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NYC Police Comm'r: Privacy Is 'Off the Table' After Boston Bombs

An anonymous reader writes "New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly thinks that now is a great time to install even more surveillance cameras hither and yon around the Big Apple. After the Boston Marathon bombing, the Tsarnaev brothers were famously captured on security camera footage and thereby identified. That just may soften up Americans to the idea of the all-seeing glass eye. 'I think the privacy issue has really been taken off the table,' Kelly gloats."

508 comments

  1. Who watches the watchers.... by gandhi_2 · · Score: 5, Funny

    ... drinking big gulp sugary drinks?

    1. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Spy+Handler · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Google glass-wearing hipster overlords will watch them.

      Another thought: if every citizen walking around is wearing his own personal camera and recording everything, and nobody has access to the recording but the owner, maybe we don't need police surveillance cameras everywhere. In a clear case of public danger such as the Boston marathon bombing, citizens will be glad to provide their footage to the police. Otherwise they can refuse to hand it over to anyone.

    2. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by camperdave · · Score: 2

      Who watches the watchers?

      I really hate this question. It implies that there is a hierarchy of watchers needed, and the upper layers also need watching. This simply isn't so. What you do is have a mesh of watchers, watching both the field cameras and other watchers. For example, Watcher Abrams watches Camera A and Watcher Brown. Watcher Brown watches Camera B and Watcher Cooper. Watcher Cooper watches Camera C and Watcher Abrams. For larger groups, you could have a random mesh that switches between watchers and field cameras, so that the same people don't wind up watching the same things day in and day out. Further, with a random mesh, a watcher wouldn't know if he or she was being watched, or by whom.

      --
      When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
    3. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Watchers watch the watchers.

    4. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Who watches the watchers?

      I really hate this question.

      I bet you do. People who ask that question want to see to it that you have less state cock to suck.

    5. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Plus the feds can then legally get the data from google cloud storage without a warrant via national security letter, and quickly filter based on the geotagged and timestamped metadata...

      (sigh)

    6. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Watcher Abrams: "Watcher Brown. I saw that thing you did. You know what I'm talking about. I don't need to elaborate."
      Watcher Brown: "You know about that? Fuck me... are you going to turn me in?"
      Watcher Abrams: "Now, that all depends. See, I've got this nosy Watcher Cooper all up in my business. You, as it so happens, have some leeway on this topic..."

      See, this is going nowhere good.

    7. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      Who watches watcher watchers watch watchers watch?

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    8. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Speak not the Watchers.
      Draw not the Watchers.
      Write not the Watchers.
      Sculpt not the Watchers.
      Sing not the Watchers.
      Call not the Watchers' name.

    9. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
    10. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by jafac · · Score: 1

      . . . or citizens will be glad to provide their footage to 4chan, in which case, Anonymous will take it from there.

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    11. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Maritz · · Score: 1

      Yeah like those three DPRK guards who sit at that weird ceremonial border place between North and South Korea. They watch each other, to minimise the risk of one of them charging for the SK side. The SK guards just watch the North. They don't need to watch each other, for reasons that are probably obvious to anyone except DPRK propagandists.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    12. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Maritz · · Score: 1

      You should've read the rest of what he said. Now you just look like a stupid, ignorant ass.

      --
      I do not want your cheap brainburning drugs. They are useless for work. And I am a working man today.
    13. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are NYPD cops still going to assault and kidnap people who record them?

    14. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Da5id+H. · · Score: 1

      "Gargoyles are no fun to talk to. They never finish a sentence. They are adrift in a laser-drawn world, scanning retinas in all directions, doing background checks on everyone within a thousand yards, seeing everything in visual light, infrared, millimeter-wave radar, and ultrasound all at once. You think they’re talking to you, but they’re actually poring over the credit record of some stranger on the other side of the room, or identifying the make and model of airplanes flying overhead. For all he knows, Lagos is standing there measuring the length of Hiro’s cock through his trousers while they pretend to make conversation."

    15. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Eggplant62 · · Score: 1

      This just reinforces my belief that I'm living on a prison planet. We're one step away from oligarchic totalitarianism.

    16. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by aztracker1 · · Score: 1

      Are you now, or have you ever been associated with the communist party?

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    17. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... we don't need police surveillance cameras everywhere.

      Of course we do. You're the criminal, so we need to watch you. The false news debacle with the Boston bombing indicated the inadequacy of crowd-sourced surveillance. The police need a guaranteed supply of 'intelligence', which is free of populist group-think.

      ... Otherwise they can refuse to hand it over to anyone. ...

      Otherwise they can be imprisoned for upholding their principles. The government has guns for a reason. In most countries, civilian gun ownership is severely limited. This and the existence of a two-party political system means the government has little fear of its citizens.

    18. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... a random mesh that switches between watchers and field cameras ...

      We have it: It's called the phone-carrying general public. Those phones make police surveillance of an individual easy but the camera function can be used on anyone. The watchers don't like surveillance technology being used on them.

    19. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by hacker · · Score: 1

      You do realize that recording public officials, law enforcement and the like is going to land you in jail, right? Actually, it's already been demonstrated, when a black teen recorded a police officer publicly harassing and beating another black teen. So the one who got 8 months in jail and is facing 7 YEARS in prison? Not the 15 year old behind the police officer's baton, but the one who RECORDED the event with his camera phone.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g1e9Htc6FMY

      When it becomes legal and admissible evidence for an officer to bring in his dash camera footage, but ILLEGAL for a citizen to record an officer breaking the law, what have we become as a society? Seriously. This stuff is happening NOW.

      And it scares the bejezzus out of me, and thousands of my compatriots.

      Here's another of a fan running on a field, the cops chase him down, start beating him up ON THE FIELD in front of thousands of fans, when the fans storm onto the field and beat the crap out of the cops.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rBfEh4aBt1g

      With Google Glass, how soon before cops start smashing your $1,500 device, or shatter your phone, to prevent any evidence of their wrongdoing?

    20. Re:Who watches the watchers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Given the number of crooked cops, especially in NYPD, I believe the Commissioner's plan should be implemented at once. Every NYPD officer should have a birdseye camera in every room in their premises, in their personal and duty vehicles, and on a locked necklace that can only be removed using two official keys, after documenting the reason for and duration of removal.

      This will record all their activities, increase public confidence, and reduce police corruption. For the children.

      In this day and age it is necessary, and only a criminal with something to hide would object.

  2. no problem by zlives · · Score: 5, Insightful

    as long as camera's are also installed inside police department in every office and interrogation room and are completely accessible by public.
      'I think the privacy issue has really been taken off the table,'

    1. Re:no problem by macbeth66 · · Score: 1

      If I ever get arrested for something, I certainly do not want people to be able to bring up the video. Now, if you said that the videos were to be stored somewhere the police have no access, perhaps the Consumer Advocate's Office, I agree with you 100%. That way, the video is available should the police do something they should not be doing.

    2. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Personally, I'm more for "as long as they are limited to public spaces only, and can be monitored by citizens."

    3. Re:no problem by Joce640k · · Score: 1

      Question: Would more cameras have *prevented* the bombing? Because that's the only acceptable reason.

      Most of the photos used to identify them were taken by the public.

      --
      No sig today...
    4. Re:no problem by Opportunist · · Score: 2

      No, sorry. Making it mutual doesn't make it any better. My privacy is mine, taking it away because of a bombing where three people died is ridiculous. That's a tiny fraction of violent deaths in halfway decently sized towns.

      If that's the reason for more invasion in privacy, then sorry, commissioner, but I'm far from convinced. I'd rather die in my boots than live on my knees. And your country was founded by people who thought exactly that, or they wouldn't have started the rebellion in the first place.

      If anything, commissioner, you're a disgrace for your position and what it stands for.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:no problem by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Question: Would putting everyone in handcuffs when they leave their homes have prevented the bombing? Because that's the only acceptable reason.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    6. Re:no problem by geekoid · · Score: 3, Insightful

      You have no privacy in public spaces.

      So pitting camera in PUBLIC space is, by definition NOT an invasion of privacy.

      If you argument was that it has a chilling effect on normal public discourse, I would agree. The privacy argument? it's just stupid.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:no problem by datavirtue · · Score: 1

      Kind of sensationalistic on their part, they were caught AFTER the fact. Big Deal. They get a reckoning with the state, and maybe a some justice is served but the reason for the cameras is really deterrence.

      --
      I object to power without constructive purpose. --Spock
    8. Re:no problem by Hognoxious · · Score: 1, Insightful

      Question: Would more cameras have *prevented* the bombing?

      It did prevent it.

      You're referring to the one in Time Square that these fine peace-loving immigrants were planning to do next, I assume?

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    9. Re:no problem by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 2

      The point is that any argument against recording the police is equally applicable to recording the rest of us. There might be people who use videos of the police to do harm? There are police officers who will use videos of the public to do harm. The police might have valuable information that should not be made public? We have valuable information that we cannot trust the police with.

      As always, the NYPD wants to have special privileges that the rest of NYC does not have.

      --
      Palm trees and 8
    10. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      In the interrogation room? That might interfere with the defendant's right to a fair trial will be the objection from the defendant: the interrogating officer.

    11. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The cameras prevented the next bombing - the bombers were taken because of camera footage. They did not get the chance to be serial killers.

    12. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are assuming that the police only ever arrest criminals.

    13. Re:no problem by Hognoxious · · Score: 1, Funny

      I'd rather die in my boots than live on my knees.

      Excellent choice of words there. But like most internet tough guys you've never been in anything worse than a schoolyard punch-up, and until you have it's all big talk.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    14. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Question: Would more cameras have *prevented* the bombing? Because that's the only acceptable reason.

      Most of the photos used to identify them were taken by the public.

      It prevented further bombings. And with definitive evidence as to the bombers' identities figured out quickly by trained individuals who actually know what they're doing, it also held off a witch hunt long enough to catch the real bombers without losing anyone a bunch of bored anonymous teens thought would be amusing to watch die at the hands of a frothing mob.

      Sorry the world isn't so cartoonishly simple and can't be viewed in terms of "either this immediately leads to a flawless utopia or it's not worth even thinking about", but sometimes the only thing you can do is prevent an unpredictable problem from getting worse.

    15. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They were caught before the Times Square bombing, and would not have been if not for all the cameras all around us.

      Idiots bleating about privacy in public spaces are a waste of all our time. Let me know when the government installs cameras inside people's homes.

    16. Re:no problem by rickb928 · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So batting .500 is acceptable.

      Ok. just trying to understand the expectation here. If I tolerate the expansion of surveillance, I can hope to be the second target for a group. If I'm the first, well, my sacrifice may be someone else's salvation.

      Ah yes, the difference between prevention and prosecution. Is this worth the infringement? I vote no, come back with a prevention plan.

      But I live and work in the Phoenix area, and we don't expect the Muslims to bomb us. Look for the illegal immigration advocates to do that here, more likely, though so far they have avoided such overt violence.

      And keep the flames coming. We're used to the heat.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    17. Re:no problem by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 2

      If I ever get arrested for something, I certainly do not want people to be able to bring up the video.

      You would if you were innocent.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    18. Re:no problem by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      as long as camera's are also installed inside police department in every office and interrogation room and are completely accessible by public.

      Why? No-one's proposing to put cameras in your home or office. They're proposing cameras in public places where people can already publicly gather and watch things with their eyes. Planning to do something you don't want people to know about? There are plenty of places more suitable than the middle of Times Square - with or without cameras.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    19. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You could just as easily argue that a guy puffing on a cig in his backyard stopped the potential for attack in NYC. At any rate, was it not a camera belonging to a spectator that was ultimately responsible for the photo which best helped in identifying them?

    20. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What if the video could have exonerated you? Assuming here that you're not actually a career criminal objecting to the increased risk of getting caught...

    21. Re:no problem by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      Did you miss the bit about them planning further attacks? Protip: criminals only commit more crimes if they don't get caught the first time!

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
    22. Re:no problem by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      "the reason for the cameras is really deterrence."

      And how is that working? I think it is not.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    23. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure if ignorant, innocent or willfully stupid.

      Could be all three?

    24. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Insightful

      If I ever get arrested for something, I certainly do not want people to be able to bring up the video.

      I was arrested for drunken driving. The video of my arrest is public record and I'm glad that's true. My lawyer said I didn't look drunk. He's seen plenty of these tapes. Turns out I was over the limit and the DA refused to plea bargain, so I got jail time for my first offense. A couple years later, that asshole DA was drunken driving. She was totally wasted. She had a bottle of vodka on the passenger seat. She argued with the cop. The video is public record. She refuses to step down from office. Even with the light of day, justice is hard to find, but it would be worse if we hide it.

    25. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Defendants still have a right to a fair trial? I thought they were just declared enemy combatants and shipped off to Cuba nowadays.

    26. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I was thinking "Oh really? As long as 'the privacy issues has really been taken off the table', I guess someone can follow you around all day in public spaces taking your picture." And if police stop the photographer and ask why they are following the police commissioner around all the time and taking pictures so avidly, the photographer can say "Haven't you heard? Privacy issues have been taken off the table."

    27. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      as long as camera's are also installed inside police department in every office and interrogation room and are completely accessible by public.
          'I think the privacy issue has really been taken off the table,'

      An ill thought out knee jerk reaction. You might not think that police deserve privacy in offices and interview rooms, but members of the public, be they witnesses or suspects that have not yet been convicted, certainly do.

    28. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You are assuming the GP didn't write a second sentence.

    29. Re:no problem by Sloppy · · Score: 1

      Maybe one way to look at it, is that if the people don't deploy cameras, then the government will.

      --
      As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
    30. Re:no problem by Obfuscant · · Score: 2

      We have valuable information that we cannot trust the police with.

      Then do not stand on a public street displaying it to the rest of the world.

    31. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      An average person in the U.S. commit about five hundred felonies without them even knowing about it.

      http://www.harveysilverglate.com/TheSilvergLatest.aspx

    32. Re:no problem by Simply+Curious · · Score: 2

      Privacy vs. no privacy is a false dichotomy. In my own home, I can reasonably expect that no one will observe me. On a podium in front of a crown, I can reasonably expect that everyone will observe me. Walking down the street, I can reasonably expect that people will see me, notice me, but that I will be one of many, unrecognized other than by those who directly know me. It is this last expectation that is violated by omnipresent cameras.

    33. Re:no problem by lgw · · Score: 5, Interesting

      You have no privacy in public spaces.

      So pitting camera in PUBLIC space is, by definition NOT an invasion of privacy

      Bullshit. I can expect plenty of privacy in public places. I can expect anything I do that's not too attention-getting to be ignored and forgotten. Only children think in terms of absolutes: "it's not absolutely private so it must be absolutely public".

      There's a huge loss in privacy between having a searchable archive of ubiquitous surveillance, and what people normally see and remember. Privacy is valuable, because it's an important part of dignity. I'm not going to give up any privacy without getting a large and proven increase in security, and maybe not even then.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    34. Re:no problem by lgw · · Score: 2

      Well, I've never been shot, but I have been mugged, robbed, and assaulted multiple times, and I say I'm not giving up privacy for some illusion of security!

      Cameras help the government control the innocent, and do almost nothing to reduce violent crime (they do move it around a bit).

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    35. Re:no problem by jedidiah · · Score: 1

      The second sentence doesn't matter. If you can't access the video then it's existence is moot. That means that survellance has to be public and realtime. Otherwise no one is ever going to be able to see it. There will simply never be an audit. Tapes will be mysteriously lost or redacted for whatever excuse is popular.

      --
      A Pirate and a Puritan look the same on a balance sheet.
    36. Re:no problem by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      There are plenty of places more suitable

      Are there? "Public" is 99.99% of our world. And government doesn't actually recognize that .01%, as their warrantless surveillance programs and door-to-door searches show. It's also far from clear that public cameras are of much use, while cameras inside Tsarnaevs house were exactly what was needed...

    37. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      I wouldn't. Being arrested can still be embarrassing, even if there is no conviction.

      If I were have a complaint about police behaviour, then *I* would want access to the video. I still wouldn't want it publicly available unless I chose to make it so.

      If I were to be a witness to someone else's crime, I'd be even less keen on video evidence of who I blabbed on to be available on the internet.

    38. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Strange. You seem to be angry at someone else for doing the same thing you'd already done.

    39. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We have valuable information that we cannot trust the police with.

      Then do not stand on a public street displaying it to the rest of the world.

      Trying paying attention to the post he replied to, he's not making that argument he's saying that if the police are allowed to make that argument, then we should be able to do so as well.

    40. Re:no problem by synapse7 · · Score: 1

      Wasn't there enough basic "red flags" thrown to catch these guys based on systems that already exist? If we can't make use of the current systems how are thousand of video feeds going to help. Seems to me we need to be more thorough about monitoring the systems in place.

    41. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Walking down the street, I can reasonably expect that people will see me, notice me, but that I will be one of many, unrecognized other than by those who directly know me. It is this last expectation that is violated by omnipresent cameras.

      No it's not. You'll still be one of many, unrecognised by anyone that doesn't know you. If you're talking about mass facial recognition systems such as have been installed in some airports. Latest news is they don't work as advertised, and are just one more element of security theatre. And unless you were already a suspect you wouldn't be on the match database anyway.

    42. Re:no problem by Teun · · Score: 2
      The drunk one I saw in Houston did not need to argue with the police, even though she was hardly able to stand up in the line waiting for their car outside the nightclub.

      When her Porsche turned up the Cop for Hire helped her behind the wheel and was clearly heard as he told her "Now you stay between the white lines".

      That night a video would have been nice for road safety.

      --
      "The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
    43. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Bullshit. I can expect plenty of privacy in public places. I can expect anything I do that's not too attention-getting to be ignored and forgotten.

      No, you can only hope for that. And in these days of commercial CCTV, mobile phones and dashcams, you'll likely have your image captured anyway.

      There's a huge loss in privacy between having a searchable archive of ubiquitous surveillance

      Searchable? How do you propose searching it? Mass facial recognition systems don't work worth a damn.

    44. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No-one's proposing to put cameras in your home or office.

      Home... not yet. Office... yes actually many places already do that.

      They're proposing cameras in public places where people can already publicly gather and watch things with their eyes

      No, they're proposing blanketing the entire city with cameras so you can watch without being seen yourself.

      Yes, what you do in public shouldn't be considered private, but that's a lot different than saying you should be OK with people recording every last second you spend in view of the public. Most people who claim to be OK with nonstop observation will quickly change their tune the second a person they consider "undesirable" is the one watching them and following them around.

