Slashdot Mirror


Chicago's Camera Network Is Everywhere

DesScorp writes "Over the past few years, the City of Chicago has installed video cameras all over the city. Now the Wall Street Journal reports that the city has not only installed its own cameras for law enforcement purposes, but with the aid of IBM, has built a network that possibly links thousands of video surveillance cameras all over Chicago. Possibly, because the city refuses to confirm just how many cameras are in the network. Critics say that Chicago is becoming the city of Big Brother. 'The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more—police won't say how many—that have been installed by other government agencies and the private sector in city buses, businesses, public schools, subway stations, housing projects and elsewhere. Even home owners can contribute camera feeds. Rajiv Shah, an adjunct professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago who has studied the issue, estimates that 15,000 cameras have been connected in what the city calls Operation Virtual Shield, its fiber-optic video-network loop.' There are so many camera feeds coming in that police and officials can't monitor them all, but when alerted to a situation, can zoom in on the area affected. The ACLU has requested a total number of video feeds and cameras, but as of yet, this information has not been supplied."

17 of 327 comments (clear)

  1. I formally request access to the logs... by BobMcD · · Score: 5, Funny

    Mr. Orozco dismisses worries about privacy abuse. The department logs in all users and can monitor what they are doing, he said, assuring accountability. He also said access to the command center is tightly controlled. He declined to discuss specifics of who is allowed inside the center.

    Awesome! In that case, I formally request access to the logs.

  2. In that case... by KingSkippus · · Score: 5, Insightful

    In that case, let me mount a camera pointed at your house. I'll be able to watch you come and go, I'll know when you're at home and when you're away, I'll sometimes catch glimpses of what you're doing through the windows, I can watch you in your sweaty glory while you're mowing your lawn, I can watch your friends and family when they come over (yay, Uncle Bob is there!), I'll know whenever you get a package from Amazon, with good enough resolution, I can probably even see who some of your mail is from. For good measure, I'll even record it all in case I want to go back later and watch something interesting.

    Wouldn't that be great? You'd be able to rest easy while I'm always watching, knowing that you don't have to worry about being robbed.

    1. Re:In that case... by h4rm0ny · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If I'm not doing anything illegal, then I don't have to worry about being arrested.

      What if you want to do something illegal? What if something you do is made illegal? What if you want to do something that isn't illegal but is disliked or held against you by others, including those in power. What if the government starts doing things that you disapprove of and you want to discuss it with people but you know everywhere you go and everyone who comes round is monitored and recorded. What if you have an affair? What if your partner has an affair? What if a policeman has a grudge against you? What if the minimum wage lad paid to watch the cameras has a grudge against you? What about when all these things don't apply only to you, but to your neighbours and your friends and your family until everyone is living with the knowledge that they're being watched all the time or at any time? Do you think the climate of fear and of being judged the whole time wouldn't stifle life? Look at what has gone on in even such a blessed country as the USA just in the last half-decade and consider the use constant surveillance would make if the government wasn't your friend (or more precisely, if you didn't consider the government your friend).

      You acknowledge that the cameras grant power to the authorities. Consider also that the abuse of authority proceeds to whatever extent it is able to get away with. Permit authority to establish increased power over yourself, and expect that power to be taken advantage of.

      If you want to understand why many of us dislike the cameras, just realise that we (a) consider the removal of our privacy to be a threat to our lives and freedom, and (b) are the sort of people who are always looking over our shoulder at history and seeing what dark periods we have had to fight our way out of each time we allowed the steady encroachment of forces establishing power over ourselves.

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    2. Re:In that case... by commodore64_love · · Score: 4, Informative

      And even if you ARE doing something illegal, you have no reason to expect privacy in a public domain. Do your illegal activities inside the house behind closed curtains.

      What REALLY pisses me off is when various citizens, trying to protect themselves from police abuse or to document police activities, are told THEY are not allowed to use their video cameras. If it's okay for the government to watch us on the public street, then it's equally okay for us to watch THEM with our handycams. And yet time-after-time I see videos on youtube where cops tell citizens "turn that off or face arrest". These cops not only violating our rights to document what we see on public streets, they are being hypocritical, and need to spend a couple weeks in jail as punishment (violating constitutional law).

