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Atlanta's Growing Video Surveillance System
McGruber writes "An Atlanta newspaper reports on the city's 'Video Integration Center,' which allows Atlanta's Police Department to control more than 100 public and private cameras. 'Officials say hundreds or thousands more private-sector cameras will eventually feed into the center.' According to the Atlanta Police Foundation, 'This is going to grow by leaps and bounds over the years. The goal, of course, is to have the entire city blanketed [with cameras].'"
I'm surprised surveillance networks like this aren't huge vandalism targets. Simple approaches come to mind, such as air rifles or paintball guns.
It seems like such a network would be easy to keep pretty much offline as it takes less time, effort, and expense to disable a camera than it takes to repair it.
Slay a dragon... over lunch!
And since the cameras are technically privately-owned, there's no need to worry about a warrant!
I guess that eventually one half of the population will be watching the other half....Actually, if you include YouTube, that might already be true.
"Excuse me sir. What do you do for a living?"
"I'm a professional voyeur!"
"Meaningless!, Meaningless!" says the Teacher. "Utterly meaningless!"
Read Orwell's 1984 if you don't understand how evil and dangerous this is. It is a really sad commentary on today's America that law enforcement officials no longer seem to be aware, much less actually care, about the principles of liberty that they trample on in the name of catching the bad guys or making our cities safer.
There are few places safer than a cattle ranch, if you happen to be cattle. Of course, they chop you into little pieces eventually, but up until then, you have few worries.
Open the camera control room to the public. They watch us, we watch them.
However, they must not be used to prosecute or investigate any crime or attempted crime other than serious assault, murder, and rape.
It should not be used to fine people for littering or even peeing.
White House Proposes "Wealthy Tax"
As I learned from the news here (Europe), this ensures that the 'wealthy' pay a little less less than the working class. You must admit that things cannot develop better, otherwise you would live in a communist state, would'nt you?
CC.
TaijiQuan (Huang, 5 loosenings)
It blows my mind that people think this is a good thing. Why are people so damn eager to give up freedoms, liberties and privacies? Why do people want to live under constant surveillance? Why are people so eager to be cattle led to slaughter? FFS, crap like this should be causing outrage and riots. Instead people are complacent and eager for it.
Atlanta is leading the charge in becoming London.
How's that working for London?
Michael Weston (Burn Notice) one used a bundle of laser pointers to burn out surveillance cameras. I suspect that would probably work very nicely in real life, too.
HA! I just wasted some of your bandwidth with a frivolous sig!
This is being construed as a job creator in the local news, actually, along with "making the streets safer". Brilliant. Amazing how repetitive the rhetoric of newscasters is when you actually listen instead of using it as background noise.
"People don't want to learn linux" hasn't been a valid excuse since '03.
Extremism doesn't help here.
Standing up for privacy where there is a reasonable expectation for privacy is entirely reasonable. People expect privacy in their homes. People expect their personal correspondence to be private (e.g. phone calls, letter mail, email). The same goes for things they stuff in their bags or cram onto their computers because whatever is inside forms a sort of private space. We see those boundaries to privacy being violated all of the time, and I think that most people would be supportive of protecting privacy in those spaces.
But the moment that you start screaming about privacy in places where there isn't a reasonable expectation for it, a lot of people just tune out. They will either assume that you are an antisocial nutbar, a paranoid nutcase, or a criminal. Streets, parks, transit, and businesses are places where you don't have a reasonable expectation for privacy because you are interacting or intermingling with other people. Most people recognize that, and behave accordingly.
So if you want to do everyone a favour, argue for privacy but do so on reasonable grounds. The moment you adopt an extremist position, you are fighting the battle for the other side because you will lose legitimacy in the eyes of the people who you are trying to persuade.
The only way to find out is to buy a $1000 wicked laser and go camera hunting. Of course, you risk blinding anyone in the area if they happen to be looking in that general direction.
"The city links the 1,500 cameras that police have placed in trouble spots with thousands more... Even home owners can contribute camera feeds....