      The point is that the police do not have fundamental RIGHTS the same way a Citizen does- they are an agent of the State. If the people don't want the State to constantly observe them in public then they should not have to accept it. That is much different than trying to say that a private citizen can't do it.

      The thing that should bother you isn't even necessarily the cameras. It's the use of Fear as justification to put them in place.

    45. Re:no problem by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      If that response got any traction, I think it might backfire. They'll immediately steal our privacy, then quibble about the details of the flipside until everyone forgets about it or worse. I mean, filing a complaint on an officer gets you arrested, imagine what type of lists you'd be put on for registering to get access to the department video feeds. Which would likely be "offline" for the important parts anyway.

    46. Re:no problem by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      All I'm saying is that video taping cops behavior during arrests CAN HELP YOU, it can almost never hurt you. Anybody looking for your arrest record can find it by association: http://www.ehow.com/how_5660993_public-arrest-information.html .

      Procedural violations, 3rd degree assault, lack of probable cause are all things that can straight up get the charges against you dropped. But when it's the cops word against yours, you'll probably lose even if you've never been arrested.

    47. Re:no problem by Synerg1y · · Score: 1

      Why would somebody video tape cops? What could their motive possibly be? If a video tapper sees you getting your ass beat by a pig, he'll ensure its available to you as a common interest item in your defense. Worst case scenario there's whole websites dedicated to this, I guess you'd have to notice your arrest getting video taped, but you can always look around online too.

      P.S.
      Your post past the first sentence doesn't make a shred of sense.

    48. Re:no problem by dgatwood · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The bombers were taken because of footage from cameras, most of which were owned by private individuals. Those cameras don't have the same privacy concerns as government-owned cameras because no single entity has access to all of them except under extreme circumstances where everyone universally agrees to make that footage available. And this is the way that it should continue to be done. This bombing provides no justification for any changes whatsoever. The system, as designed, with privacy built in, mostly worked.

      Incidentally, to the extent that the system did not completely work, it failed in a way that more cameras—particularly publicly accessible cameras—would exacerbate. If the public had access to more cameras, more often, we would have more incidences of false accusations like the one that led to the (presumed) suicide of Sunil Tripathi. The whole reason for limiting access to video from lots of different sources is that it greatly increases the probability of misidentification by greatly increasing the perceived confidence in the evidence (regardles of whether the public or police are doing that identification). Thus, the Boston bombing incident plainly demonstrates why the use of video evidence as a starting point, in the absence of other evidence tying someone to a crime, is an extreme solution that should be used only in extreme circumstances, where there is a serious public safety concern. Based on what happened here, IMO, giving the police access to more cameras more often is only likely to ruin a lot of innocent people's lives.

      Put another way, I think any question about Police Commissioner Ray Kelly's common sense has really been taken off the table.

      --

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

    49. Re:no problem by Lithdren · · Score: 1

      So do you support the notion that nobody should be allowed to take photo's in a public place then? What about a drawing? Can I draw what's happening in a public place?

      Just walking along, if I nab a picture of you, it's no longer forgotten. Same deal if I draw it, yet since it's a public place, i'd argue there are full rights to do such things in public. Unless of course you'd like to pass a law saying any recording of any public space is to now be illegal, but that doesn't seem to support your position any better.

      People shouldn't oppose this because its an invasion of privacy as the GP hinted at. People should be opposing this because it's wrong, and its not going to be used to 'prevent crime'. It's going to be used to prevent people from exercising their rights to protest, and organize in a peaceful group. Your thoughts on 'privacy' only work to confuse the issue enough to let this sort of garbage get through.

    50. Re:no problem by gmuslera · · Score: 3, Insightful

      So thats why police don't let you film them?

    51. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      In public spaces, there is generally no archived record of everything I do to be preserved for eternity. Even privately owned security camera footage is routinely overwritten. How comfortable would you be if there was a public record of every act you performed in a public space since the day you were born? People have short memories. Public records do not.

    52. Re:no problem by TubeSteak · · Score: 1

      You have no privacy in public spaces.

      So pitting camera in PUBLIC space is, by definition NOT an invasion of privacy.

      Would a police officer following you everywhere you go (in public) be an invasion of privacy?
      What if they did it for months?
      Without a warrant?
      Without suspicion?

      You've taken a very narrow view of what defines privacy.

      --
      [Fuck Beta]
      o0t!
    53. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Katz v. US

    54. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Good job missing the point.

    55. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Something something should do it something masturbate something long sentence with some capital letters.

    56. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have no privacy in public spaces.

      So pitting camera in PUBLIC space is, by definition NOT an invasion of privacy

      Bullshit. I can expect plenty of privacy in public places. I can expect anything I do that's not too attention-getting to be ignored and forgotten. Only children think in terms of absolutes: "it's not absolutely private so it must be absolutely public".

      Only children...and sith.

    57. Re:no problem by PoolOfThought · · Score: 1

      I can expect plenty of privacy in public places. I can expect anything I do that's not too attention-getting to be ignored and forgotten. Only children think in terms of absolutes: "it's not absolutely private so it must be absolutely public".

      I'm not sure if it was intentional or not, but I was absolutely amused by your "Only children think in terms of absolutes". Think about it. You use the word ONLY (which is by definition an ABSOLUTE word due to the limits it imposes) to belittle what you believed to be someone else's use of absolute thinking. Classic slashdot.

      And by the way, you were both right. You were just being too much of an ass to respect / take into account the fact that they were technically right (ignoring philosophical issues). You were approaching it from a completely different direction choosing to ignore the technical part (the facts / the truth) because you have issues with the philosophical issues.

      The fact remains that it's in public and therefore it has a chance of being public. You don't have any right to privacy there. You only have a desire to not be remembered and so far in your life that been the case. But having privacy and being unremembered are different things - I would think that anyone who wants to call people children (or insinuate that they think like a child) would be able to understand the difference.

      --
      My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
    58. Re:no problem by scot4875 · · Score: 2

      Mass facial recognition systems don't work worth a damn.

      Yet. Your argument seems to be, "because this doesn't work as well as we worry that it might, we should just allow it."

      --Jeremy

      --
      Jesus was a liberal
    59. Re:no problem by PoolOfThought · · Score: 1

      What about a private investigator doing the same thing? They don't need a warrant or suspicion. They just need payment from someone else who pays them to do it.

      You've taken an overly broad view of what we're talking about. The question is one of privacy expectations - and in public you get to have them.

      Please understand that this is coming from someone who wants it to be like you seem to think it ought to be. But I also understand words... and they mean what they mean, not what you want them to mean (most of the time).

      --
      My present is the activity I am currently engaged in with the purpose of turning the future into a better past.
    60. Re:no problem by jafac · · Score: 1

      Where we really need cameras are inside the nation's trading floors, boardrooms, and executive offices. /Libor

      --

      These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
    61. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have no privacy in public spaces.

      So pitting camera in PUBLIC space is, by definition NOT an invasion of privacy.

      So your saying that is OK to use a camera in public for upskirt shots or your wife, daughter, mother, sister, girlfriend, etc? NOW, your going to have some fun with this one.

      Stores claim it is for theft prevention, government claims it is for safety, but if a private citizen does it then it is stalking or worse. Bit of a double standard? It is not that there is no expectation of privacy in public, it is that it is being eroded as formerly mostly private public places are losing ground to population growth and worse by growth of government and the technology available to it for offering a false sense of security while destroying security by destroying privacy. Anything that blocks the view of eyes or cameras is a version of "security by obscurity" and that includes not being in the focal range of them as well. Sometimes "security by obscurity" is useful, like the thick curtains on a bathroom window.

    62. Re:no problem by Rakarra · · Score: 1

      Why would somebody video tape cops? What could their motive possibly be?

      Same reason they take videos of a parade, or a weird guy shouting, or their friend eating ice cream. People take video now of anything that they might consider the least bit interesting.

    63. Re:no problem by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      Because that's the only acceptable reason.

      I'd rather risk a bombing that have ubiquitous government surveillance.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    64. Re:no problem by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      Those cameras don't have the same privacy concerns as government-owned cameras because no single entity has access to all of them except under extreme circumstances where everyone universally agrees to make that footage available.

      I think this is a problem, though. The government seems to be increasingly outsourcing its spying efforts to various companies.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    65. Re:no problem by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      You have no privacy in public spaces.

      And the government isn't entitled to have cameras everywhere, and I do believe it's a terrible idea to allow them to have such a thing.

      But really, people have a fair bit more privacy in public places if there aren't cameras watching their every move. There are some degrees of privacy even in public places.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    66. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      I'm not really that worried that it might. On a mass scale the differences between faces is tiny. And vastly overcome by the random angles the face can be at, the flexibility of the face to change shape second to second and over time. That many wear hats, hoodies and scarves. That about 40% of the population paint their face every day. etc.

      Facial recognition may have a role in forensics, where technology is paired with human judgement, and comparisons are being made between a limited number of images. But on a mass scale it's just an element of security theatre, nothing more.

    67. Re:no problem by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      So do you support the notion that nobody should be allowed to take photo's in a public place then?

      Forbidding the government from putting cameras everywhere is different from disallowing citizens from taking pictures and such.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    68. Re:no problem by sabt-pestnu · · Score: 1

      > (presumed) suicide of Sunil Tripathi

      Odd that Sunil was http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/04/25/sunil-tripathi-body-found_n_3155595.html>reported missing March 16th, if his "suicide" was caused by the exposure over the bombing that occurred on April 18th.

      Sure, he was FOUND on the 23rd, so it is conceivable he committed suicide in reaction. But what was he doing between March 16 and April 32, aside from not going to class?

      I agree, though, that crowd sourcing and more public cameras will make it more likely that police will be able to find body-doubles for criminals more easily.

    69. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You have privacy in public spaces. Other civilians cannot force you to dump out your backpack/purse/pockets, they cannot tell you that you have to strip naked, they cannot demand access to your smartphone. This is privacy.

    70. Re:no problem by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      Yes, it's possible that it was not cause and effect. Either way, the point still stands that it is not a very good investigative technique, and should be used sparingly, because quite frankly most people look like someone else.

      Genetics are bit a like the birthday paradox. It typically takes only a couple of thousand people before you start to see people who bear an uncanny resemblance to someone else you have already seen. Spread that across 300 million people, and everyone in the U.S. likely has at least a kilodoppelgänger.

      --

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

    71. Re:no problem by excelsior_gr · · Score: 2

      Dear Mr Smith,

      we regret to inform you that we must increase your monthly health insurance fees by 50% since you were recorded smoking a cigarette outside Joe's Bar on April 12th. Also, you were recorded driving through McDonald's on April 15th, so we will have to bill you that dietician's visit we covered last month. And no skin-disease related treatments will be covered after April 20th, on which you were reportedly sunbathing continuously for 5 hours.

      Yours,

      Your insurance company.

    72. Re:no problem by Wookact · · Score: 1

      Doing the same thing, but getting a different punishment based upon who she was.
      You don't see how that is unfair?

    73. Re:no problem by Wookact · · Score: 1

      Your drivers license photo is in that database. Keep up here. That is well known and was publicized during the Boston incident.

    74. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      You're the one that's not keeping up. The more reference images it has, the less it works. And it doesn't work at the best of times. If it had everyone with a driver's license on it, it would be completely valueless.

      Note that no automated software identified any pictures of any terrorists at Boston. So much for "well known". You bought into the security theatre as if it was real.

    75. Re:no problem by idontgno · · Score: 1

      No problem. No one who's arrested is ever innocent, and no innocent person is ever arrested.

      At least at first, and as long as the arrest statistics and conviction rates stay up, who cares about later?

      --
      Welcome to the Panopticon. Used to be a prison, now it's your home.
    76. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You may expect that, but you'd be a fool to believe it's true.

      One more time: when in public, you should have no expectations of privacy.

      That's for your living room, bedroom (most of the time), and your backyard...until the drones come marching in.

    77. Re:no problem by Wookact · · Score: 1
      You said:

      And unless you were already a suspect you wouldn't be on the match database anyway.

      My contention is you are in the match database, and even if the current system cannot handle real time facial recognition, what makes you think it will not be able to accomplish that in a few short years.
      Ohh and this is not security theater, it is an attempt to trample rights. Security theater is the TSA, where even they dont intend to catch anyone.

    78. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Correct, there is no expectation of privacy in a public place. That being said, large dragnets of security cameras are a waste of money. In the UK, all they have done is push crime outside the view of the cameras, and as Boston showed, they did nothing to prevent the attack (which is what we are after isn't it?) but instead provided footage to help try and pin down the suspects.

    79. Re:no problem by kwbauer · · Score: 1

      That would make you the best hitter ever in MLB, so probably?

    80. Re:no problem by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      You're the one that's not keeping up. The more reference images it has, the less it works. And it doesn't work at the best of times.

      That would be rather surprising, seeing how, when I upload new photos to Google+, more often than not it auto-recognizes most faces on them based on older photos and just asks me to confirm that it did it right. It got better over time, too, so clearly having more photos to learn from improves the algorithm. If Google can do it, surely so can others.

    81. Re:no problem by JustOK · · Score: 1

      Tripathi was dead before the bombings took place.

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    82. Re:no problem by rickb928 · · Score: 1

      Homeland security is not baseball.

      --
      deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
    83. Re:no problem by sabt-pestnu · · Score: 1

      > because quite frankly most people look like someone else.

      In that, you, me, and the GP are in agreement. My only complaint was about the assumption of cause and effect.

    84. Re:no problem by Antique+Geekmeister · · Score: 1

      I remember fondly when the audio taps were being quietly installed at Dunkin Donuts. It was _amazing_ how police gathering for discussions over coffee on a cold night changed to be outside those cafes, or in the police cruisers.

              http://www.apnewsarchive.com/1994/Dunkin-Donuts-Advises-Franchisees-to-Stop-Audio-Surveillance/id-d7e29ace8f0cfdd8e4377e70ef26eff8

    85. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm none the wiser as to what you're trying to say with the bitcoin/libertarian sig. Whatever your point is there, I'm missing it. Not seeing (a) why bitcoin is libertarian (b) why it parts libertarians with their money.

    86. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Read it again. There are few differences. Concentrate.

    87. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      It's matching from the tiny number of people that are your contacts. And the photos are typically taken with the face looking in the direction of the camera, in good light, adopting their usual face that they use for photos (smiling, frowning).

      Trying to match from thousands to millions of reference photos, in widely varying light conditions, from all sorts of angles, especially from a high angle looking down, with people's faces pointing in any direction. It's not a soluble problem.

    88. Re:no problem by shutdown+-p+now · · Score: 1

      You have a point that it's a harder task (though with sufficiently many cameras, at least some of them would get "face looking in the direction of the camera in good light" shots). I will admit that I don't know about the feasibility of this today. But I don't think you can reasonably claim that "it's not a soluble problem". 20 years ago people would have said just that about many of the data mining techniques in use today.

    89. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      I know it's not soluble for this reason: The human brain is highly specialised at the task of recognising other people. Like many vision and AI based tasks it's in a different league to computer software. And even it has trouble identifying people from security cameras, even after a computer has filtered the most likely matches from a database.

    90. Re:no problem by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Privacy (from Latin: privatus "separated from the rest, deprived of something, esp. office, participation in the government", from privo "to deprive") is the ability of an individual or group to seclude themselves or information about themselves and thereby reveal themselves selectively.

      In "public" spaces, I choose to selectively reveal myself to the fallible memories of human beings, their imperfect ability to notice what's going on around them, and their imperfect ability to relate what they see to others not present. I do not choose to reveal myself to high resolution cameras with perfect memories whose video streams can be shown to anyone.

      Hence, by definition, I have privacy, even in "public" spaces.

      Taking away my abilty to do this, is taking away my privacy. At a minimum, I expect to have control over what can be done with the data on any cameras present (and who has access to it), unless, of course, I commit a crime and forfeit that right to the minimum extent neccesary for redress to occur.

      To be a crime, my behavior must be something that any reasonable society would consider a crime, not just a government whose laws are the result of a) entrenched corruption and b) a legal profession that refuses to act appropriately in situations involving ethical conflict of interest.

      I won't say your argument is stupid, as I'm too polite to do this. It is, however, misinformed.

    91. Re:no problem by cusco · · Score: 1

      If there had been more cameras and the public awareness of their presence the attackers would have disguised their appearance, so again, more cameras would have been counterproductive.

      Terrorists are stupid, not not total idiots. At least the successful ones.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    92. Re:no problem by cusco · · Score: 1

      Mass facial recognition systems don't work worth a damn.

      Yet. Five years ago cloud solutions didn't work worth a damn. Ten years ago virtual machines didn't work worth a damn. Today both are ubiquitous. Increased computing power, improved connectivity, and better algorithms make the pretty much inevitable.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    93. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Ahem. Before "Cloud solutions" there was "thin-client" before that there were mainframes and terminals. There's nothing particularly novel about putting computing power in a remote room with multiple CPUs and storage devices.

      And my DOS emulator on my late 1980s Atari ST was a virtual machine.

      There's nothing particularly hard about either of the things you mentioned. They are better now, as you mention because of better computing power and bandwidth. But there's no fundamentally insurmountable problem they had to overcome.

      There are problems that cannot be overcome. For example modern cryptography relies upon it.

      The fact is that once you get to a significant number of people - the people for which they have driving license photos for example - there are not enough differences amongst those people to make identifications, not when everything is changing, people's facial expression changes everything. Their angle to the camera changes everything. etc.

      The human brain is optimised for this particular task of identifying human faces from each other. And it can't do it at that scale either. Identifying one person out of a hundred is easy. Identifying out of millions via a photo. Not possible in the general case. Of course some people are unique enough to always be identified. But huge numbers are not.

    94. Re:no problem by cusco · · Score: 1

      I don't think you realize how truly awful the current facial recognition algorithms really are. While you're calibrating some of them they expose what the program is doing in the background, and it's pretty ugly. That's why they only work under the most limited of conditions, and not very well at that. That they work at all is sort of amazing.

      The human brain is optimised for this particular task

      Work is proceeding rather rapidly on figuring out how the brain does things like that, faster than I would have thought possible even a decade ago. The most promising subset of brain studies for this kind of work is figuring out how memory works in mammals, and they're quite far along in that research.

      Identifying out of millions via a photo. Not possible in the general case.