      I also see these citizens placidly complying, but I'm afraid I'd be spending a night in jail. I will not comply with illegal orders from cops that violate my natural, innate rights to observe and report what I see in my own city

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcWFmGtsTxg - man arrested for taping in public area
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qdlkKsyZY5w - woman arrested for posting video taken *inside* her own home
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQvHWgaVACE - another wrongful arrest
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NASIcf-LCyM - I can't find the original video but this guy was arrested for using a camera in a public hallway - the same thing local news shows do every, single, day.
      and on
      and on
      and on
      Why is it necessary to record the police? So you can document abuses like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XMB6L487LHM - Young man detained, refused right to travel, and interrogated because "you're carrying too much cash" ($4000). Last I checked it's not illegal to carry money from St. Louis to Arlington Virginia.

      --
      "I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it." - historian Evelyn Beatrice Hall
    3. Re:In that case... by dgatwood · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What pray-tell, directly disadvantages the average citizen if they were to be watched at all times?

      Simple. There are many things that are not illegal but are still problematic.

      Your wife wants to know why you have been getting home so late every night. She checks the cameras at your office and sees you drive out at 5:00, then park in front of a pay-by-the-hour hotel and meet a woman who is old enough to be your daughter.

      Your boss asks why you were late to work. You tell him or her that traffic was bad. Your boss looks at the traffic records and sees that you left home late because you overslept.

      You have a car accident because someone pulls out in front of you. The accident is not caught on tape, but about half a minute earlier, you are caught on tape traveling over the speed limit. The person who pulled out in front of you manages to get you blamed for the wreck even though you were not speeding at the time.

      You are a pizza delivery boy. You deliver a pizza to the house of a mob informant. The mob informant is later found dead. The only person seen on video approaching the house (from the front) is you. There are no cameras pointing to the back of the house and no signs of forced entry. Guess who gets charged.

      Someone gets murdered in a neighborhood along your drive to work. The neighbors see a person who vaguely matches your description get into a white minivan of unknown make. You also drive a white minivan. You happen to drive past a security camera that puts you a block away from the scene of the crime shortly afterwards, traveling away from the location of the crime. You have no connection with the victim, so you would not have been a suspect otherwise, but now the witnesses pick out your car in a lineup and they arrest you under suspicion of murder.

      Put simply, there's a reason that you have to have probable cause for searches and seizures. It is specifically to prevent people who are unlikely to have any association with the crime from being charged due to random circumstance. Cameras significantly increase the risk of random circumstantial evidence being available and being introduced.

      Also, the temptation is too great to use these sorts of technologies to try to have perfect prosecution of every crime down to the smallest infraction, which invariably causes serious harm to society. For example, in Eureka, CA, you aren't allowed to kiss a woman if you are wearing a mustache. There are tens or even hundreds of thousands of these silly laws on the books. Were it possible to record everybody doing everything, then everyone would have record of these pointless crimes. Make the wrong person mad and suddenly they can abuse that to fine you $150 for picking up litter in a national forest in New Hampshire... or worse, fine you for driving your car on a Sunday. (Apparently, operating machinery on a Sunday is illegal in New Hampshire.)

      And surveillance doesn't generally prevent crime. It just shifts it to some other place that isn't being watched so carefully. It's just like burglar alarms. They don't prevent people from breaking into houses. They just cause people to break into other people's houses. Unless they are ubiquitous, they are useless, and if they are ubiquitous, they are also prone to abuse.

      Finally, people tend to act in ways that mimic how they are expected to act. If you treat people like they are law-abiding citizens, most non-sociopaths will behave accordingly. If you treat people like criminals, a fair number of people without any natural criminal tendency will tend to act the part. Don't believe me? Check out the Stanford prison experiment. Thus, a surveillance society is likely to result in a higher crime rate in the long run, not a lower rate.

      --

      Check out my sci-fi/humor trilogy at PatriotsBooks.

  3. Smash em. by h4rm0ny · · Score: 4, Insightful


    You were at your finest when you told us (Brits) where to stick it. You seem to have lost your way a bit since, unfortunately. You should try and rediscover that spirit and turf out the current lot of people trying to control your lives. Don't be fooled into thinking because they say their your countrymen it makes a difference to whether or not they can tell you what to do. It all still comes down to what you're willing to stand for.

    --

    Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
    1. Re:Smash em. by h4rm0ny · · Score: 4, Insightful


      Your views are fine. Socialism can work well. Capitalism can also work well. But socialist, capitalist or anything else, we all agree that corruption is bad. What you have in the USA today is a debased form of capitalism. What's capitalist about giving enormous amounts of public money to the banks for example? Nothing. The manipulations the federal reserve engages in... You're better off with a low-corruption government that carries out socialist policies than you are with a corrupt "capitalist" one. Because the more it is corrupt, the less it is a model of a workable system (socialism or capitalism) and the more it is a model of redirecting wealth to the powerful. Whatever your preference for economic structuring, you need to clean house. It's true here in the UK and I think it's true in the USA also. And to do this, we need to first make sure we have the power to do so and by preventing the corrupt from having too much power over us.