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704538404574539910412824756.html
If you link your camera to the city "highly trained crime surveillance specialists will have access" ...
http://www.cityofchicago.org/city/en/depts/oem/provdrs/tech/svcs/link_your_cameras.html
IBM press release about it's Chicago's video analysis software that "detects suspicious activity and potential public safety concerns " ...
http://www-03.ibm.com/press/us/en/pressrelease/22385.wss
Personally I have to agree with that one, I am all for a public DVR database where anyone on the street can just pop in, cut to 3:53 corner of north main and broad street, and see exactly what happened. It even eliminates the cops 1/4th legitimate complaint of civilians filming them (cops claim the civilians may be cutting out the suspects attempts to attack or run before they use force), If the camera is opened to the public, then both the civilians and the cops adn judges can see the entirety of what happened. Unfortunately in general the right to pick only the evidence that helps their case and hide the portion that contradicts is something the police will always want to have exclusively in their hands.
Isn't it possible to burn out the sensor?
Yes... given the proper equipment.
http://www.wickedlasers.com/lasers/Spyder_III_Pro_Arctic_Series-96-37.html
Ahh, to have that given equipment.
-AI
For me, it is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion
Notice that people want crime stopped but will whine when they are the ones who might be caught. Think of not having to worry about your home or car being ruined, burgled, or tampered with. Think of schools being able to determine who threw the punch.
If there is a legitimate gripe it rests in the types of crimes that poor people commit falling to electronic detection while the crimes that the rich commit will usually not be detectable on film or in public areas. The rich man can still cheat on his taxes or alter his books for his business. What we may create is wealth being like a permit to commit crimes.
So if private feeds are coming in, what's to prevent a malicious private party from staging anything from a robbery to a murder and editing the footage to implicate their choice of targets and splicing said footage into the feed?
Other than tampering with evidence (and the actual crime), I doubt it would even be illegal since they own the feed.
There is a big difference between, you are in public nothing you do is private and you are in public you are under constant surveillance and the government can know where you are at any given time if it so desires.
Troll is not a replacement for I disagree.
Atlanta needs this to fight against Obama and his Socialist Army who are Destroying Business by supporting Corporations in a Secret Islamic Kenyan Plan devised by Fundamentalist Christian Preachers and carried out by ACORN. Why, without heavy surveillance, Yankees might invade, with their cynical insistence on PAYING for Government Services via TAXES imposed by FORCE, instead of the Patriotic Ideal of paying for debts by using funds Dedicated to those non-productive sick and retired citizens looking for the Free Ride they already paid for.
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!
Lasers in the 1 watt range DO work like that when they hit anything that isn't perfectly matte black. I am not talking about a keychain laser pointer. I am talking about a laser that poses an instantaneous blinding hazard to a range of dozens of kilometers on a direct hit and up to a kilometer from specular reflection.
*lightsaber
Infrared will blind you just as effectively as visible light lasers, and with visible light you can see the colored dot that tells you where you pointed it. If you can't aim at targets, you can't tell that you're hitting a target you weren't aiming at, and at least somebody who has a red dot show up on his chest knows to evade whoever's doing it.
I agree with you that bundles sound unlikely to be useful.
Bill Stewart
New Fast-Compression-only CPR http://preview.tinyurl.com/dy575ks
Here in a major US college town, there are frequent armed robberies of students as they walk home unaccompanied in the early hours of the morning, often on otherwise major routes for vehicles and pedestrians. This is happening within a mile of campus.
Whatever your view of these cameras, it's worth bearing in mind that such robberies are significantly less common in areas of the UK covered by cameras.
I think it's important to weigh just how much of an expectation of privacy you have when walking on a public street (it's okay for Google to photograph it for maps, but not the police for public safety?) and also consider the potential benefits.
Personally, I have little objection to police monitored CCTV. I think the real concerns are things like automated facial recognition and data retention policies. So I don't object to the police using the video to watch for robberies as they occur or returning to video after an incident for evidence. I do object to any use of the database to profile where people are walking or to monitor and/or track people as they move about.
Yes,
But he has a point. As is often noted here, everyone is a criminal if only for the sheer number of laws and a basic inability to track all of them. I forget where, but it is illegal to chew gum on Sundays (some township in Georga, IIRC). Cameras everywhere is open to being used as a dragnet, which while not strictly violating the 4th amendment, certainly violates the spirit as written by the founding fathers. The fastest recording media for images was a hand drawn sketch, which took minutes, while a nice color painting would take days. They likely couldn't even fathom a still camera, let alone a full motion video camera.