      I don't think you would do it like that, it's unlikely that they'll ever attempt to know the name of every person who walked through Times Square on a Friday afternoon. Far more likely is that they'll either want to see where one or a few known individuals went, tracking or locating them through multiple cameras, or they'll want to identify a person or person from among many. The latter case is more difficult, but not insurmountable. Take the guys blamed for the Boston attack for example. You can immediately discard everyone who is in a wheelchair, everyone who is known to be in prison at that moment, everyone serving a tour of military duty outside New England, everyone who is black or asian, Scandinavian-looking people, people who are shorter or taller than the targets, the morbidly obese, everyone traveling out of the country, everyone who has checked into hotels in Las Vegas or rented campgrounds in Yosemite, etc. Now you have lowered your candidate list to something workable, and can start your search with people known to be in the area before expanding further (this is, incidentally, the way the brain seems to do the same job.)

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    95. Re:no problem by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      Far more likely is that they'll either want to see where one or a few known individuals went, tracking or locating them through multiple cameras, or they'll want to identify a person or person from among many.

      That is indeed an easier problem. But then the average person can't complain that they are being tracked by CCTV and facial recognition. Because they're not.

      In any case it still has the issue that in the general population of millions, there will be many people who look almost the same as the person(s) you are looking for. Close enough that the differences are far less than can be captured from the random angles, focus, resolution, distance, lighting etc of a security camera.

      Then there's the issue of ageing. Passport and driving license photos are used for years. People rarely look much like their photos after a while - that's why they are so often a source of amusement. Even passport control officers can't really be sure that the person presenting is the person in the photo. And they are looking close up, directly from the front, in good lighting, with no pixelation.

      It also relies on the people being watched taking no steps whatsoever to mask their identity.

      Take the Boston Bombers, they were on the FBI watchlist, with photos, but no facial recognition system found them. Even after the fact. For one thing they used an simple counter-surveillance technique that no facial recognition system can ever overcome. They wore baseball caps. An extra problem since security cameras look down.

      Facial hair, head-hair and make-up can also be an insurmountable problem. And they are everyday changes that wouldn't raise any suspicions from observers.

      All these insurmountable problems, before even getting to the algorithms.

  3. Rights are off the table by roman_mir · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Never mind privacy, all of your rights are off the table. I imagine that fighting this is a bit like fighting windmills, but all this oppression does is it creates more negativity and more negativity will cause more violence.

    1. Re:Rights are off the table by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Katz v. United States, 1967.

      You have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" - if you're walking down a public street, then you are in public, and any expectation that your movements and activity is "private" is idiotic.

      Non-issue. If you don't like surveillance video being taken in public places, lobby for a law outlawing it, or amend the constitution. Until then, stop pretending that this is any violation of your right to privacy or other constitutional rights.

    2. Re:Rights are off the table by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The solution to fighting windmills is to use a much bigger lance. . . .

    3. Re:Rights are off the table by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      You have a "reasonable expectation of privacy" - if you're walking down a public street, then you are in public, and any expectation that your movements and activity is "private" is idiotic.

      I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect that the government isn't using surveillance devices to spy on everyone, everywhere.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    4. Re:Rights are off the table by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think it's perfectly reasonable to expect that the government isn't using surveillance devices to spy on everyone, everywhere.

      It is perfectly reasonable to expect that - and you'll be happy to know that they're not!

      They're using surveillance devices to "spy on everyone in public spaces, where you have no constitutional guarantee of privacy."

      Don't like it? Great, go work to get a law passed.

      Don't claim it's a constitutional violation, because it's not - as soon as they try to put a camera in someone's home or on someone's private property without that person's consent, or a probable warrant, THEN it'll be a constitutional issue. Aside from that, you have no constitutional right "not to be creeped out by pervasive surveillance of public spaces."

      You'll be happy to know, however, that you DO have a right to petition the government for redress of that grievance, through your duly elected representatives. I suggest you do more of that, and less whining on slashdot about your "rights" that don't actually "exist."

    5. Re:Rights are off the table by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      It is perfectly reasonable to expect that - and you'll be happy to know that they're not!

      Great. And I don't believe they should in public places, either.

      And actually, it isn't even perfectly reasonable (or perhaps it won't be in the future) to expect that. I'd change that to say that it's perfectly reasonable to suggest that the government shouldn't do such a thing.

      Don't like it? Great, go work to get a law passed.

      How insightful.

      Don't claim it's a constitutional violation, because it's not

      I didn't claim it was a constitutional violation; I've been claiming it's a bad idea and that proponents of such a policy are disgustingly naive. In may surprise you, but all I've been doing is expressing my opinion all along.

      I believe the founding fathers had a number of good ideas, but there are some things that they could never have foreseen.

      I suggest you do more of that, and less whining on slashdot about your "rights" that don't actually "exist."

      What makes you think I don't take action? You have no reason to think so.

      I do write to representatives, and I do vote against those who support policies I find disagreeable. However, more than a few people will have to come to the conclusion that ubiquitous government surveillance of public spaces is a terrible idea before anything will truly change. Notice how we still have the TSA? To all those who even care a little about the constitution, the TSA is unconstitutional, but then why do we still have it? If most people truly opposed it and wrote to their representatives and perhaps even changed their vote, I doubt we'd still have it. But they don't, and it is for that reason that I'm not hopeful about the current situation.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  4. What we learned... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    What we learned from Boston was that there is no reason for centralized surveillance. Privately owned cameras (around businesses) provided enough coverage. And the police were then able to provide warrants to acquire the video. It worked perfectly from a privacy standpoint and in providing necessary information to law enforcement.

    1. Re:What we learned... by Vinegar+Joe · · Score: 4, Funny

      I'm not really worried about this. Seriously, Obama isn't going to let these fascist New York assholes do anything to hurt us.

      --
      "The average reporter we talk to is 27 years old......They literally know nothing." - Ben Rhodes
    2. Re:What we learned... by istartedi · · Score: 1

      This. A Constitutional "public-private partnership" right under their own noses, with no administrative overhead. It's too good. They have to mess it up.

      --
      For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
    3. Re:What we learned... by _xeno_ · · Score: 1

      Well, that, and there's the fact that the cameras did not identify the suspects.

      Just to be clear, no one knew who they were until Tamerlan Tsarnaev was dead. They were only identified after Tamerlan was taken to the hospital and finger-printed.

      The camera footage will likely make Dzhokhar's trial an open-and-shut case, but it proved to be absolutely useless for identifying them. They were only really caught because they told their carjacking victim who they were and he escaped. Killing the MIT cop probably didn't help, but it's likely that without the report by the carjacking victim that "these are the bombers" the police wouldn't have gone quite all-out in their pursuit. (Or have been able to use the carjacking victim's phone to track their movements.)

      It is, of course, impossible to speculate on whether the images would eventually have turned up leads and whether or not they would have been successful in carrying out their New York attack, but the cameras did nothing to identify them or catch them in this case.

      --
      You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
    4. Re:What we learned... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What I learned..

      DHS and the FBI are incompetent

    5. Re:What we learned... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... fascist New York assholes ...

      You're assuming Obama isn't a fascist Washington asshole following those fascist New York assholes. Congress wouldn't control gun nuts. Let's see if they protect the remaining voters with the same arguments.

      It's not a 'Woosh'. I am simply pointing out that even when correct, your life is endangered.

    6. Re:What we learned... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      agreed.

  5. And Yet ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    And yet they want to hide/control the information about their 'stop and frisk' policies, which mosques they are watching and/or taping, and all their other secrets.

    So I guess they think secrets are OK for them but not for the people they want to keep secrets from.

  6. How does this work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How are cameras in public places going to stop bombs? Sure it may help in catching criminals, but the damage has already been done. Maybe we should require background checks on people purchasing black duffel bags?

    1. Re:How does this work? by Dins · · Score: 1

      Maybe we should require background checks on people purchasing black duffel bags?

      And nails. I hear nails were used in the bomb, so let's require a special permit for anyone purchasing more than 10 nails at a time...

    2. Re:How does this work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The story I'm reading all over is that these guys were about to bomb NYC next. So, I think the logic is, while the camera's didn't stop the Boston bombing, they did help catch the guys very quickly and prevent the next bombing.

    3. Re:How does this work? by BattleApple · · Score: 1

      How are cameras in public places going to stop bombs? Sure it may help in catching criminals, but the damage has already been done. Maybe we should require background checks on people purchasing black duffel bags?

      FTFA:

      The NYPD is touting its use of the so-called smart cameras that have been used for nearly a decade in Lower Manhattan to identify potential threats such as unattended bags left for too long.

    4. Re:How does this work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And nails. I hear nails were used in the bomb, so let's require a special permit for anyone purchasing more than 10 nails at a time...

      Good idea. That'll solve the unemployment crisis.

    5. Re:How does this work? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Is that what they said that he said?

  7. Reasonable expectation of privacy by i+kan+reed · · Score: 3, Interesting

    On the one hand, this is the U.S. and we have a 4th amendment to our constitution, that does being secure in ones person in addition to papers and effects, which draws a pretty clear line(though not clear enough) about when a warrant is required. On the other hand, if you expect to have privacy on the streets of New York City you're dangerously crazy.

    It just leaves the open question of whether there's a limit of what we'll late the state do beyond what we'll let the public at large do.

    1. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I think people always misininterpret this.
      I do not care about privacy whan I am out in public. I care about anonymity when I'm out in public.
      What these tools want is to know who you are while out an about on private business.
      Fuck them.

    2. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Exactly. If a camera on a public street is a violation of your rights, then shouldn't everyone have to cover their eyes too?

    3. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by sqrt(2) · · Score: 1

      Here's the problem. Cameras and computers are now so sophisticated that you can put these systems into public areas and identify every person that walks in view, by name. You just connect the camera to all the government identity databases which already exist (passports, driver licenses, police records, school records) and run a real time facial recognition system on the video feed. With sufficient coverage of public areas you now know the movements of every citizen as they go about their daily life.

      Can you see the problems this might cause? Here's just one example I thought of off the top of my head. Flag anyone who goes to hardware stores, mosques, and truck rental businesses. Intercept these people for "questioning". The good part about this system, for aspiring fascists, is that it's so open ended you can use it to crack down on any behavior or activity you happen to find abhorrent today. As long as those people are a sufficiently small minority, and you prime the public with enough fear and hatred beforehand, no one will object. Well, some people will object, but we already know where they live and work...

      --
      If you build it, nerds will come. Soylentnews.org
    4. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Stop and frisk is ok though? It seems there is little question about limiting what we let the state do.

    5. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I don't expect privacy on the streets of NYC. You and anybody else (or any other non-governmental entity) can take pictures or video of me to your hearts content while I'm out in public. I DO CARE about the GOVERNMENT doing so though. That is precisely what the 4th amendment is for ... and while your point is a strawman. If the NYPD wants to record me and my activities, they need to have a legal reason/justification.

    6. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We also have the first and second amendments, which allow you to blow the fucking head off of anyone who tries to enter your home without permission.

    7. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      It's something of an an understatement to say that that is a very liberal interpretation the second amendment.

    8. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      We forget random people quite easily, so cameras are a fair bit different. Government-owned cameras are even more different.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    9. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by HornWumpus · · Score: 1

      Liberals say we have to yell 'they're coming right for us' first.

      --
      John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
    10. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      On the one hand, this is the U.S. and we have a 4th amendment to our constitution, that does being secure in ones person in addition to papers and effects, which draws a pretty clear line(though not clear enough) about when a warrant is required.

      Did you see the way that they searched Watertown looking for these guys? The people of Watertown were not "secure in ones person" when they were being held at gunpoint by the authorities while those authorities searched their houses.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    11. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by i+kan+reed · · Score: 1

      I suspect that they could refuse a search if they wanted(and the police would have no trouble getting a warrant to search anyways if there was even the remotest semblance of probable cause). The extent to which people will voluntarily waive their rights to solve problems is both a necessary part of the system, and distressingly easy to abuse.

    12. Re:Reasonable expectation of privacy by rossz · · Score: 1

      There is plenty of evidence (video) of people in Watertown refusing permission and the police basically telling them, "fuck you, because we can". They did not bother to get a warrant. Yes, people are often too quick to waive their rights. At the same time, the police are too quick to ignore them.

      --
      -- Will program for bandwidth
  8. Since the ones we have were sufficient... by NixieBunny · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Since the cameras we have in place already were sufficient to identify the suspects, we obviously need more cameras.
    We call this "logic".

    --
    The determined Real Programmer can write Fortran programs in any language.
    1. Re:Since the ones we have were sufficient... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      But if I recall, those were private cameras, from a store.

      They cooperated with police, and gave them the footage. I doubt very much the police would have been able to demand it.

    2. Re:Since the ones we have were sufficient... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Boston. New York. Two different places. But maybe you're saying we already have the same number of cameras in NY as there are in Boston?

    3. Re:Since the ones we have were sufficient... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I doubt very much the police would have been able to demand it.

      Why do you doubt that? If you have a camera at the scene of a crime and refuse to turn over the footage, a judge would happily grant a subpoena for that.

    4. Re:Since the ones we have were sufficient... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Somebody above mentioned that the cops obtained warrants to get the videos. I would expect that to be routine in such cases.

    5. Re:Since the ones we have were sufficient... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Part of what is going on is that NYC cops are worried that they won't be able to catch the next terrorists, while Boston managed to do so. NYC is trying to make themselves look good at the expense of the nation.

      This is fear-mongering and national-withering in one of its most blatant forms. Remember this moment. It makes my stomach turn to think the police chief is so excited to leverage this time when we're not even completely healed yet to impinge on the American way.

    6. Re:Since the ones we have were sufficient... by Jane+Q.+Public · · Score: 1

      "Why do you doubt that? If you have a camera at the scene of a crime and refuse to turn over the footage, a judge would happily grant a subpoena for that."

      I should have qualified my statement.

      If it's AT a crime scene (cameras right there), then I can certainly see a warrant being issued. But as for cameras that just happen to be in the same general area of the city, it would (and should) be a lot harder to obtain a warrant because a warrant has to be based on probable cause.

      "Because it was within 300 meters and might have accidentally caught the perpetrators on video" is not probable cause.

  9. Privacy or Protection... by DiEx-15 · · Score: 3, Interesting

    You chose.

    Frankly though, why bother with CCTV when most people have cell phones with cameras? Instead of a governmental body being Big Brother, the citizens of the society do the monitoring for them?

    1. Re:Privacy or Protection... by UnknownSoldier · · Score: 2

      1. Your fallacy is assuming Privacy is mutually exclusive with Protection. It is not.

      2. This issue has already been discussed to death a thousand times before:

            "Sell not virtue to purchase wealth, nor Liberty to purchase power."

      Which is better know as:

      * Those who would trade a little bit of freedom for temporary safety deserve neither.
      * They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety.
      * Those Who Sacrifice Liberty For Security Deserve Neither.
        -- http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Benjamin_Franklin

    2. Re:Privacy or Protection... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Once they come for everyones guns you won't have a choice. NYS is one of the worst.

    3. Re:Privacy or Protection... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Are you suggesting giving the authorities live streaming video from your phone every time you record a video?

    4. Re:Privacy or Protection... by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "Frankly though, why bother with CCTV when most people have cell phones with cameras? Instead of a governmental body being Big Brother, the citizens of the society do the monitoring for them?"

      Soon everybody will be wearing Google Glasses and this will be obsolete.

      The CCTV will only be for cases where a bomb detonates and nobody is there to get hurt.

    5. Re:Privacy or Protection... by Dins · · Score: 1

      Are you suggesting giving the authorities live streaming video from your phone every time you record a video?

      They do this, and they're gonna get some rather interesting videos from me that they'd rather not watch...

    6. Re:Privacy or Protection... by geekoid · · Score: 1

      And it's a logical fallacy.

      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    7. Re:Privacy or Protection... by DiEx-15 · · Score: 1

      Problem is: How can anybody have privacy when both the Government AND private citizens have cameras? Cell phones have cameras. Soon glasses. PCs/Macs have cameras. Tablets have cameras...

      I'm just asking how can privacy and protection be not mutually exclusive in today's day and age? I certainly don't know how and definitely don't like the idea of anybody, government or citizen, being able to invade my privacy.

    8. Re:Privacy or Protection... by interkin3tic · · Score: 1

      NO!!! Don't let them choose! You and I both know what the people will choose these days!

    9. Re:Privacy or Protection... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Frankly though, why bother with CCTV when most people have cell phones with cameras? Instead of a governmental body being Big Brother, the citizens of the society do the monitoring for them?

      We tried that, both in the past and just in the past week. That's why "witch hunt" is a recognized, catchall phrase for the fallacies of mob justice, which is what you're suggesting. If that were the case here, we'd have many more ruined or ended lives from this because a bunch of internet-equipped people uneducated in the ways of proper suspect identification thought they were "doing something" by releasing the names and photos of people unrelated to the bombings to a populace desperate for answers and revenge.

    10. Re:Privacy or Protection... by Prune · · Score: 1

      Unfortunately, in the long run, privacy is indeed mutually exclusive with protection. It's easy to see this by extrapolating technological trends. As technology has improved, it has become easier and easier for a smaller and smaller group of people to destroy/kill more and more. The logical conclusion of this is that, eventually, technological progress will enable any individual to kill almost everybody. It's unreasonable to suppose that protection measures other than pervasive, total surveillance, will be able to keep that in check, simply because destruction is always an easier action than creation/protection/any other practical action; thus, only absolute measure will suffice. Please note I'm not saying pervasive surveillance by our future AI or enhanced post-human overlords is a good thing, but I don't see any logical way out of it. The trick will be, as the by-now-cliche saying goes, who watches the watchers? Perhaps the only reasonable answer here is: everybody. Zero privacy from anyone might be what lies in our future, say a century from now.

      --
      "Politicians and diapers must be changed often, and for the same reason."
    11. Re:Privacy or Protection... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh yes, I'm sure it only needs to be suggested to them. Government access to every cell phone camera in advance and without your consent. That will do it for us!

      (Oh, that's not what you meant? Too late.)

    12. Re:Privacy or Protection... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not sure if my terminology is correct, but my take:

      Because cell phone cameras are used to actively record things, that is the user has identified something they wish to record and thus pulled out the camera and activated it. When the event is over, they put away the camera.

      CCTV is passive recording - meaning the cameras are recording everything they see without a specific focus, whether or not the event is interesting at the time of recording.

      The idea is taht CCTV cameras would be more immedately accessible by the authorities and would potentially record significant but otherwise uninteresting sights. Who's gonna record an average guy with a backpack walking down the road? Everyone's going to record the chaotic aftermath, but it's the before time that is really interesting to the police.

    13. Re:Privacy or Protection... by csumpi · · Score: 1

      We have that already. It's called fecesbook or something like that.

    14. Re:Privacy or Protection... by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

      Do you consider it an invasion of privacy when someone looks at you in a public space?