      Then you're free to build a capitalist utopia. (I recommend yoinking a socialist health care model, though. You're paying through the nose with your insurance based model).

      --

      Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
  4. Re:That's what you get with corrupt democrats... by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Although if I lived in Chicago, I would probably welcome greater surveillance as a deterrent to violent crime.

    Might prove cheaper and more effective to end their obnoxious and unconstitutional ban on private handgun ownership.

    Just sayin'

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  5. Re:That's what you get with corrupt democrats... by Shakrai · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Try the 2nd and 14th amendments of the United States Constitution.

    --
    I want peace on earth and goodwill toward man.
    We are the United States Government! We don't do that sort of thing.
  6. Re:Public Disclosure? by Chad+Birch · · Score: 4, Informative

    The band was The Get Out Clause, that's a link to an article about it. And the music video in question.

    --
    Sturgeon was an optimist.
  7. Re:That's what you get with corrupt democrats... by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 4, Informative

    The second amendment is about militia members having the right to bear arms.

    The Supreme Court of the United States disagrees.

  8. Re:That's what you get with corrupt democrats... by IonOtter · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Point being, we have very little violent crime.

    Yes, but you have man-eating grizzly bears, crazy maverick lipstick pigs, 10 months of winter and 2 months of cold weather. None of the criminals are desperate enough to live there.

    --
    [End Of Line]
  9. Re:That's what you get with corrupt democrats... by element-o.p. · · Score: 5, Insightful

    That is one interpretation of the 2nd Amendment, and since it supports the (corrupt) politicians' agenda (pacify the masses while hoarding as much wealth and power as possible), it is the currently supported interpretation. Needless to say, it is not the interpretation I believe the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Bill of Rights. Allow me to explain.

    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.

    Yes, the 2nd Amendment does, in fact, state that a "well regulated militia" is the justification for this Amendment, but keep in mind that this was a radical concept when it was written. As well as stating the right they wanted to grant, they also included their justification for granting this right to the people. They then state that this militia is "necessary to the security of a free State." Consider for a moment what environment this amendment was written in: the framers of the Constitution were essentially planning treason against the Crown. Without the right to own firearms, there would have been no Revolutionary War because the only people that could possibly have fought would have been the British Army....makes for a very short Revolution, don't you think? To them, it was essential that free men have the right to keep and own weapons so that the people could replace the government when/if it became corrupt or oppressive, just like they did. Unfortunately, after 200 years, we have decided this only means that it is necessary to have a military force to protect the nation from foreign invaders, which is, of course, exactly what our politicians want.

    The text of the 2nd Amendment continues, "...the right of the people to keep and bear Arms..." Not "the Army" nor even "the Militia", but the people. This is about as clear as it can get: this right is explicitly granted to the people of the United States of America. Seems to me if Washington and Jefferson and Franklin, etc., had intended this only to apply to militia members, they would have said, "...the right of the MILITIA to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."

    What part of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed" is so difficult for people to understand?!?!?!

    --
    MCSE? No, sir...I don't do Windows. Yes, I am an idealist. What's your point?
  10. Re:Crap by ArcadeNut · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Get Elected?

    --
    Visit the Arcade Restoration Workshop @ http://www.arcaderestoration.com
  11. Re:That's what you get with corrupt democrats... by podwich · · Score: 4, Insightful

    The Constitution guarantees the right to keep and bear arms, not the right to shoot an innocent child. There is a difference.

  12. Re:That's what you get with corrupt democrats... by theaveng · · Score: 4, Informative

    Not part of the Chicago machine? Um. Okay. Quoting USA Today:

    "Quit job as financial consultant to become community organizer [ACORN employee] in Chicago." "Illinois state Senate, 1997-2005" Nominated to Senate by Governor Blagosovi...Blagodji...Blagosive... the impeached governor.

    --
    FOX NEWS.com should be BANNED from television and internet. Have the Congress take it over and give us Truespeak.
  13. Re:city of big brother? by nacturation · · Score: 4, Funny

    Like its partner city Philadelphia, Chicago is the City of Big Brotherly Love.

    --
    Want to improve your Karma? Instead of "Post Anonymously", try the "Post Humously" option.