I understand that people tune out, but really, the idea of cameras covering all sorts of public places is repugnant to me.
At risk of falling down the slope (due to liberal greasing, making it slippery), private property cameras are ok. poorly patrolled moving objects (trains, busses) I sort of understand. Government buildings, while technically public property... maybe ok.
beyond that I really start to have a hard time accepting it.
Speed cameras, license plate tracking, red light cameras, street corner cameras, special event cameras on portable trailers.. not so much with the ok bit.
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I've been wanting to move down south for a while now and it's getting closer to becoming a reality. GA is still on the list, but I will not live or work in Atlanta after reading this, that much is for sure.
Possibly, this might increase the number of people within the prision system which is a slave labor workforce, capable of better global competition.
Only individual states can enforce a prisoner - labor force. The fed does not as far as I am aware. Most states these days just keep their prison's locked up night and day. Occasionally you will see a few on the road picking up trash, but even that is becoming a rarity. Most of the time, it's just people doing community service for some petty act like speeding.
You just described an overgrown, high tech Panopticon :)
Eighteenth century with a twist.
The argument is that of the balance between freedom and security, and that argument goes back a long way. When Moses (I don't really believe in the Bible, but I like to use this as an illustration) freed his peeps from slavery some of them wanted to go back. Obviously they would rather have security rather than freedom.
People high in government know this and they are very willing to promise us security in exchange for our freedoms. Erich Fromm wrote something about it in Escape from Freedom. People want to feel secure because they don't like the unknown.
All of which somehow manage to avoid taping an officer of the law performing his duties. Funny how that works, isn't it?
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
There is a reason I got a CCW and carry in Atlanta.
Orwell was an optimist.
if this is such a great idea then they should have cops wear cameras that boardcast to a repository they cannot tamper with and the public can request video of for court cases and other uses. I mean, there is no reason a cop would object to this as a public servant right?
In the pre-surveillance society you might not have had an expectation of privacy in public areas but you also knew the odds were against being observed by authorities. It was a situation of balance in which people generally had a moderate amount of de facto privacy.
Now we are talking about a situation where there will be zero chance of privacy because any place not specifically denoted as "private" will be 100% monitored.
I think the two situations are significantly different and so I do not consider people complaining about this as an invasion of privacy to be taking an extremist position. However 24/7 surveillance of any place not specifically designated "private" is something I do find extremist along with those that defend it.
The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny - Aesop
Except that police organizations and government entities have shown a troubling propensity for violating the rights we are SUPPOSED to have in public. Cameras will allow them even more ability to infringe on the rights of the average citizen (even if that citizen isn't using them... yet). It's not about JUST expectation of privacy, I'll give you that side of it, it's the fight for stopping them from hemming in on other rights, like the right to assemble peacefully.
-
If they put more of these cameras on the Interstates in that city they would have to hold court in every Chic Filet & Waffle House available for all the road-ragers they caught. Part of me is disgusted by this because it reminds me of the kind of stories I read about London and it's network of cameras. The other part of me remembers living in Atlanta for several years, both before and after the '96 Olympics, and how the city is now filled with degenerate scum who will drain the life out of every situation they can sink their suck-pipes into. This includes much of the Elect. Atlanta is a nice place, geographically speaking, as long as it isn't tornado season and you live in Alabama. If you ever visit, for the love of Jesus H Fucking Christ stay away from Underground. The city had to zip-tie bike racks together along the curbs to herd the human cows and keep them from owning the streets entirely with their complete disregard for everything that living in a home should have taught them by the time they were 7 years old. That place is almost a total shit-hole. People from New York, Chicago & other shit-holes like to brag about how Atlanta wishes it was a real city, but the fact is Atlanta is just like every fucked up story you ever read about those places anyway. Dream on, dipshits. Your life is third-world hell & you voted for your own overlords.
If you lend someone $20 and never see that person again, it was probably worth it.
It's my opinion, that people who are against video cameras have never been assaulted on the street.
"If you experienced X, you would understand and agree with my position!"
That's a mere assumption. I don't agree with going to any lengths just to catch a few criminals (maybe).