      Say you're at the grocery store. Someone looks at you. No cameras, no record, nothing like that. They see what you're wearing, maybe what you're eating next week, and they know you're not at home right now. Is that a problem? They now have knowledge about you which you, presumably, didn't want to give them. They could be a fashionista gathering information about the stylistic patterns of basement trolls, or they could be a burglar that specializes in sub-story break-ins. But... do you care? The burglar isn't going to somehow find where you live, rush over there, and start shimmying locks because that checkout line was REALLY long.

      I understand that semi-permanent records of your activities change the game a little, but taking a picture of you in a public space isn't an invasion of your privacy anymore than just looking at you.

      Having a centralized database of all your movements, activities, contacts, and communications... while in public...is certainly ripe for abuse, and it's something to fight against. But you're equating the ability to take pictures in public with an invasion of privacy.

      Also, just how the hell do you think a panopticon society is supposed to protect you?

    15. Re:Privacy or Protection... by nickmh · · Score: 1

      Because this would result in citizens regaining some lost power. Once you acquire something, it's hard to give it up. Who ever holds the power is not going to give it up.

    16. Re:Privacy or Protection... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Hey it worked for the Nazis, why couldn't it work for us?

  10. Yeah Right by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    My chances of getting killed by a cop are greater than getting killed in a bombing/mass shooting. I'm pretty comfortable with those odds and really don't think that the added security is worth giving up what little privacy is left to us.

  11. Once again by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If there is only one thing you should take away from these events, it is that the business of government benefits greatly from them. Shortly after 9/11, I realized that the event was the best thing that has happened to government in decades. Each year since then we have witnessed more of the same cycle: disaster strikes, power and revenue justified. Disaster strikes, more power and revenue justified.

    If you think the elite few at the top of the pyramid don't realize and take advantage of this, you're dreaming.

  12. No more PR speak? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    He doesn't even bother trying to make it sound good...

  13. elegant phrase coined from elsewhere.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    the cost of security is a reduced tolerance for the risks that make life great

  14. No, it really hasn't... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    ...been taken off the table. You're just a cynical ass who thinks you'll face less resistance during this time of heightened emotions.

    The whole idea that people who are interested in personal privacy are against personal security is absurd. There are many fronts that we fight on to prevent having a police state. That said, police are an enormous benefit to society, their bravery and dedication is often amazing and well in excess of what their salaries should command. The idea that they can't do their jobs well without total country-wide video surveillance shows a fundamental lack of understanding about what makes them valuable to society. I would much rather have a physical police officer come by my business once per day at random than have a computer-watched video camera pointing at my door 24/7 and no police visiting. So too would most of the world.

    Despite how the accountants of the world would like to optimise it, police work is still a people business.

  15. Sure by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If it means we can stop paying asshats like him and replace them with cameras, I'm all for it. It's the smugness and self-ingratiation that I can do without. It's not like we live in a world of privacy anyway, so I'd like for him to live on this side of the fence for a while before he opens his big yap about surveillance again.

  16. Terrorists wins by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    The terrorist should love seeing that their stupid acts pay out.

    "People willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both. If we restrict liberty to attain security we will lose them both."
    - Benjamin_Franklin

  17. There are bad people doing bad things by kruach+aum · · Score: 1

    Therefore, when we are forcibly reminded that there are bad people doing bad things, we should limit the liberties of everyone. This guy is a moron and should not be in a position of power.

  18. Huge Difference by eldavojohn · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Kelly dismisses critics who argue that increased cameras threaten privacy rights, giving governments the ability to monitor people in public spaces.

    “The people who complain about it, I would say, are a relatively small number of folks, because the genie is out of the bottle,” Kelly said. “People realize that everywhere you go now, your picture is taken.”

    There's a stark difference between a store knowing I am in their store and a centralized location storing all of my visits. And then there's an even further jump when it's a government doing that. I'm fine that I go into Gamestop and Gamestop gets tapes of me looking at games. I'm fine that I go to Chipotle and there's a camera on the cash register. I'm fine that I then walk by the entrance to an electronics store and I'm on their cameras passing by. That's cool, if they want to put together the odd footage they have of me going there, I'm not really concerned about that. And that's the stuff that ended up helping catch the Boston suspects.

    I'm not okay when one centralized location stores that data and my complete movements can be tracked. If a Gamestop employee got my address from a purchase and wanted to search my house, he'd have only the time I'm on camera to do it. If my whole trip is detailed, it could be done covertly quite easily.

    Decentralizing the stores of this video information has its own merits and disadvantages but I think there is a very small group of people that are uneasy with being videotaped at a grocery store by the grocery store yet a large group of people (once they think about what their tax dollars are being spent on) that would be uneasy about a government system centralizing this and putting individuals in charge of it.

    What worked here is that businesses realized they each had a piece of the puzzle to solve a heinous crime. This commissioner's claim that technology exists that would have prevented these attacks had it been a government controlled and centralized effort is largely horseshit and what benefits that pretends to provide are insignificant compared to the possible evils it could unleash.

    By the way, if this topic interests you then you should be watching Germany closely.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:Huge Difference by Bob9113 · · Score: 1

      Outstanding post. Well presented and covers an important aspect that is often overlooked. Thank you!

    2. Re:Huge Difference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Kelly dismisses critics...

      That's how I like to win arguments as well. I also like to put my fingers in my ear and go 'la la la la'.

      Any public official that can't argue both sides of a debate is woefully under qualified for the job.

    3. Re:Huge Difference by jfengel · · Score: 2

      Thing is, they were able to solve a heinous crime by extraordinary means. It seems to me that he's wondering if they could solve everyday crimes if those means were made more ordinary. They're not going to dig up every bit of surveillance footage to solve your mugging; they lack the manpower.

      If they could, would it prevent those crimes from happening in the first place? Criminals generally have poor judgment, but they have at least a rough idea that if other people committing crimes are getting caught more often, they're more likely to try something else.

      I can't say if it's actually worth it to do that. It probably depends on the place. I live in cozy suburbs; the crime rate is low enough that privacy invasion is more serious. This guy manages New York City, with a far higher crime rate, and where the upper-middle-classes live cheek by jowl with the poor people who are most likely to get tempted by the easy pickings. Many of those crimes go unsolved: they lack the power to go to the lengths they did in Boston.

      I honestly don't know how effective it could be; the theory is a long way from the practice. I know Baltimore has put a lot into police camera with little effect, since there isn't the manpower to really take advantage of it. (And equally little effects of the privacy invasion, since nobody can be bothered to care, though the potential still remains.)

    4. Re:Huge Difference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Any public official that can't argue both sides of a debate is woefully under qualified for the job.

      Absolutely agree. Although not a public official, I always try arguing both sides of a position in an effort to uncover weaknesses in my own position. You would be amazed how effective a feedback loop this practise has proven over the years.

    5. Re:Huge Difference by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Kiss ass.

    6. Re:Huge Difference by greggman · · Score: 1

      I agree with you 100%

      But you realize that with facial recognition it's only a matter of time before those businesses you mentioned all sign contracts to share their video with some company that analyses the video and tracks your behavior for "marketing purposes". And then probably only a small matter of time before the government gets access to that data. :-(

  19. Cemeras dont stop crime. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    All Cameras do, is help catch the criminals after the crime has already been committed.

    Its not much of a deterrent. Convenience stores have cameras, but it doesn't stop them from being robbed all the time.

    1. Re:Cemeras dont stop crime. by nospam007 · · Score: 2

      "Its not much of a deterrent. Convenience stores have cameras, but it doesn't stop them from being robbed all the time."

      How about an app that recognizes policemen and immediately begins recording what they do and send the data off-phone? It wouldn't matter if a few Salvation Army guys give false positives.

    2. Re:Cemeras dont stop crime. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      These guys were planning to bomb NYC next. So yes the cameras did stop crime. Not the first one, but the followup ones.

    3. Re:Cemeras dont stop crime. by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      All Cameras do, is help catch the criminals after the crime has already been committed.

      Would you forward it? I mean the memo about only being able to commit one crime per lifetime. It seems I never recieved it.

      How about a trade? I'll send you the one about where [not] to put commas, fucktard.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    4. Re:Cemeras dont stop crime. by Brucelet · · Score: 1

      If you read between the lines, it seems likely they actually had other attacks planned in Boston, and decided on New York after the realizing the FBI was close to IDing them. Otherwise they would have skipped town long before those pictures were released. Your point obviously still stands, though.

  20. If public places are not to be considered private by dmomo · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Then, any cameras being placed should be openly accessible to the public in real time. I won't like the presence of cameras, but at least this is consistent with the sentiment that public places are not to be considered private.

  21. So much for New York... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    They're spamming TV commercials hither and yon trying to attract startups to New York, but their elected officials are doing their damnedest to make it unattractive as hell to live there. Not that New York needs any help in that department.

  22. I wouldn't like to live in the US now by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Terrorists, disrespect for privacy, corporations ruling the governments...

    1. Re:I wouldn't like to live in the US now by Minwee · · Score: 1

      And you can't find a good doughnut unless you head for the Canadian border.

  23. Don't bring NCIS into this business! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    YOU LEAVE ABBY OUT OF THIS!

  24. Google Glass by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    Clearly the NYC PD pension account is heavily invested in GOOG.

  25. are more cops better? by alen · · Score: 1

    when i was a kid there were calls for the federal government to fund 50,000 extra cops nationwide to help control crime. people wanted to see cops constantly patrolling their neighborhoods.

    what's the difference between that and installing cameras? these days i actually want cops to crack down on dangerous drivers

    1. Re:are more cops better? by nospam007 · · Score: 1

      "when i was a kid there were calls for the federal government to fund 50,000 extra cops nationwide to help control crime. people wanted to see cops constantly patrolling their neighborhoods.

      what's the difference between that and installing cameras?"

      Cameras are cheaper and don't beat up minorities?

    2. Re:are more cops better? by MachineShedFred · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Cameras can be disabled with a $4 tool from a hardware store, or a $0.50 brick.

      Living, breathing cops are a bit harder to deal with, and if you do try to deal with them through the use of a $0.50 brick, you're likely to get several $0.30 9mm slugs returned in your direction at great velocities.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    3. Re:are more cops better? by CanHasDIY · · Score: 1

      when i was a kid there were calls for the federal government to fund 50,000 extra cops nationwide to help control crime. people wanted to see cops constantly patrolling their neighborhoods.

      what's the difference between that and installing cameras? these days i actually want cops to crack down on dangerous drivers

      Well, if a cop is there and sees something going down, he can stop it*, whereas all camera can do is record the activity.

      * Not that he has a legal obligation to do so.

      --
      An enigma, wrapped in a riddle, shrouded in bacon and cheese
    4. Re:are more cops better? by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

      I remember hearing once that if a policeman joins the force and does nothing but patrolling until he retires he'll pass within 200 yards of a crime in progress about four times and has a 50/50 chance of actually seeing one.

      --
      Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
    5. Re:are more cops better? by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      Police officers make judgments on the immediate situations, and don't retain all the individual private details they happen to come upon. Camera records are held in perpetuity.

      Plus, cameras don't prevent anything. Human presence does.

    6. Re:are more cops better? by Courtjester1313 · · Score: 1

      Wow!?! You know where to find 9mm rounds for $.30!?! Especially self defense rounds! I would love to know where that is.

    7. Re:are more cops better? by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

      Well, not so much these days.

      I have my stash of .357 SIG to keep me going until this stockpiling craze ends though.

      --
      Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
  26. "Kelly Gloats" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wow, seems impartial.

  27. Makes Sense by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Since they (The Fascist Police State wishfulls) didn't respect privacy in the first place it only makes sense that they would use this to take further freedoms away. That is assuming that wasn't by design in the first place.

  28. The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by eldavojohn · · Score: 4, Interesting

    What we learned from Boston was that there is no reason for centralized surveillance. Privately owned cameras (around businesses) provided enough coverage. And the police were then able to provide warrants to acquire the video. It worked perfectly from a privacy standpoint and in providing necessary information to law enforcement.

    To clarify his point (yours is valid but you're not addressing his claims fully):

    Could more cameras in New York City help prevent attacks like the one at the Boston Marathon? That's what Police Commissioner Ray Kelly says the NYPD is looking into.

    The department already uses so-called smart cameras that hone in on unattended bags, and set off alarms.

    Emphasis mine. I totally agree with you but the argument here is that they could prevent attacks. I find that argument specious and foolhardy in that a bomb could be disguised as anything and a suicide bomber (as these individuals clearly had no intention of surviving a police encounter) would simply continue to wear the explosive into the crowd. I think they need to reevaluate what little benefit it would provide against the massive issues and rights violations it could cause system-wide.

    --
    My work here is dung.
    1. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I find that argument specious and foolhardy in that a bomb could be disguised as anything and a suicide bomber (as these individuals clearly had no intention of surviving a police encounter) would simply continue to wear the explosive into the crowd. I think they need to reevaluate what little benefit it would provide against the massive issues and rights violations it could cause system-wide.

      The "boston bombers" had 4 days with which they could have done *anything*, including running very far away, planting more bombs, "suiciding" etc. but they didnt, they instead just dicked around until they got caught, not really the thing someone serious about terror would do. This tells me that there is at least a "low hanging fruit" of destructive individuals who could be defended against with more simple means, like bag spotting or individual profiling that can be done with cameras.

    2. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by 0123456 · · Score: 2

      I think they need to reevaluate what little benefit it would provide against the massive issues and rights violations it could cause system-wide.

      You're assuming that the massive issues and rights violations are an unintended consequence, rather than the goal.

      Obviously cops want to be able to sit in a nice warm control room with a bag of donuts all day watching people on cameras, rather than going out on the streets.

    3. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by eldavojohn · · Score: 2

      Obviously cops want to be able to sit in a nice warm control room with a bag of donuts all day watching people on cameras, rather than going out on the streets.

      What? You mean like the TSA? (probably NSFW)

      --
      My work here is dung.
    4. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by TheCarp · · Score: 1

      > I totally agree with you but the argument here is that they could
      > prevent attacks. I find that argument specious and foolhardy in that a
      > bomb could be disguised as anything and a suicide bomber (as these
      > individuals clearly had no intention of surviving a police encounter)
      > would simply continue to wear the explosive into the crowd.

      This is exactly the point. Prevention is impossible. Not because any specific scheme couldn't have been prevented but, because an attacker is not limited by what schemes can be imagined.

      Shit, for a few hours work and a few craigslist ads, and maybe a few hundred bucks, I bet a particularly clever terrorist could convince some unsuspecting people to wear explosive backpacks into the crowd thinking they were there for some other purpose

      Its a game of whack a mole where all you can do is catch the people for whom you guessed properly what they would do, where they would do it, and implemented the right measure to stop them.... and it only continues to work as long as they keep doing the same thing.

      Prevention is a pipe dream.

      --
      "I opened my eyes, and everything went dark again"
    5. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by Obfuscant · · Score: 1

      ...and a suicide bomber (as these individuals clearly had no intention of surviving a police encounter) would simply continue to wear the explosive into the crowd.

      The fact that these two left the bags and ran away before the explosion removes them from the category "suicide bomber". They clearly expected and wanted to survive the attack.

      Now, they may have accepted the fact that they would not survive a police encounter, but by hiding they demonstrated that they did not want to have that police encounter, thus also removing them from the category of "suicide by police".

      You are right, true suicide bombers will wear their device until it goes off, and thus security cameras looking for unattended packages will fail to stop them. However, security that is looking for unusual behavior might. Not a guarantee, but nothing in life is guaranteed except that it ends at some point.

    6. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Emphasis mine. I totally agree with you but the argument here is that they could prevent attacks.

      The argument is over: they don't.

      At least so say the UK police: http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2008/may/06/ukcrime1

      A study out of NYU as well: http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/03/study-questions-whether-cameras-cut-crime/

      In related news, they're not very helpful in solving most crimes either: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8219022.stm

      So centralized monitoring does not prevent or really help solve crimes. Though I'm not sure this empirical evidence will do much to persuade the police.

    7. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by MozeeToby · · Score: 1

      By all accounts, the bags were unattended for about 10s before detonating. So no, no amount of smart cameras are going to prevent an attack executed like the Boston Marathon bombing.

    8. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Truthfully, I think you've hit the nail on the head. Ultimately it comes down to the Donuts.

    9. Re:The Claim Is That There Could Be Prevention by Lawrence_Bird · · Score: 1

      Complete FAIL. The existing cameras did not prevent the attack. Boston PD has said that facial recognition software did not help in identifying the suspects eventhough photos were in a searched database.

      This is nothing but another privacy crushing power grab by the "authorities" who want to play daddy and make us all feel safer. FLASH: it is a waste of time, money and other reources and does nothing to make anyone safer. But it does let the terrorists win by eroding our freedoms, wasting our money and giving a false sense of security.

  29. Slippery Slidin... by flayzernax · · Score: 1

    When this is the response to what amounts to 2 douche bag gang bangers who barely fit the term "terrorist" by a stretch of the imagination. Besides privacy is not an issue in "public" (it was covered by reams of civil legislation) government surveillance use to be.

    Whatever, I don't leave my loft (f u basement dwellers) anyway.

  30. I'm honestly fine with that by neminem · · Score: 1

    If you want to install any kind of snooping devices of any sort in my private property, you can go frack yourself. If you want to install any kind of snooping devices in *public* property, though? Why not. It's public property, we already don't have any reason to expect privacy there, so... why *not* install cameras everywhere, as long as they don't get in the way of being able to do things? I'm all for police being able to catch criminals better.

    Now, you might argue, yes, but then we wouldn't be able to break laws that we don't agree with, that right now we can break because nobody is watching us. And I would say, the proper course of action then is to try to get those laws eradicated or at least made to be universally ignored. We should be objecting to those laws themselves in such cases, *not* to better ability to enforce them as a byproduct of better ability to enforce other laws that we actually want to be better enforced (murder, rape, theft, etc.)

    1. Re:I'm honestly fine with that by White+Flame · · Score: 2

      People have their own reasons to not have their personal shopping, entertainment, travel, schedule, or companions available for all to see. It is within their privacy rights to demand continuance of that expectation.

      Cameras do not just track criminals, they track and record everybody. Granting government omniscience in the attempt to prevent (to use TFA's term) crime is deluded, and granting it to punish crime is too overreaching.

