also don't always commit their crimes out-doors, or in cloud-free weather. They also don't ever expect to get caught (if they did, that would be a deterrent - it isn't).. So while keeping a plane in the air (and presumably a control room staffed, to watch the spy cameras) and a mechanic on standby to refule it and maintain it, might sound like a good idea - and may even impress the voters the chances of it reducing crime are small.
Luckily for the mayor, it's impossible to correlate one act of crime prevention with any movement in the crime statistics, so whatever happens (short of someone stealing the plane), he, she or it will be able to call the initiative a success.
I do have a feeling though, that this plan was not exactly thought out. Any sale to a gullible official - who isn't spending their own cash yet comes out with statements like "I've never been so excited about anything" sounds like exuberance has got the better over common sense. I would expect that the money earmarked for this plan would be far better spent on orthodox police patrols: more officers, more man-hours and maybe even a few public awareness campaigns. Not as sexy, but far more effective.
politicians are like babies' nappies: they should both be changed regularly and for the same reasons
"There was of course no way of knowing whether you were being watched at any given moment. How often, or on what system, the Thought Police plugged in on any individual wire was guesswork. It was even conceivable that they watched everybody all the time. But at any rate they could plug in your wire whenever they wanted to. You had to live -- did live, from habit that became instinct -- in the assumption that every sound you made was overheard, and, except in darkness, every movement scrutinized"
davecb5620@gmail.com
Well, sure, I'm guessing we'll all be embracing the next logical step in govt. surveillance!! The all seeing HD eye in the sky.
Wait, did I forget my [sarcasm] tag??
Sadly, there will be a decent number of people that will go for this. More and more these days a saying I heard awhile back is even more pertinent:
What one generation tolerates, the next generation embraces.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
When you move out of your parent's basement, you'll find the world a bit less black and white and that Brave Words (while free and easy to make on the 'net) cost money and are sometimes hard to implement.
Here's part of the problem. We should be innocent unless proven guilty, not until proven guilty.
This fallacy presumes that we're all guilty, and it's just a matter of time until someone catches us. We need to stop referring to it as such.
This whole country is being turned upside-down by very subtle, un-noticed changes in our vernacular. We need to stop that.
I know you were joking but the awful truth is that when the politicians really are corrupt and they are bouncing off the walls in excitement over deploying military hardware against the electorate then neither they nor the Police are likely to be breaking any laws. Because they will be the law. Cue accusations of overblown paranoia . . . but the surveillance used now against private citizens isn't far away from that envisaged by Orwell . . .
only outlaws will have umbrellas.
Relinquish your right to carry an umbrella. After all, if you carry an umbrella, you must have something to hide.
Reply to That ||
I am the eye in the sky
Looking at you
I can read your mind
I am the maker of rules
Dealing with fools
I can cheat you blind
And I don't need to see any more
To know that
I can read your mind.
Not to sound like I like this sort of thing, but we didn't have privacy in the past. We are just returning to a more village type of mindset.
Yes, except that in a village, everyone had the scoop on you, but you had the scoop on them, as well. Consequently, everyone agreed to ignore each others little indiscretions. With where we are headed now, the government has the scoop on us, and we have...nothing on the government. That imbalance of power makes this a very dangerous situation.
MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
Our mayor (yes, I live in the AV) would indeed outlaw roofs if he could. This is the same guy who said that he would seize and kill law-abiding citizens' pets if doing so would discourage gang members from owning dogs.
Think I'm making this up??
http://articles.latimes.com/2009/jan/26/local/me-dogordinance26?pg=1
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"What happens when these gang members that you're trying to target move on to Dobermans or German shepherds? You going to restrict them too?" Listman asked the council.
"If they move on to cats," Parris responded, "I'm going to take their cats."
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He's an ambulance chaser by profession, which means in his worldview, there is only one solution for every social ill: SOMEONE MUST PAY!!
The man is a menace to the Constitution.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?