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
Dude- that guy taking pictures of those kids in a park would get you arguing for privacy in a heart beat.
It didn't until that stupid pedophile scare started.
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Track any protests or civil unrest so they are easier to suppress.
Isn't it the point of a protest to be noticed by the government? Would anyone sane protest in secret?
Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
Abolishing the public police would be good for the liberty and economics of this country.
What's more to say?
If you really want to see how eager people are to give up their freedoms, have a look at this link on a bike forum:
http://londonbikers.com/forums/871716/the-intruder-killed-in-manchester
Regular people there are arguing that it is the right thing to do to keep DNA of innocent people on file forever if they are arrested (not charged).
They're arguing that you should always arrest someone who acts in self defence just to be sure that they really were defending themselves and not a murder.
They're arguing that being arrested has no consequences on a person and that governments would never use information beyond the scope it was originally collected under.
It boggles my mind!
I never understood why Americans think that recording policeman is a civil right but if a policeman records you it's a violation of privacy.
Track any protests or civil unrest so they are easier to suppress.
Isn't it the point of a protest to be noticed by the government? Would anyone sane protest in secret?
We're pretty big on anonymous protest here on slashdot. The advantage is that, if you're good enough with computers, you won't get caught. The disadvantage is that you might as well piss up a wall on a hot summer's night and wonder why the stain's gone in the morning.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
Possibly, this might increase the number of people within the prision system which is a slave labor workforce, capable of better global competition.
With any luck the US will have the global market for mail bags
* puts on sunglasses *
all sewn up.
YYEEEEEEAAAAAAHHHHHH.
To have a right to do a thing is not at all the same as to be right in doing it
These cameras will be a valuable tool for police response to crime, as well as the city's response to trouble areas(traffic and the like). Still, these cameras will not stop criminal activity, but the citizens of Atlanta, and the whole State of Georgia already have a very important tool at their disposal: Firearms. There are a number of citizens to carry firearms, both openly and concealed. This is legal(though it should be required of all law-abiding citizens), by way of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution, and the Georgia Constitution. Also, since Georgia as preemption statutes in the O.C.G.A, no city/county government can pass more strict laws on firearm ownership, use, and/or carry.
While some here might disagree with citizens carrying and/or owning firearms, it is important to respect the citizen's right to do so. A properly trained and armed citizen can do far more good than all of those cameras, or any reactive agency(which, after all, that is what the police are: Reactive). Still, I do believe these cameras will have good uses, as long as those uses are not abused.
Reaction to criminal activity, or to accidents, can only benefit the Atlanta area. Regardless, I do have to wonder about the intelligence of such an undertaking. There are other, more pressing issues that Atlanta needs to undertake.
The roads in Atlanta are horrible. So many potholes, cracks in the asphalt, bridges that need repair, and so many other, more important issues, that should be taken up prior to installing more cameras. I have lost the use, or ability to repair, of two, brand new tires while driving in downtown Atlanta, over the past four months alone.
Why, without heavy surveillance, Yankees might invade,
I guess you've never been to Atlanta. The Yankees invaded years ago. I'd wager there are more folks from the NE in Atlanta than people that were actually born in the Atlanta metro area. And they all bitch about how much better it is in NY et al. Never understood that one. Yankee go home! ;-)
At night I drink myself to sleep and pretend I don't care that you're not here with me
ROFL I live here. I came here to make money short term and never left; I'm a "carpetbagger". I also despair when I go to anyplace outside of Little 5 Points bars; the self-contradictory nonsense I hear makes me cringe. Outside of that it's pretty nice though. I tease my buddies up north that they should come down here and live in the land of the second amendment all the time - I really appreciate the gun laws here; a breath of fresh air compared to NJ! The only thing I don't like is that people don't seem as up front as they are in the north; they'll act like your buddy to your face and badmouth you as soon as your back is turned. I was also never burglarized up north, unlike here - but that is likely more due to luck than anything else. Housing is GREAT; I never thought I'd own my own house lock, stock and barrel before I retired, but here I am! I didn't have to (entirely) give up winter, either, and it's a lot less humid than 'Jersey in the summer. I griped a lot until I made some friends I could trust, but once I did, I have to admit this is a great place to live!
Paranoia is a Survival Trait!