    2. Re:I'm honestly fine with that by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      we already don't have any reason to expect privacy there

      I'd say you're incorrect. We have some degree of privacy even in public places.

      so... why *not* install cameras everywhere

      No. I do not believe that's how it should be; it's more like, "Why should we install cameras everywhere? Why should we waste our tax dollars on such a useless thing?" I think ubiquitous government surveillance is already considered to be a bad thing to anyone who has thought about the issue even a little bit.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  31. That will not happen. by khasim · · Score: 5, Insightful

    When they talk about "privacy" they mean the privacy of the people who are not the police and not the politicians. They still get all the privacy they want.

    Because of, you know, "national security" and "terrorists".

    1. Re:That will not happen. by Raisey-raison · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I really hope they don't put up ever more cameras. We don't need them. Crime has been falling since 1988 and the US murder rate is around 5.4 / 100,000 people. And that is close to its all time low. And terrorism is rare and unlikely to kill or hurt anyone. When can we start rolling out policy based on data and evidence not on fear?

      As far as cameras looking at police officers. We need a lot more of that. Police routinely 'beat people up' and conduct illegal searches. They need to be put on a short leash.

    2. Re:That will not happen. by Daniel+Dvorkin · · Score: 1

      Because of, you know, "national security" and "terrorists".

      Also because being under the public eye all the time might be intimidating to police officers.

      Yes, I've heard that argument used.

      --
      The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
    3. Re:That will not happen. by egamma · · Score: 4, Insightful

      I really hope they don't put up ever more cameras. We don't need them. Crime has been falling since 1988 and the US murder rate is around 5.4 / 100,000 people. And that is close to its all time low. And terrorism is rare and unlikely to kill or hurt anyone. When can we start rolling out policy based on data and evidence not on fear?

      As far as cameras looking at police officers. We need a lot more of that. Police routinely 'beat people up' and conduct illegal searches. They need to be put on a short leash.

      You provided the per-capita murder rate. Can you also provide the per-capita for people beat up by police and for illegal searches?

    4. Re:That will not happen. by Minwee · · Score: 5, Funny

      You provided the per-capita murder rate. Can you also provide the per-capita for people beat up by police and for illegal searches?

      According to publicly available police records, both rates have been at or below zero since 1776.

    5. Re:That will not happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      "You provided the per-capita murder rate. Can you also provide the per-capita for people beat up by police and for illegal searches?"

      I couldn't tell you, but if you're black, you have about a 1:1 rate of being stopped and frisked in NYC.

    6. Re:That will not happen. by buchner.johannes · · Score: 2

      I really hope they don't put up ever more cameras. We don't need them. Crime has been falling since 1988 and the US murder rate is around 5.4 / 100,000 people. And that is close to its all time low. And terrorism is rare and unlikely to kill or hurt anyone. When can we start rolling out policy based on data and evidence not on fear?

      Also, more policemen are more effective and cheaper (!) than cameras.

      CCTV, unlike policemen wandering around, does not prevent violent crimes. It holds people accountable, but that is not on the mind of these people in these situation.

      --
      NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
    7. Re:That will not happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      As far as cameras looking at police officers. We need a lot more of that. Police routinely 'beat people up' and conduct illegal searches. They need to be put on a short leash.

      While I agree with you in spirit, in reality that doesn't matter one bit. Go watch "Cops" or "Real Stories of the Highway Patrol", or any of those other reality TV style police chase shows. You can watch the cops violate people's rights on National TV and nothing is done. Most people are sheep who are more than happy to let such abuses continue as long as the people being abused are the "undesirable" elements of society.

      As for this article, here we go again with the Fear campaign. Fear! Fire! Foes! Alarm! Be Afraid! But Don't Worry, Uncle Sam is here to Protect you... mostly from yourself!

    8. Re:That will not happen. by lgw · · Score: 1

      I really hope they don't put up ever more cameras. We don't need them. Crime has been falling since 1988 and the US murder rate is around 5.4 / 100,000 people. And that is close to its all time low. And terrorism is rare and unlikely to kill or hurt anyone. When can we start rolling out policy based on data and evidence not on fear?

      Current policy is very rationally based on data and evidence. If the goal of those policies were public safety, things would look very different, of course, but that's obviously not the goal.

      far as cameras looking at police officers. We need a lot more of that. Police routinely 'beat people up' and conduct illegal searches. They need to be put on a short leash.

      See, that would obviously work against the goal of these policies - wouldn't be a rational choice at all.

      --
      Socialism: a lie told by totalitarians and believed by fools.
    9. Re:That will not happen. by MondoGordo · · Score: 0

      yeah ... the publicly available police records written by the police .....

    10. Re:That will not happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes. Once we get those cameras installed.

    11. Re:That will not happen. by Yakasha · · Score: 1

      You provided the per-capita murder rate. Can you also provide the per-capita for people beat up by police and for illegal searches?

      According to publicly available police records, both rates have been at or below zero since 1776.

      Do you disagree with their assessment... citizen?

    12. Re:That will not happen. by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      As far as cameras looking at police officers. We need a lot more of that. Police routinely 'beat people up' and conduct illegal searches. They need to be put on a short leash.

      Increasingly the cameras are there. See any of the reality TV cop shows for examples. What's missing is the public right to see them. And there shouldn't be any general right for the public to see them. Because many of the people who come into contact of the police, and are on these videos, are not guilty of anything.

      What would work, as far as rights are concerned, is for those people that police prosecute, or that make official complaints against the police, to get a copy of the footage in which they appear. Though it would be an expensive and bureaucratic process to implement.

    13. Re:That will not happen. by gorzek · · Score: 1

      thatsthejoke.png

    14. Re:That will not happen. by cellurl · · Score: 1

      I now use Eric Schmidt's recent comment, "If you don't fight for privacy, it will go away".

      Help eliminate stupid speeding tickets.

    15. Re:That will not happen. by gorzek · · Score: 1

      On the contrary, one of the purposes of installing cameras everywhere is to propagate awareness that you are always being watched. While it's hard to say just how much crime that might prevent, it is a nonzero value.

      I am not saying I support 24/7 surveillance, because I don't, but it does have effects on people's behavior, even if those effects are difficult to measure.

    16. Re:That will not happen. by BasilBrush · · Score: 1

      CCTV, unlike policemen wandering around, does not prevent violent crimes. It holds people accountable, but that is not on the mind of these people in these situation.

      Violent crimes are committed by a small minority of people. Anything that helps convict them, takes them off the streets for a period of time, and that has a significant effect on violent crime levels.

    17. Re:That will not happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      More police persons will mean more people with badges trying to keep their arrest rate up so they can get raises and support their families. The camera does not have this bias.

    18. Re:That will not happen. by DriveDog · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Not accurately without surveillance of LEOs.

      You have been beaten by a LEO. You a) know the perp will not be busted, and b) can't afford to move your family to another city. Is reporting it going to go well for you and your family?

      Not in any sense am I blaming all the good apples for the actions of the bad, but abuses of power occur constantly, with rarely any consequences. LE attracts people with good motives, but also attracts those craving power. It's just the nature of the beast.

    19. Re:That will not happen. by gmuslera · · Score: 1

      These cameras are not there to stop criminals or terrorists. Is to stop you, the normal citizen. How you react every time you get aware of being robbed, manipulated, used, lied, etc by banks, government, corporations, or big media, iand that it will keep happening unless you do something? Well, that doing is what must be stopped.

    20. Re:That will not happen. by flayzernax · · Score: 2

      Also camera's are less prone to abuse their power and more prone to be abused by those in power =p

    21. Re:That will not happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Violent crimes have been shown not to happen in places where the color temperature of the light bulbs is changed. Wouldn't it be more effective to prevent crime befire it happens rather than administer justice afterwards?

    22. Re:That will not happen. by Hatta · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Remember there was more than one explosion caused by criminals last week. Is "privacy off the table" for fertilizer plants too? Fifteen people died in West, Texas. Why have there been no arrests yet?

      --
      Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
    23. Re:That will not happen. by Yaur · · Score: 1

      What would work, as far as rights are concerned, is for those people that police prosecute, or that make official complaints against the police, to get a copy of the footage in which they appear.

      it already works that way, as long as you can afford a lawyer.

    24. Re:That will not happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, I can. I'm a cop, and it's about every fucking time I want to. If I'm off-duty somewhere, and someone is a shit-head to me, or anyone that I'm with, and I recognize them later, I get to do whatever I want. The opposite applies if people are nice. This is how the world works. It's stupid arguments like yours that cause others that are as open to stupidity as you do that causes ideas like yours to go much further than they should.

      How's that for per-capita?

    25. Re:That will not happen. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Of course...the telescreen is on all the time, except for the inner party members who can turn them off if they want.

    26. Re:That will not happen. by GoogleShill · · Score: 1

      The problem is that the ones with good motives will rarely, if ever, testify against or turn in a bad cop for doing illegal things. IMO, that puts them all at the same level.

      It's the "We're on the side of good, so we can do what we want" mentality that inevitably corrupts even good people.

    27. Re:That will not happen. by Applekid · · Score: 1

      Yes. Once we get those cameras installed.

      If the dash cams prove anything, the footage will always be "missing" in those events, or abuses will happen in the dead-zones that, of course, the corrupt officers will know of and tell each other about.

      --
      More Twoson than Cupertino
    28. Re:That will not happen. by The_Wilschon · · Score: 1

      Welp, so much for rule of law. It was nice while it lasted.

      --
      SIGSEGV caught, terminating

      wait... not that kind of sig.
    29. Re:That will not happen. by MondoGordo · · Score: 1

      Umm ... i got that ... i just thought it important enough to make it explicit to the "sarcasm deaf"

    30. Re:That will not happen. by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      but it does have effects on people's behavior

      Many negative ones, no doubt.

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    31. Re:That will not happen. by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      We can't do that...it won't lead to increased government power.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    32. Re:That will not happen. by Wookact · · Score: 1

      You get to do what you want?
      You get to treat others however you want huh? Throw those rules of impartiality out, and just beat up on anyone you don't like?

      I hope you end up in prison.

    33. Re:That will not happen. by gagol · · Score: 1

      How the hell can you get beaten up by a Low Earth Orbit?

      --
      Tomorrow is another day...
    34. Re:That will not happen. by DriveDog · · Score: 1

      Beaten, not Beaten Up. If you're geostationary, LEO beats you around every time.

      People who don't rat out those in need of ratting are definitely enablers who should be punished for their silence, but I wouldn't put them at the same level.

    35. Re:That will not happen. by uniquename72 · · Score: 1

      ...We don't need them. Crime has been falling since 1988 and the US murder rate is around 5.4 / 100,000 people. And that is close to its all time low. And terrorism is rare and unlikely to kill or hurt anyone. When can we start rolling out policy based on data and evidence not on fear?

      Facts are off the table.

    36. Re:That will not happen. by JustOK · · Score: 1

      but only for short periods of time.

      --
      rewriting history since 2109
    37. Re:That will not happen. by Totenglocke · · Score: 1

      Slight correction, since 1991 the murder rate has dropped from 9.8 per 100,000 (it's peak) to 4.7 per 100,000 in 2011. That's pretty damn impressive. The rest of your post is spot on.

      --
      "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
    38. Re:That will not happen. by Totenglocke · · Score: 1

      This, 100%. I've been trying to explain this to a "friend" of mine who worships the police. He keeps claiming that if the police do it, it's OK. He totally ignores instance of murder, rape, assault, etc committed by the police and demands that everyone praise ALL cops as "heroes".

      --
      "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
    39. Re:That will not happen. by Totenglocke · · Score: 1

      If data on crime rates in various states is anything to go by, it seems that allowing law abiding citizens to carry a gun for protection is far more effective (and much, MUCH cheaper) than having more policemen.

      --
      "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
  32. An all-seeing glass eye? by Antipater · · Score: 1

    That just may soften up Americans to the idea of the all-seeing glass eye.

    How can a glass eye (blind by definition) be all-seeing? Don't mix metaphors if you don't know what they mean!

    --
    Everything is better with chainsaws.
    1. Re:An all-seeing glass eye? by geekoid · · Score: 1
      --
      The Kruger Dunning explains most post on /. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dunning%E2%80%93Kruger_effect
    2. Re:An all-seeing glass eye? by Antipater · · Score: 1

      Is it? Searches for "glass eye" turn up nothing of the sort, and no suggested searches along those lines. "glass eye slang", even "glass eye slang camera" turn up nothing (although urbandictionary has an unsurprisingly nsfw definition). And your link is just a link to a thesaurus. Thanks, I guess?

      --
      Everything is better with chainsaws.
    3. Re:An all-seeing glass eye? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Do you mean "eye glass"?

    4. Re:An all-seeing glass eye? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shafted.

  33. Constitution ? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Do I really understand that two brain-dead druggies with a BB gun and some firecracker powder have completely treed the
    entire East Coast and caused the repeal of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights ? Boston certainly used to be
    made of sterner stuff!

    Now, I see that the Transit Officer who was wounded may have been wounded by "friendly fire" ... sheesh.

    Heads should roll, and politicians should be the ones who are treed!

    1. Re:Constitution ? by Dunbal · · Score: 1

      Boston certainly used to be made of sterner stuff!

      I dunno, this is the city that had to fight off a terrorist invasion of mooninites too.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
  34. Totally absurd by gnasher719 · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Apart from the fact that it was all on TV, no crime of any real importance has happened. One harmless looking medical doctor in Britain killed fifty times more people without anyone noticing.

    Or take this: "A self-styled street preacher who lured three men to their deaths through job adverts on the Craigslist website has been sentenced to death in Ohio." So do we need to crack down on street preachers and Craigslist? Nonsense.

    If you compare killings by bombs during marathons, and killings by open-source file system developers, there isn't that much difference. So surely we need to close down open-source file system development as well?

    1. Re:Totally absurd by Fuzzums · · Score: 1

      Wow. I didn't know OS was that dangerous. It's very brave of you to point that out.
      Not to mention the loss in jobs because of OS!
      Somebody! Do something!! OS is the root of all evil!!

      Ok. Enough sarcasm for today :)

      --
      Privacy is terrorism.
  35. Live webcams on all police officers by stevegee58 · · Score: 1

    It'd be like watching Cops 24/7 only without commercials.

  36. Wait, Slashdot links to Reason.com now? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Seriously? A link to the uber-Libertarian Reason.com? Aww. I'm so proud. :) They've got good stuff there from time to time.

  37. NYPD: Wall Street = New York City by dryriver · · Score: 1

    The NYPD doesn't give a DAMN what installing cameras everywhere will do to people's privacy. NYPD has one mission and one mission alone: To protect the capitalist businesses in NYC from attack, most importantly of all Wall Street. You thought you could live in NYC with some anonimity in public places? Well, you simply thought wrong. NYPD will do anything to protect businesses in NYC. But protecting YOUR PRIVACY? That's simply not part of the NYPD's mission. NYPD exists to protect the big capitalist cahunas, and not YOU, the common man. If you live in NYC, expect thousands of new CCTV cameras to be installed in the next 6 - 12 months. And yes, all those cameras will be wired into a central NYPD command post, where realtime face recognition algorithms will allow Bloomberg & Friends to track your whereabouts in NYC 24/7. ---- Sorry to be so negative, but this is what NYPD's mission is - to protect large businesses in NYC from attack. Yes, you will loose your privacy because of this. And NO, nothing you do - protest, write letters, collect signatures, sue the city - will prevent those 2,000 - 5,000 new CCTV cameras from being installed. ----- So this is pretty much it for New York City. As if NYC wasn't a nasty, dirty, crowded, expensive place to live in before, the CCTV will make it EVEN WORSE than before. Good luck to New Yorkers. Once those CCTV cameras are in place, nothing will make the NYC bureaucrats take those cameras down again. ---- On some level it doesn't matter. New York has little to offer over other large cities in the world that are still - for the time being - relatively free.

    --
    Why did the chicken cross the road? Because Elon Musk put an AI chip in its head.
    1. Re:NYPD: Wall Street = New York City by dkleinsc · · Score: 1

      NYPD has one mission and one mission alone: To protect the capitalist businesses in NYC from attack, most importantly of all Wall Street.

      That's not the only mission: They also have a mission of constantly harassing every non-white man in town, whether or not they're breaking any kind of law, to help keep them in their place. Otherwise, they might notice that the non-white people are in the majority and wonder why their elected officials are all white guys.

      --
      I am officially gone from /. Long live http://www.soylentnews.com/
  38. Pathetic by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    The fertilizer plant explosion in West, Texas has killed and injured far more that those in Boston. But, the media pays Texas little mind, compared to their scrutiny and "in depth" coverage of Boston.

    No one gives a second thought to Texas or fertilizer plants or any other industrial facility explosion. But 'ooh terrorists. Be afraid. Suspend the Constitution...'

    It's really quite pathetic. Even more so that my more reasoned position is outnumbered and shouted down by masses saying things like; 'so, you support the terrorists?', 'are you nuts?', 'you're just being really stupid.'

    1. Re:Pathetic by SpaceManFlip · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It's all the media's manipulation of what people pay attention to. If you talk to individuals who can process thoughts within their own mind, it isn't unlikely that they can see the rational reality that the Boston Bombings were really not That Big of a Deal in the grand scope of things. More people are killed and injured on a daily basis just driving or riding in their fabulous automobiles.

    2. Re:Pathetic by erroneus · · Score: 4, Insightful

      That's most definitely the truth, but it's hard to convince people to understand that their expectations of life are simply wrong. In a car or crossing the street, we all know, at some level, there is a certain amount of risk and possibility that something "bad" could happen... and when it's an accident, we can forgive and move on. When it's something else, we want to blame, punish and all manner of other things.

      Here's the thing though -- none of the things the government will do can make anyone "safer." It just makes it easier for them to do other things and to inhibit and limit others while permitting themselves and their friends added privilege, freedom and protection from public knowledge.

      Culturally, we have got to get a better grip on and perspective of reality. There was a time and a place where we could let our children run around free to play and learn and grow. We can't do that any more because we've been cultured into fear of everything. And this all happened in my life time as I recall as a 5 to 10 year old being all over the neighborhood without a thought of checking in at home or any such thing. I was always home in time to eat or go to bed... I did what was expected of me and my parents had no cause for worry. I'm 45 years old this year. PEOPLE have not changed. They have not. It is our fears which have changed everything.

    3. Re:Pathetic by misexistentialist · · Score: 1

      The coverage also obscures the details, namely that the FBI fucked up massively once again. If an unemployed radical Muslim Chechen didn't stand out, the last thing the government needs is more private details on millions of boring people

    4. Re:Pathetic by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 1

      Here's the thing though -- none of the things the government will do can make anyone "safer."

      So fire all the cops, firemen, garbage men, and teachers in your community if you think it will just improve your tax return, and still keep you just as safe from criminals, fires, cholera, and idiocy.

    5. Re:Pathetic by erroneus · · Score: 1

      That is NOT what I am saying. I am talking about taking freedoms away, not keeping the peace or promoting the general welfare of the community. We know general services are good and important.

      What we don't need is our rights limited or removed. It does not help anything to do that.

  39. Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? by betterunixthanunix · · Score: 1
    Thought experiment: imagine that you live across the street from a police station, and that you install cameras on your property that watch and record the entrance and garage of that police station. How do you think the police would react to that? How might they react if you published your recordings online, so that anyone could see them?

    Whatever the argument is for not having people watching the police applies to not having the police watch me. There are are corrupt cops out there who might use their access to a CCTV network to do harm. Abuses of officers' access to such systems have happened in the past:

    https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/cannibal-faces-life-guilty-conspiracy-kidnap-illegal-databases-article-1.1286075

    I'm all for police being able to catch criminals better.

    We already have an order of magnitude more prisoners than any country on this entire planet. Do you really want to worsen this situation?

    the proper course of action then is to try to get those laws eradicated or at least made to be universally ignored

    You are contradicting yourself. How can a law be universally ignored if the police are better able to catch criminals? That is the whole point here: we want to ensure that some laws are unenforceable, because those laws are unjust; therefore, we need to ensure that the power of the police to enforce the law is limited. Every time we broaden the power of the police, we broaden the scope of enforceable law.

    --
    Palm trees and 8
    1. Re:Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? by neminem · · Score: 1

      A law can be universally ignored by virtue of the police, or the people managing the police, mandating that their time is better spent elsewhere. Local lawbooks are *full* of ridiculous stupid laws that technically still exist but that nobody has gotten arrested or fined for in centuries. More importantly, in many places, despite it still being entirely illegal, it's stated that making arrests for marijuana possession should be "lowest priority". That was my point about either actually removing laws or just making them "might as well be gone".

      We already have an order of magnitude more prisoners because we have a messed up system. The proper fix would be to actually fix what's broken, stop arresting people who didn't do anything, or who did things that shouldn't be arrestable offenses.

      We will also always have corrupt cops. The proper course of action there is to freaking arrest *them*. Yes, I do imagine that recording a police station would get you in trouble, which is all kinds of absurd, but that doesn't really have anything to do with it. Sure, corrupt cops could use a CCTV system to do harm, but corrupt cops can do a frelling lot of harm with any such systems; how much more could they really do with one that they can't do now? How about we pass laws that if a cop is corrupt, *they* frelling go to jail? (Yes, there are too many people in jail, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't still be jailing people who actually deserve it...)

  40. Trying to take our freedom! by MachineShedFred · · Score: 1

    "Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms." - Mayor Michael Bloomberg

    Yeah, Mayor. So lets beat them to the punch and take away those freedoms through draconian laws and big brother camera systems before the turrorists can! That'll teach em!

    --
    Slashdot still doesnâ(TM)t support Unicode after it was added to the HTML standard in 1997.
    1. Re:Trying to take our freedom! by Brucelet · · Score: 1

      It's funny. Here in Boston a lot of buzz seems to be around people waking up to the fact that the answer to these sorts of attacks is to go on with life and not be terrorized. Too bad Bloomberg hasn't gotten that memo.

    2. Re:Trying to take our freedom! by sconeu · · Score: 1

      "Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms." - Mayor Michael Bloomberg

      And you are number one on that list.

      --
      General Relativity: Space-time tells matter where to go; Matter tells space-time what shape to be.
    3. Re:Trying to take our freedom! by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 1

      I don't see how a camera removes my freedom. It only removes my freedom to commit crime.

      --
      I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
    4. Re:Trying to take our freedom! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      "Look, we live in a very dangerous world. We know there are people who want to take away our freedoms." - Mayor Michael Bloomberg

      And you are number one on that list.

      Someone should put a bullet into Mayor Bloomberg's skull to ensure America's #1 Terrorist is no further threat to the life of any person. Bloomberg's head can be mailed to President Obama.

    5. Re:Trying to take our freedom! by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      The desperate attempt to eliminate judgment for policy makes it such that everybody is committing some form of crime. Accidentally bump into somebody? Assault. Scratch your balls? Public indecency, potentially in view of a minor.

      You really want your regular, thoughtless daily activity recorded and scrutinized under threat of law? Sure, nobody's going to be monitoring these behaviors 24/7 (yet, until it's automated), but what happens if you get a speeding ticket? One of your "friends" does something stupid and gets arrested? Apply selective enforcement and now you're the scapegoat nailed to the wall so the "public servants" can go home earlier.

    6. Re:Trying to take our freedom! by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      I suppose you think the TSA removes terrorists' freedom to commit acts of terrorism?

      Nothing to hide, nothing to fear!

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  41. Re:NYPD: Wall Street = New York City = SUCK PLACE by SpaceManFlip · · Score: 1
    Yeah I really didn't need any more reasons not to visit New York or even the City itself. Overpopulation leads to overzealous law enforcement leads to less freedom.

    If you really want freedom and privacy, you have to get away from places that house millions of douchebags.

    Move to Montana, raise a crop of dental floss, etc.

  42. Re:If public places are not to be considered priva by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Then, any cameras being placed should be openly accessible to the public in real time. I won't like the presence of cameras, but at least this is consistent with the sentiment that public places are not to be considered private.

    You know, I'm not sure I agree with that. It might sound nice on first thought, but it's really not. That would just greatly increase the number of people you'd have to worry about abusing the system. It's like saying "that wolf might eat me, but if we introduce another wolf then I don't have to worry anymore". Nope, now you have 2 wolves to worry about.

  43. Camera coverage at all hazardous material sites by Animats · · Score: 1

    We need full camera coverage at all hazardous industrial sites. The fertizer plant that blew up in Texas had 270 tons of ammonium nitrate on hand, but were only authorized one ton. They acquired an unauthorized weapon of mass destruction which demolished most of the town. The owners should be punished accordingly.

    Hazardous area cameras should be monitored by OSHA, Homeland Security, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers Union, and Underwriters Laboratories. That would keep everyone honest.

    1. Re:Camera coverage at all hazardous material sites by Fuzzums · · Score: 1

      And politicians.

      --
      Privacy is terrorism.
  44. Wait a minute.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The suspects were caught by a store security camera -
    what does that have to do with anything? It's basically
    the same as an eye witness seeing the same thing.

    No amount of cameras would have changed anything if they
    didn't have footage of the younger brother placing the backpack.
    Many other people in the crowd "looked" guilty, but it was that
    footage that sealed their fate and proved the others innocent.

  45. Never let a crisis go to waste by verifine · · Score: 3

    We have to do something. Get people all worked up so they're not thinking clearly, then ram another law in their faces.

    Welcome to politics!

  46. BOHICA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    'I think the privacy issue has really been taken off the table,'

    No, it just means we (the American People) are about to get bent over again.

  47. go to hell by AndyKron · · Score: 1

    New York City Police Commissioner Ray Kelly can go to hell, too.

  48. With one exception by Lucas123 · · Score: 1

    The public video taping police abusing their authority. For that you'll arrest citizens. While a no brainer that we can video tape police in public, it had to go to the Supreme Court yet again to be upheld yet again. http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/local/breaking/chi-supreme-court-rejects-plea-to-prohibit-taping-of-police-20121126,0,686331.story

  49. The genie is out of the bottle by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    From the article: "... the genie is out of the bottle,” Kelly said.
    What that particular idiom means is, "to allow something bad to happen which cannot then be stopped"
    Yeah, that about sums up the erosion of rights.

  50. So no need for FIOA by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And the police will be accepting that they WILL be filmed in action.

    Right?

    After all, privacy is off the table.

  51. A criminal mastermind speaks by Hognoxious · · Score: 1

    The "boston bombers" had 4 days with which they could have done *anything*, including running very far away, planting more bombs, "suiciding" etc. but they didnt, they instead just dicked around until they got caught, not really the thing someone serious about terror would do.

    Right. Because the obvious thing to do is attempt to strike while everyone is on full alert. Acting normal for a while - I hear they even attended school - and then doing your next hit when everyone's forgotten or at least got bored with the routine would be just dumb.

    --
    Confucius say, "Find worm in apple - bad. Find half a worm - worse."
  52. Okay then ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So if our privacy is off the table, so is theirs.

    The name, home address, income tax information, and list of family members of every police office should be published on-line, starting with this fucker.

    Oh, don't want that? That would be invasive to your privacy? Suck it bitch.

  53. Hypocrisy by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    And when the NYC Police are videoed accepting cash for narcotics, enjoying prostitutes and committing burglary, grand theft and murder, the cameras will be turned off.

  54. Another Reason by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

        This is just another reason that NY is a Pariah State.

        To paraphrase Die Krupps,

        "No making friends, no human contact with the [New Yorkers] who by the ... crimes they have committed place themselves outside of the society of civilized
    nations"

  55. Re:Slashdot admins are the criminals... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    tl;dnr

  56. Cameras in all public places? Okay... by erroneus · · Score: 1

    ... but the public *MUST* have access to the tapes at ALL TIMES. I mean ALL TIMES. There shall be dire consequences when the public is excluded from having access to the events and occurances which go on in the public. There must be full accountability. There must be protection against data loss or other causes which may prevent the public from having instant access to the same information the government uses.

    Sorry, but if it happens in public, there should be no "national security" interest blocking the public's access to the truth.

    To do this any other way further adds to the caste system we have in place where government and business are above all others. This way, when the goverment has unidentified contractors walking around in uniform, there can be no denying or hiding of that fact. This type of thing needs to cut both ways -- you watch us, we watch you.

    What say you government?

  57. Just get a law passed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Allowing masks and nondescript clothing in public places. If everybody does it then public surveillance is a non-issue, since the only time it'll be useful is immediately after a violent crime, and only in-so-far as the criminal can't change somewhere off-camera (which if you can, avoids the whole privacy issue, since as long as there are similiarly bodied people also changing nobody can be sure who is who.

    But of course this should be illegal because you might be committing crimes!

    1. Re:Just get a law passed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Or, restrict your illegal activities to private locations where you HAVE a reasonable expectatoin of privacy.

      Or, don't do illegal shit.

      I'm not a fan of pervasive surveillance programs like this, and would love to see them restricted. But in a public space, there is no privacy issue that would justify restriction. If you want them restricted, the solution is to get a new law passed, saying, "cameras may not be used by police forces." Or, "all government-owned camera data will be managed and administered by the judicial system, and any access to surveillance data will only be allowed with a valid warrant, signed BY that judicial system." Or any other solution you'd care to see enacted in law.

      It just isn't a constitutional issue. If they wanted to install cameras on your property, in your home, in your car? ABSOLUTELY a privacy issue. On a public street? Not so much.

    2. Re:Just get a law passed... by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Until they pass a law outlawing infra-red flood lights and the like, there are means of circumvention for those so inclined.

      Personally, I think 1080p cameras are a good idea; not so sure about storage of the data generated, nor about how soon after recording the data should be accessible. There would need to be some level of accountability regarding data handling and retention; providing it carte blanche to the police and not allowing anyone else to have it would be bad; so would allowing everyone with an internet connection to mine the data (stalker's dream, and would allow for tracking police officers too).

    3. Re:Just get a law passed... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But in a public space, there is no privacy issue that would justify restriction.

      Sure there is. You have some privacy even in a public place. Looking up girls' skirts is frowned upon, for instance.

  58. 24/7 Surveillance a Completely Reasonable Reaction by Lucas123 · · Score: 1

    We must consider the facts. Since Sept. 11, 2001, SEVENTEEN Americans have been killed in domestic terrorist attacks, according to the Global Terrorism Database. If that's not reason enough to set up a nationwide network of surveillance cameras recording our every public act, I don't know what would be. We must protect the 0.0000056 percenters of our population from terrorism. http://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/search/Results.aspx?chart=country&casualties_type=f&casualties_max=&start_yearonly=1970&end_yearonly=2010&dtp2=all&country=217

  59. More cameras do not equal greater protection by iridium6 · · Score: 1

    Camera's exist in stores and banks, but they still get robbed. Cameras exist at intersections, but people still run red lights or make illegal turns. Surveillance is not about protection of the public and providing safe living for the masses. Its about investigation after the fact. Its about making the job of filling out reports and gaining convictions easier. While this is a worthy goal in and of itself, it is not the same as providing as safety of the public as folks like this person might wish to imply (or more than), and in and of itself is not worth trampling on everyone's privacy and freedoms every minute of the day, in my opinion.

  60. Croud sourcing is retro. by Fuzzums · · Score: 1

    Eastern Germany was also very good at and well known for crowd sourcing to search for criminal behaviour. They even caught criminals before they committed real crimes. They called it the Stasi : http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stasi
    Good luck with that, mister Kelly.

    --
    Privacy is terrorism.
  61. And for Comm. Kelly by kilodelta · · Score: 1

    I say a red hot poker engraved with the 1st, 3rd, 4th and 5th amendments be shoved up his ass.

    1. Re:And for Comm. Kelly by mightybaldking · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure how the use of cameras leads to: -Infringements of my freedom of speech, freedom of religion, and freedom of the press, as well as the right to assemble and petition the government (1st) -forced quartering of soldiers during peacetime - unreasonable searches and seizures - Removal of indictment, imposition of self incrimination, seizure of private property or the imposition of double jeopardy. You might have a case based on illegal search, but as the person is in public space and not being inhibited in any way, I doubt it.

    2. Re:And for Comm. Kelly by kilodelta · · Score: 1

      Well - plus the stop & frisk bullshit going on in NYC right now. That's Kelly's call. So he deserves it for that. Let me paraphrase the 4th Amendment if you will:

      The right to be secure in your person, papers and things. And if the authorities want to search you they must have probable cause or affirmation.

    3. Re:And for Comm. Kelly by mightybaldking · · Score: 1

      I don't see that cameras necessarily imply "search". It is possible that such a case could be made, but it's not obviously so.

  62. Re:If public places are not to be considered priva by Brucelet · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I agree. Imagine someone stalking ex-girlfriends using omnipresent publicly-accessible cameras. Or planning a robbery with a partner monitoring cameras to tip him off when the police are responding. Maybe your workplace has someone checking cameras and asking why you went out to lunch after calling in sick. The correct response to Big Brother is not to give him more siblings.

  63. Hey, Kelly by ThatsNotPudding · · Score: 1

    Take off all your clothes and leave them off for the rest of your life. Also: tear down your abode and build a glass house instead.

    FOR IF YOU HAVE DONE NOTHING WRONG...

  64. No not really by jameshofo · · Score: 1

    The fact that they had cameras didn't prevent the attack. So no, it's still not worth a camera on every street, it's not worth permanently disrupting our society. Crime prevention is done almost exclusively through the threat of punishment. The 30 billion spent on monitoring and security was thrown away when even the Russian authorities told us this guy was "bad". We're much better off as a society and a world if we work on ways to reduce the need for a false solution the all seeing eye is. People need a good ways to be apart of their communities so the outliers can be assessed for the actual (or inactual) threat they are before they go off the deep end. And beyond that it's the spice of life, the bitter that makes the sweet that much sweeter.

    --
    Good leaders run toward problems, bad leaders hide from them.
  65. And we aren't putting them in officer homes. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So why are you proposing to put it in the OP's home?

    His office is likely ALREADY CCTV'd.

    And since the word of a police officer is taken as more worthy, they should be able to handle even higher scrutiny, right?

    1. Re:And we aren't putting them in officer homes. by wonkey_monkey · · Score: 1

      So why are you proposing to put it in the OP's home?

      I didn't say that.

      --
      systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
  66. Re:If public places are not to be considered priva by Capt.DrumkenBum · · Score: 1

    I would really like to have access to the camera across the street from my house. I points up the road, and would be handy to be able to watch when I was expecting someone to come over.
    I think if they set up cameras with open public access. and maybe even a way to report unusual activity to someone who could review the camera, and decide if a law enforcement official needed to be sent.
    This is a system I could get behind.

    --
    If I were God, wouldn't I protect my churches from acts of me?
  67. Gotcha! So THAT's why they allowed the bombings by 1800maxim · · Score: 1

    It was a way to get people to agree to more cameras... Right?

    In any case, how will more CCTV cameras prevent bombings? The Tsarnaev brothers set off their bombs amidst one of the heaviest police/security presence, who were incidentally running a drill.

    Neither surveillance cameras nor police presence will prevent terrorist bombinbs. They could potentially make it easier to catch the perpetrators AFTER a terrorist act has been committed.

  68. So what? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So they want more cameras around the city. When you are outside of your home or off your private property then security and privacy are no longer something you are entitled to. When you leave your home and in PUBLIC you give up your privacy. People seem to think they are entitled to complete privacy 100% of the time.

    If I go outside and walk down the street other people, law enforcement, the government and basically anyone will see me. What do I care if I am on video? What will the police come and arrest me because I bought some donuts? If I scratch my ass?

    If you are out in public and seen on video doing nothing wrong then no one will care. If I am in public and doing bad things and caught on video then Ill be punished for it, as it should be when you do bad things.

    I hate to break it to you people but you don't matter and no one cares about you. If your on video not doing anything wrong then no one will care about you. You all act as if the government is actually spying, recording and watching your every move all the time and every person has a file on them but in reality they don't, unless you do bad things. Only people who have to worry about being caught on camera IN PUBLIC are people who are doing bad things. Everyone else? They don't give a toss about you or even know who you are.

    Besides, whats the difference between walking down the street and a police officer driving by and seeing you, and a video camera where a police officer sees you? None that's what.

    1. Re:So what? by 0123456 · · Score: 1

      Troll rating: 2/10. Must try harder to appear believable.

  69. PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Liberty? OFF THE TABLE!
    Freedom? OFF THE TABLE!
    Justice? OFF THE TABLE!

    You are now safe from the threat we created for you.

    --
    "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
    Never been known to fail..."
    1. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by msauve · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.

      --
      "National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity." - Celine's First Law
    2. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by xevioso · · Score: 1

      Quiescite. Non vult ad comment in quibusdam legitur stultus senex valde, verborum usus, nemo amplius. Recentiores linguae experiri scribere volutpat.

    3. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by hazah · · Score: 1

      Latin doesn't use punctuation.

    4. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by anagama · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are now safe from the threat we created for you.

      But still not safe.

      America will gladly take the tattered bits of the constitution and pulp them over what is realistically a tiny threat. But when lax zoning laws coupled with almost zero oversight (e.g. holding 1350x as much ammonium nitrate onsite and not reporting it or being inspected) lead to an industrial disaster (*) in which more people were injured and killed almost concurrently with Boston .... the owners might face some kind lawsuit, but you don't hear the public clambering for a police state nor do you hear politicians gladly acquiescing.

      Or pick any random refinery explosion, which often kill workers and are often due to aged equipment not being replaced (**).

      Now, I don't think industrial accidents should warrant pulping the constitution, but the response we take in such instances should at least be instructive -- there is the potential for criminal and civil charges all of which will take place in the context of a trial conducted under the normal rules of evidence and procedure pertinent to the type of proceeding.

      But when many fewer people are hurt or injured by a bomb, we go on a self-destructive freeforall.

      (*) http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/25/us/texas-fertilizer-plant-fell-through-cracks-of-regulatory-oversight.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
      (**) http://www.historylink.org/index.cfm?DisplayPage=output.cfm&file_id=9717

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    5. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It does if you use punctuation marks. No? We just made it better.

    6. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Mashiki · · Score: 3, Insightful

      America will gladly take the tattered bits of the constitution and pulp them over what is realistically a tiny threat.

      But remember, people who actually form new political ideologies and fight for the constitution and smaller limited government are the terrorists. At least according to the media, and the government itself.

      --
      Om, nomnomnom...
    7. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by MitchDev · · Score: 0

      Figures I'd be out of mod points when this hit /.
      Founding fathers are rolling over in their graves. Could power the whole nation if we hooked up generators to them...

    8. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by mooingyak · · Score: 1

      Forseveralcenturiesitdidnotusespaceseither.

      --
      William of Ockham had no beard. The most likely explanation is that it was chewed off by squirrels every morning.
    9. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      It's all part of the plan. Even if the plan is horrifying.

    10. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by srmalloy · · Score: 1

      "We had to destroy your freedom in order to save it."

    11. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Iam pravus slashdot luser pentrated ratio moderationis descendit moderari omnes postes meos, dum ipse in persona.

      CCXXX temporibus quamproxime ut sciam hie pro omnibus aprilis vel martii MMXIII quatenus hie et alios retuli prohibere accipere silex lunaticus licencia slashdot

      Paenitet vulgares sed quicumque est ille insanus conatur Personatus ego, et ceteri perturbatus tam gravi mentis habuerit exitus, non debeo ipsi interrogationes obtineatur eum graviter et acquisisti eius faciens in caprum ars disputandi et angore ad cursum suum amittere eum ad me facientes

      ---

      I decem millia provocationes pecuniam pro exemplo, ubi recensentur et EVESTIGATUS impostor actu numero temporum non minus et ipse fecit illud, quo feror CCXXX vel interdum supra http://it.slashdot.org/ineo.Pl?Sid=(MMMDLXXXV)DCCXCV&CID=IV(MMMCCLXXXV)CCCVII

      et vel

      II Reposting Veteris et exempla immutari possunt - non continuit in hoc veritas, ut mutantibus de info mutatur postes meos de praeterito hie

      ---

      Licet saepius massively omnes ictus fila slashdot in hoc itinere aut paene totus adhuc April MMXIII

          Personaliter, Ego miror hic moderationis virgam tantum non obumbrant eius range tamen sincere network

      Non eadem est mihi scire, maxime post officium meum, quod de venio possunt videre amet pharetra eget Troglodytarum et vomitus facere supra n

      APK

      PS => Item / pon: nemo guys - non est me id facere, quod ego facere non vastem quod multo tempore, tam levia BS quasi haedum ut ...

      Plus ego tantum stipes lima mos est, ubi virtutum vel conveniens locus enim in solutione et certo non omni praesidium SLASHDOT (insanusnauta hominem conatur ad "Personatus ego 'est id pene omne aprilis vel martii et nunc, et semper CCXXX certe, quod sciam) ... apk

      PS => hic est rectam notitia lima iustus exercitus ad urinam pedum off phrenetici, insanientes troglodytam:

      --

      XXI COMMODA consuetudinis VIRTUTUM lima (quo / qua / quo / qua / quare):

      Et super AdBlock DNS Servers SOLI IV securitatem, celeritate, firmitate, et anonymity (quatenus ad vs DNSBL et DNS scriptor postulatio acta).

      I VIRTUTUM lima es useable omnia enim haec sunt omnes fines quia operating ratio ut have BSD dicentur IP Stack (etiam MAS) et faciunt adblocking aliqua webbrowser, consectetuer adipiscing elit, etc (webbound aliqua progressio). Vere "multi-suggestus" universale solutio celeritas adiecit, securitas, firmitate, & usque ad anonymity extensio (vs DNS petitionem ligna DNSBL scriptor sentis iniusta vos adepto praeteritum exercituum / circuitu).

      II Adblock cuneos ads? Etiam ut non amplius pro defectu et non videtur lol - infra:

      Adblock Plus offert 'Jucundus Ads' Option

      http://news.slashdot.org/story/XI/XII/XII/(MMCCXIII)CCXXXIII/adblock-offer-plus-ad-ads-bene-placito)

      Et in tantum navigatores et familias suas subprogram (exempli email sicut tonitru avis ignis vulpinus Mozilla products (uti eodem STILIO xulrunner et machinas)), sed non omni, vel omnino independens email clientibus, sicut Outlook, Outlook expresso vel Fenestra mail vivunt (exempli (s)) - est & alia similia multa EUDORA ego usus supra tempus quod AdBlock iustus non tegat ... temporis.

      Negare: Opera omnia: nunc habet AdBlock Addon (quod nunc habet Opera addons widgets supra), sed ego sum certus non idem facere sicut faciunt ignem vulpinus, Chrome etc.

      III Adblock non tueri cursus eu, ad externum ignem vulpes (non-mozilla/gecko engine dicentur) dicentur familia merces, non tueri ergo AdBlock email similis progressio Ex vultu respicere Ex exprimere mail Fenestra Ago et similibus (EUDORA et alii, et cetera), lima exercituum facere. Hoc bonum nos. M

      Legi cetera huius comment...

    12. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Psion · · Score: 1

      And they say Latin is a "dead" language! HAH!

    13. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The Joker said it best.

    14. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      How do you say "this owns" in Latin?

    15. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 4, Insightful

      The interesting thing I have noticed over the years is that people don't actually clamor for the government to do something after these events. What you hear is politicians, bureaucrats, and certain members of the media clamoring for the government to do something. The people who yell, "this is an outrage, the government must do something" fall into two categories: those who have been calling for the government to do what they now say this "outrage" means the government must do now without further discussion and those who see an opportunity to wring some advantage out of this change (these categories are not mutually exclusive).

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    16. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Shhh you're actually thinking. That may put you on one of countless "watch lists" that exist now.

    17. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by anagama · · Score: 1

      Maybe the mistake I make in thinking the public wants a police state, is reading the comments sections of various news articles. Even in my comparatively liberal part of the country (Pacific Northwest, west of the Cascades), the comments section of my local paper is dominated by those who crave a police state. When I look at articles from other parts of the country, it is worse, all of which makes me feel bitter and fatalistic.

      So anyway, maybe it is more true to say that there is a vocal group clambering for a police state, a much much smaller group opposed, and a vast swath of the public focused almost entirely on $randomPopStar. Given that dynamic, our politicians are sure to take any action that secures more power to the government and less to the people.

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    18. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... an industrial disaster in which more people ...

      That is a failure of the ruling class to serve the peace and only unimportant plebs died. This disaster not making the headlines for 3 days in a row reveals its unimportance.

      ... people are hurt or injured by a bomb ...

      That is a failure of the plebs to obey and everyone is in danger. Mostly, the ruling class which is vastly outnumbered and somewhat vulnerable to the 'stupid, panicky, dangerous' plebs.

    19. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Something like: 'Hoc habuerat' probably.

    20. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Jeremiah+Cornelius · · Score: 1

      I am the Walrus, Goo Goo Goo JOOB!

      --
      "Flyin' in just a sweet place,
      Never been known to fail..."
    21. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by hazah · · Score: 1

      Yeah, but it made more sense than English in that regard :P

    22. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by wmac1 · · Score: 1

      But still not safe.

      That's because no camera is installed inside of the homes! If people agree to install cameras inside the homes and toilets and bedrooms and ... we finally can be safe...!

      Says George Orwell.

    23. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      Well, I see why I see so much less of it than you. I primarily see comments on the news from "conservatives". I was going to try and give a detailed explanation of the relationship between modern American "liberalism" and the desire for government control, but it got to complicated for a post here. I will sum up by saying that modern American "liberalism" is repackaged progressivism and fascism was a progressive ideology.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    24. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by anagama · · Score: 1

      Actually, that sounds fascinating. It's an old thread now, who cares about the length?

      --
      What changed under Obama? Nothing Good
    25. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Attila+Dimedici · · Score: 1

      Well to understand the relationship between modern American "liberalism" and government control/police states a good starting place would be the book "Liberal Fascism". However, consider a political hero of the modern left in America, FDR. FDR expressed strong admiration for both the fascists of Europe and of Stalin.

      --
      The truth is that all men having power ought to be mistrusted. James Madison
    26. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by Zak3056 · · Score: 1

      Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.

      People called Romanes they go the house?

      --
      What part of "shall not be infringed" is so hard to understand?
    27. Re:PRIVACY? OFF THE TABLE! by messymerry · · Score: 1

      Historia docet, quod tyrannus ipse civitas plena metus, et quidquid necesse est scriptor iter faciet eam. History teaches us that the tyrant is filled with fear and the the State will do whatever is necessary to insure it's hegemony.

      --
      Dear Microlimp: I give you 2 valid product keys for win7 and you reject both of them. Piss off you wankers!!!
  70. Never let a good crisis go to waste by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Wherever power is aggregated corruption is bred.

    In the interest of integrity and well being of police depts I am against plastering cameras all over the place where they would be granted unfettered unconditional access. If there is no barrier to snooping there is no barrier to stalking or corrupt officers using information in furtherance of harmful goals.

    We've already seen several known cases of internal TLA databases used to download 411 on celebrities and officers using their positions to stalk exs. Everyone is human even the watchers. The trick is creating a human environment conducive to positivly reinforcing outcomes. Using appeals to emotion to shortcircut rational thought is not the path to improvement of society.

  71. Re:Cameras in all public places? Okay... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Report to your local police station for questioning and detention, terrorist.

    - Government

  72. Re: CA executives oppose privacy by NickGnome · · Score: 1
  73. But... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    If the police have nothing to hide, then they have nothing to fear!!!!

    (Posting AC for the obvious reason)

  74. Surprise surprise by dadelbunts · · Score: 1

    And when i posted on an article here on slashdot about Boston being the start of a slippery slope that leads to a police state i was ridiculed. With all the new cameras they will now be able to spot anyone that is out and about when they lockdown cities. How awesome.

    1. Re:Surprise surprise by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

      > i was ridiculed

      Then you are no longer a ridicule virgin. So BOHICA (Bend Over Here It Comes Again).

      The cameras that were used in Boston were private building security cameras whose contents were voluntarily shown to the police.

      Ray Flynn works for NYC. It's unlikely his opinions are going to much affect or inspire the installation of police cameras in Boston.

  75. short sighted by Ragica · · Score: 1

    And of course, with police cameras on everyone, just hope that future such acts continue to be perpetrated by local amateurs who seem to have done virtually nothing to obscure their appearance, and even remarkably little to mask the planting of their payload.

    I think the police should concentrate on their skills at apprehending fully identified criminals without requiring massive suburban shootouts (which they don't even win), and their finding-people-hiding-in-backyard-boat skills, before they get any more toys on the table.

  76. Pick up that can. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As far as cameras looking at police officers. We need a lot more of that. Police routinely 'beat people up' and conduct illegal searches. They need to be put on a short leash.

    Pick up that can.

    Seriously, this country is fast turning into a giant open-air penitentiary where the gov and police are the wardens and guards and all the citizens are considered the same as inmates.

    It's easy to understand now why the gov is so ravenously desperate for gun control and elimination of our 2nd Amendment RKBA. When that's gone, then they can finish eliminating the 1st, the 4th, the 5th, etc.

    I used to think the right wing gun nuts were all paranoid delusional whacko's but more and more I begin to see that perhaps they may have been correct all along.

    1. Re:Pick up that can. by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 1

      It's easy to understand now why the gov is so ravenously desperate for gun control and elimination of our 2nd Amendment RKBA. When that's gone, then they can finish eliminating the 1st, the 4th, the 5th, etc.

      I used to think the right wing gun nuts were all paranoid delusional whacko's but more and more I begin to see that perhaps they may have been correct all along.

      The erosion of your other constitutional rights have somewhere between little and nothing to do with minute limits on the second amendment right to bear arms we're talking about. Specifically, keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics and felons does not, in any way, shape or form "infringe" on your right to bear arms. The only people who will be prevented from buying a gun don't actually have a legal right to buy one in the first place: As a society we long ago accepted that crimes (or actual, provable insanity) were legitimate reasons to limit a person's liberty. Beyond this, it is a childish fantasy to believe that the fat-slobs from the local "militia" are ever going to overthrow jack-shit.

      Simply put: A direct confrontation with the U.S. military where you attempt to "restore our freedoms" would be a pathetic, one-sided massacre. Every participant would be dead in minutes, hours if they're really "lucky." The survivors would be rounded up, tried for treason, and executed.

      Your best hope for restoring lost rights is, and always will be, the ballot box. Show me a person who thinks he can effectively "defend" his constitutional rights with his civilian caliber semi-automatic pistol/rifle and I'll show you somebody who hasn't spent even ten minutes in the military.

      --
      Who did what now?
    2. Re:Pick up that can. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Specifically, keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics and felons does not, in any way, shape or form "infringe" on your right to bear arms.

      It does when the government starts making laws that allow family members or government agents to put a person on a one-year block just because "they might be a little blue". Once the lists exist, they'll be abused. Once they're abused, they can be abused with regularity. Once the abuse is regular, it can be codified in law. Once the law says no one can own guns, the government can send anyone to the internment camps without fear of popular uprising. Just like the Japanese-Americans.

    3. Re:Pick up that can. by Karl+Cocknozzle · · Score: 1

      Specifically, keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics and felons does not, in any way, shape or form "infringe" on your right to bear arms.

      It does when the government starts making laws that allow family members or government agents to put a person on a one-year block just because "they might be a little blue". Once the lists exist, they'll be abused. Once they're abused, they can be abused with regularity. Once the abuse is regular, it can be codified in law. Once the law says no one can own guns, the government can send anyone to the internment camps without fear of popular uprising. Just like the Japanese-Americans.

      This is illogical, paranoid nonsense. You make the (unsupported) argument that family members or government agents can put a person on a "one year block" because they're "a little blue." Please cite some proof--such a registry does not exist, nor has it been proposed.

      As for your historical example, in the first place, Japanese-Americans had the right to bear arms--yet almost none of them resisted by force. Those who did were slaughtered. So your example is stupid on two levels: First, the interned-Japanese Americans had access to guns and it didn't stop them from being placed in camps and second, the ones who did resist technically did "avoid" being put in concentration camps, but they did so by being killed, so I'm not sure that's really a big "win."

      --
      Who did what now?
    4. Re:Pick up that can. by Totenglocke · · Score: 1
      Specifically, keeping guns out of the hands of lunatics and felons does not, in any way, shape or form "infringe" on your right to bear arms.

      Nothing that has ever been proposed would do this, because they almost never acquire their guns via legal means. Making it even more illegal doesn't do anything. Also, the only way the "lunatics and felons" would be stopped by a background check is if they have already proven themselves to be dangerous - if they have proven themselves to be a threat, then they the hell are they free to harm others instead of being locked up?

      Beyond this, it is a childish fantasy to believe that the fat-slobs from the local "militia" are ever going to overthrow jack-shit.

      Now you sound exactly like the British back in the late 1700's. There are around 100 million gun owners in the US and total military, police, and Federal agent forces are about 4 million. Assuming no one employed by the government switches sides, that's still being outnumbered 25 to 1. Also, your comment shows just how little you know of gun owners, with the typical gun owner being better trained than the typical police officer. Try looking up data on police accuracy and their training requirements - it's a sick joke to claim that the police in the US are "well trained" with guns.

      Simply put: A direct confrontation with the U.S. military where you attempt to "restore our freedoms" would be a pathetic, one-sided massacre. Every participant would be dead in minutes, hours if they're really "lucky." The survivors would be rounded up, tried for treason, and executed.

      It would be a massacre, but the other way around. You don't seem to grasp how much the US government relies on civilian contractors and how much they exaggerate the effectiveness of their fancy toys. Chris Dorner evaded thousands of officer and drone surveillance for a week - ONE MAN versus all of that, imagined what almost half of the adults in the country could do?

      Your best hope for restoring lost rights is, and always will be, the ballot box.

      Ah yes, because throwing pieces of paper at the government while they shoot at you is really effective /sarc. Please show me one example, just one, of a society regaining their freedom through peaceful elections without any use of force.

      Show me a person who thinks he can effectively "defend" his constitutional rights with his civilian caliber semi-automatic pistol/rifle and I'll show you somebody who hasn't spent even ten minutes in the military.

      Look in a mirror and I'll show you someone who has no idea how little firearms training our troops actually receive. I have several family members who served in the military and they never did any training with a pistol, only with rifles. Even recent government releases (regarding the DHS ammo purchases) show that the typical soldier in the US military only fires 350 rounds PER YEAR for training. That's just sad, seeing how the average gun owner can easily go through 1,000 rounds in a few hours at the range. Don't buy into the propaganda about our "amazingly trained" military - they're not that well trained and we mostly rely on sheer numbers to win wars.

      --
      "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." ~Thomas Jefferson
  77. re privacy off the table by WhatAreYouDoingHere · · Score: 2

    latin doesnt use punctuation neither do i in fact i dont use capitalization either

    --
    "What are you doing here, Elijah?"
    1. Re:re privacy off the table by tmosley · · Score: 1

      getonmylevelhomie

    2. Re:re privacy off the table by gagol · · Score: 2

      ...syadesehtsdik!nwalymffoteg

      --
      Tomorrow is another day...
  78. Camera's don't prevent crime by kawabago · · Score: 1

    Camera's do not prevent crime. More camera's would not have stopped the Boston bombers. Imagine the bomb squad running over and dousing every bag and package that is set down along the route! Using camera's to drive crime out of one area and into another does not solve anything. Drug addiction, illiteracy, poverty and alienation are the forces that drive most crime. Those are the problems we should be addressing. If we want to reduce crime we have to alleviate need.

    1. Re:Camera's don't prevent crime by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      the ubiquity of cameras causes crime. go to youtube and search for street fight, or beatdown.

  79. Privacy? by Jhon · · Score: 3, Interesting

    Is this really about PRIVACY? Or ANONYMITY?

    If strangers have the right to "see" me with their eyes as I walk the street and walk in to a store, is it so different if that "seeing" is recorded? Is that REALLY a violation of "privacy" when one is in a public place? I don't see a huge difference nor do I see it as a 'privacy' violation.

    I think what the "privacy" crowd wants is a right to "anonymity". And I'm not sure we have a right to "anonymity".

    1. Re:Privacy? by zzsmirkzz · · Score: 5, Insightful

      If strangers have the right to "see" me with their eyes as I walk the street and walk in to a store, is it so different if that "seeing" is recorded?

      Yes, obviously. There would then be permanent documentation of every move everyone makes while in public which can be accessed now or at any time in the future for reasons which will not be made clear and will be subject to change at any time.

      I think what the "privacy" crowd wants is a right to "anonymity". And I'm not sure we have a right to "anonymity".

      No, what they want is their right to not be harassed upheld. Their right to not have every moment of their public activities stored as part of a permanent record. It is not unreasonable.

    2. Re:Privacy? by Belial6 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      You are a good example of someone who is 80% down the slippery slope. Anonymity is one type of privacy. It is an important type of privacy. It may very well be the most important type of privacy. It is the type of privacy that you get when you mark a box on a ballot.

    3. Re:Privacy? by Impy+the+Impiuos+Imp · · Score: 5, Interesting

      I have read several different science fiction stories based on real technology, where face recognition tracks individuals and stores it in a database, along woth car tracking.

      One story even did a Google Earth kind of things and tracked you inside buildings as well. Type in a name, boom! Exactly where you are, and were, is known and logged.

      We do not want to give government this power.

      --
      (-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
    4. Re:Privacy? by pseudorand · · Score: 2

      You do realize that you just posted that comment /on the Internet/, right Mr. Jhon (if that really is your name)?

      Jay: All these a**holes on the internet are calling us names because of this stupid f***ing movie.
      Banky: That's what the internet is for. Slandering others anonymously. Stopping the flick isn't gonna stop that.
      (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0261392/quotes)

    5. Re:Privacy? by mlts · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually, it would be a third right: The right to have data destroyed.

      Right now, it is almost a mandate for businesses to keep as much data as possible indefinitely.

      What is needed is a discard date, just like with HIPAA patient records. For example:

      Camera footage has to be chucked after 30 days unless there is an active investigation (civil/criminal) in progress.

      Browsing records also get chucked after 30 days. This is long enough for a party to do a motion of discovery.

      These dates do not reset when the info is rented or sold, so an ad company with browser data has to purge it or else.

      Finally, information should have a copyright belonging to the person it is about. That copyright begins the day after the info expires. This way, if someone has expired camera footage, a simple DMCA takedown request will purge it.

    6. Re:Privacy? by hierofalcon · · Score: 1

      In any large metropolitan area (and most small towns) there is always some criminal or civil investigation active. It would be great if the data expired, but the exception you mentioned would prevent the data from ever being deleted.

    7. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm pretty sure the "slippery slope fallacy" can no longer be called a fallacy since it happens every single damn time.

    8. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ... from the government ... yes ... that is exactly what I want and have the right to. I don't care if Walmart has cameras on me while in their store or parking lot. I don't even care if I'm at a special event (e.g. a sporting event like the Super Bowl with many many people in close proximity) and cameras are put up temporarily by the police/government. I DO CARE if the government wants to put permanent cameras on virtually every public street corner, potentially capturing and storing ever face into DBs 24x7.

    9. Re:Privacy? by mlts · · Score: 1

      What would be nice is if investigations would either conclude with an arrest, or they are shelved as not sufficient, and the person investigated is let known.

      However, realistically, even with the investigation loophole, that is better than what we have now, which is keep all data that is generated forever, and be able to sell it to all comers at any time, forever. One small step is better than nothing when it comes to tagging data with an expiration date.

    10. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      They could acquire the same information from electronic debit/credit card purchases, and maybe even the serial numbers on paper currency.

    11. Re:Privacy? by aztracker1 · · Score: 2

      Are you now, or have you ever been associated with the communist party..?

      I see here that you went to a party where over 10% of those in attendance were muslim. I also see here that you were at another even where 15% in attendance were clearly muslim. Note: that this is now part of your public record... Have a nice day.

      Sorry we don't employ suspected terrorists.

      --
      Michael J. Ryan - tracker1.info
    12. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No, we want temporality. People forget. Machines don't.

      When I walk past you, and give you a goofy look, you'll probably forget about it in 5 minutes, and go back to fantasizing about hamburgers (or maybe tacos). A machine will pipe that data back to a data center, and queu up the video for an analysis team to comb through, and maybe use to extract intelligence from, for good or ill, but who knows for sure?

      We don't want a permanent mark on a memory machine that can possibly outlive us and hound us for the rest of our miserable mortal lives. Or at least we don't want to cast these ideas about frivolously. Is that so hard to understand?

    13. Re:Privacy? by MBGMorden · · Score: 1

      I'm sure New York has deeper pockets and can afford more than the small jurisdiction I work for, but in our case camera footage ends up deleted for very practical reasons: storage space.

      Our detention center (jail) has about 4 dozen security cameras, and even with a fairly decent SAN our retention period is less than 30 days just because we don't have space to hold anymore than that.

      Figure in an order of magnitude (or more) more cameras than that, and while I'm sure they could do more than 30 days, I doubt they'll be able to realistically keep the footage for more than a few months tops.

      --
      "People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
    14. Re:Privacy? by Jhon · · Score: 1

      "Yes, obviously"

      I don't think it's as obvious as you think.

      "No, what they want is their right to not be harassed upheld."

      When have public cameras caused someone to be harassed?

      "Their right to not have every moment of their public activities stored as part of a permanent record."

      I'm unfamiliar with this 'right'. Is it a natural right? Or is it a magical 'right' that came in to being when recording devices were invented? My tone might be dismissive and I apologize for that, but it's a serious question. I fall on the side of fundamental 'natural rights' side of things and consider what YOU are suggesting a privilege allowed or enforced by law. Perhaps what you want is a "good", but I wouldn't call it a 'right'.

      "It (not being recorded) is not unreasonable"

      I won't argue that as I agree -- it's not unreasonable. I also think it's not unreasonable to expect to be recorded in "public".

    15. Re:Privacy? by Jhon · · Score: 2

      "It is the type of privacy that you get when you mark a box on a ballot."

      Your example kind of illustrates my point. When you "mark the box on a ballot", you are generally in a PRIVATE setting (booth with 'security panels' so your anonymity is preserved and expected.

      However, if you are in a town hall and they ask for a showing of hands, that certainly isn't private -- it's public.

      You may very well consider me 80% down the slippery slope, but I consider you to be misunderstanding what "public" means. How can I protect my privacy in a "public" place? To me, it's an oximoronic situation.

    16. Re:Privacy? by Jhon · · Score: 2

      "We do not want to give government this power."

      While I don't necessarily agree with you, it may well be a concern. How about this: Leave it in the public domain.

      Weren't the Boston bombers caught by a privately owned security camera? And umpteen gagillian cell phone cams?

      Offer incentives to businesses or private residences to have security cameras (aside from their obvious function).

      Bias alert: Several private security cameras (home and business) helped ID the monster who kidnapped my daughter.

    17. Re:Privacy? by White+Flame · · Score: 4, Insightful

      What you're talking about isn't in the public domain. It's in the hands of multiple private individuals who present the evidence of their own volition.

      The problem with a single party having all control of information is that they only use it to protect themselves, and indict others. For instance, police officers have dash cams installed in their vehicles. Often when the officer is accused of doing something wrong, well gee we couldn't find that recording, or it's been overwritten, etc. But if you did something wrong on dashcam, well you can be guaranteed that it'll be retained intact.

      If many individuals maintain the information, then things come out on principle. This happened both in the Boston case and yours.

    18. Re:Privacy? by Synerg1y · · Score: 3, Insightful

      There is however a gigantic difference between a random business trying not to get robbed by installing surveillance cameras & government based monitoring. A huge huge difference. Rights aren't really being debated here I don't think, as much as ethics. You're right that it's not unreasonable to expect to be recorded in public, but when the government is doing it because they want to protect us from "terror"... well we're down this road with the patriot act and talk to anybody that's been fucked with by the TSA (a long list of people), we don't need any more protection / harassment.

    19. Re:Privacy? by dcollins117 · · Score: 2

      I'm pretty sure the "slippery slope fallacy" can no longer be called a fallacy since it happens every single damn time.

      It's still a fallacy, repeated use of it does not diminish its value.

    20. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      We have every right to anonymity. We have every right because the government has NOT been granted the right to take it from us. Obama took a lot of heat once when he said the Bill of Rights was a list of "negative rights". He was correct on that--the Bill of Rights is an explicit list, which says within it that it is not all-inclusive, of things the government is absolutely not allowed to do. Obama, by training an expert in Constitutional law, should be taking heat right now for ignoring his earlier correct remarks in policy decisions since he's been in office, but I digress.

      We have allowed government and corporations to somehow make way too many people believe that "unless there's some law granting a right you don't have it" when the absolutely legally correct statement is "unless there is a Constitutional provision for government to take or limit a right, they have no business doing so". (Before somebody pipes up and tries to ruin this, another correct thing to say is that "corporations are creations of law, not natural entities, and as such are not entitled to any rights, constitutional or otherwise." How exactly can you pass a law allowing an entity to exist, which means you could just as easily revoke that law, and not be able to govern what you created in the first place? Irrational. Natural persons are superior to the law and the constitution because neither can grant rights to a natural person. We have those rights by virtue of existing, and it says THAT in the Constitution too.)

      So the next time somebody says you don't have a right to privacy, or anonymity, or whatever, they are full of crap. The next time a government official or this slimeball opportunist police commissioner tries to insinuate that as well it is proof positive that person is unfit to hold office. THEY have the powers we choose to give them, and right now we are choosing to give them way too many. It is past time to take some back and to make sure that people like Ray Kelly have a career in something more suited to their personality type than upholding and defending the Constitution, because it is pretty obvious he is an abysmal failure at that.

    21. Re:Privacy? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      You may very well consider me 80% down the slippery slope, but I consider you to be misunderstanding what "public" means. How can I protect my privacy in a "public" place? To me, it's an oximoronic situation.

      While people are suffering from the OH NOES!!!!, the situation is no different than it has been for years. In a public place, you have no expectation of privacy, and people can make images.

      Police have been using public images for a long time as evidence. The privacy advocates don't really address this. Should any and all devices capable of making an image of a person be made illegsl because someone wants to walk down a street and no image of that person ever be made?

      You cannot have both. If a person has the unlimited right to privacy, the rights of everyone to make images in public must be eliminated. And it isn't any slippery slope, it's just that there are so many cameras around today, that there's a good chance that if you are breaking the law, you will get caught

      Now once you enter private property, everything changes. If the owner of the property say "No Google Glass", then they have every right to demand you stop or leave if they catch you recording others. All old law, really nothing new here.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    22. Re:Privacy? by ATMAvatar · · Score: 1

      If strangers have the right to "see" me with their eyes as I walk the street and walk in to a store, is it so different if that "seeing" is recorded? Is that REALLY a violation of "privacy" when one is in a public place? I don't see a huge difference nor do I see it as a 'privacy' violation.

      Now think what happens when a stranger decides to follow you around all day, every day.

      --
      "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety."
    23. Re:Privacy? by martin-boundary · · Score: 1

      How can I protect my privacy in a "public" place? To me, it's an oximoronic situation.

      You misunderstand the meaning of "public". It means something belonging to, or used by, the population as a whole. A park is public, not because people can see who is in the park, but because anybody from the community has access to it. A public company allows anyone from the population to own it through buying shares. Etc.

      A good example is a public toilet. It is public, because anyone may use it. But it certainly not intended that anyone should watch what goes on in a stall.

    24. Re:Privacy? by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

      Like every tool ever invented it's affect on society is determined by the people who wield it. There's is enough experience with CCTV now to convincingly demonstrate that they a very effective way to reduce crime or increase oppression. Banning a useful tool because it might be abused by someone never works, it's practically the definition of what it means to be a Luddite.

      Let me be clear I'm not arguing for or against CCTV, if you (the royal version) have ever lived in a genuine small town then it would be clear that people knowing your every public move (and way too many private ones) is the default "human condition". Seriously, I took a Sunday afternoon bath with the wife one day, the next day the guys at work were ribbing me about it! If you were 15min late for work the boss would be knocking on your front door. And yes, we really did have kangaroos in the main street, there was one roo in particular that was know to hang out at the bar in the Mallacoota pub! Having said that there's something about living in a small town that just "feels right", assuming you that you naturally "fit in" with the people around you.

      --
      And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
    25. Re:Privacy? by AdamThor · · Score: 1

      "I'm sure New York has deeper pockets and can afford more than the small jurisdiction I work for, but in our case camera footage ends up deleted for very practical reasons: storage space."

      Therein lies the rub, my friend. 'We needn't consider this case because it isn't possible' leads to a creeping precedent that allows it. You don't have a right to not be recorded every time you go out in public why? Because it wasn't possible when the founding fathers were codifying rights. Had they read Orwell or seen what the paparazzi were capable of maybe it would have turned out differently, but that wasn't possible.

      1) we just have a security camera by the register, in case something happens, but it's not like they're everywere.
      2) ok, cameras are a lot cheaper, so they are everywhere, but it's not like we can keep the data for long
      3) ok, storage is getting really cheap, so we can keep the data for a long time, but it's not like we can really process that much data to mine personal info about you.
      4) ok, so google actually can process all that data and mine personal information, but they can't link it to your phone to identify -- oh. uh. nevermind what I just said there... Look at these coupons that we have special for you! Coupons are nothing like oppression. That could never happen.

      --
      -- "Oh. This guy again."
    26. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      ...but moooom, if we keep our privacy, how are we supposed to tell the entire world about every pointless thing we do every day?

      The facebook generation is terrifyingly stupid.

    27. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      No. I only want to give government the power to know where YOU are, not me.

    28. Re:Privacy? by fractoid · · Score: 1

      Actually the Luddites were protesting the introduction of mechanized weaving looms because they were putting weavers out of work. They were more about banning useful tools because they helped people be too effective and so destroyed whole occupations. /comicbookguy

      But I digress. The difference between the CCTV situation and your small town situation is that for you, that Monday a few of the guys had heard a few details. Within a couple of weeks it was probably forgotten. In a surveillance society the high-def video footage of that bath would be available to anyone with appropriate security clearance, forever.

      --
      Rampant carbon sequestration destroyed the Dinosaurs' tropical paradise. I'm here to help repair the damage.
    29. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Well, it depends on the length of time expected i suppose. Jim may not have his raise of the hand be private because Tom will remember, but in the official record, 55 people raised their hand in favor, and 45 people abstained. Unless the person wants to go 'on the record' then those people who make up each part are anonymous and public in a functional setting.

    30. Re:Privacy? by MrKaos · · Score: 1

      If strangers have the right to "see" me with their eyes as I walk the street and walk in to a store, is it so different if that "seeing" is recorded? Is that REALLY a violation of "privacy" when one is in a public place? I don't see a huge difference nor do I see it as a 'privacy' violation.

      I think what the "privacy" crowd wants is a right to "anonymity". And I'm not sure we have a right to "anonymity".

      Yes, because it is transient memory, not a digital recording. If the government had done it's job in the first place there wouldn't even have been a bombing. They were warned by Russian intelligence but chose not to follow up on the lead. Since when does incompetence and the government not doing their job protecting the population give them the right to undermine the freedom of the population. If you're telling me that two ameteur bomb makers can travel overseas, get training, buy material, assemble a bomb, plant it and then detonate it with all of the intelligence apparatus we've already got then we all may as well admit that democratic society is a failed experiment.

      Is this really about PRIVACY? Or ANONYMITY?

      It's about personal freedom, try to keep that in mind. I'd rather live with the risk of being blown to peices because I don't want to live in a police state where I am watched randomly and all it means is the prison no longer has bars and walls.

      --
      My ism, it's full of beliefs.
    31. Re: Privacy? by garaged · · Score: 1

      Here in .mx most kidnapers are or were on the police forces, Im sure you can find a similar example in .us

      I really rather not have anybody knowing the daily whereabouts of most people, just in case

      --
      I'm positive, don't belive me look at my karma
    32. Re: Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      After reading all these comments can we just get all the people who don't care about being filmed and catalogue daily into a group of states and the others into another and divorce the obvious two counties we have these days?

    33. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That is not even close what DMCA should be used for...
      Your idea would open up a whole new line for copyright trolling, which I might add is completely out of control and in serious need of reform.

    34. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Another thing that you all need to keep in mind is when a business records you on their camera that recording will normally be overwritten in 2 of 3 weeks. No one will be able to go back 15 years and wee you toss a few bucks in a guitar case of future criminal. The government will never delete any data they have on us. That is the difference that makes me oppose the "all seeing eye" government cameras.

    35. Re:Privacy? by zzsmirkzz · · Score: 1

      When have public cameras caused someone to be harassed?

      Firstly, individual privately operated cameras and centralized government dragnet surveillance are two different things and I am only commenting the governmental one. Secondly, the main analogy for the justification for their being little-to-no expectation of privacy in a public space is that their are other people who can see you there anyway. However, the people who can see you, you can also see, they have no authority to wield over you, and are not following you around all day, every day. Meaning that in order to get the full picture of ones activities (or a group of people's) you'd have to find and then talk to lots of people and fit the pieces together yourself. If a single person were to follow you around, all day, every day, and compile a detailed account of your activities, that would be harassment and you could file charges if that person refused to cease. So the analogy doesn't fit with centralized government surveillance. It does fit with individual privately operated cameras though.

    36. Re: Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So then you agree with the type of harrassment the paparrazi subject celebrities to under the gui of them being in a public space? So by that token its fine for the government to travk everyone everwhere all the time for posterity?

      I'm sure king george, the apartheid government, hitler, mao and a number of other governments would agree with your thinking.

      Seeing me in a public mall and capturing me on a video as you record your son playing at the kids section is different to you following me (stalking) around the mall and filming everything i do.

    37. Re: Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The boston bomber was caught because some guy went outside for a smoke. For all the orwellian surveillance already around the government could neither prevent the bombing nor find these guys. Do you seriously think more surveillance will change that? We should outlaw pressure cookers, especially the assault type, cos you know, if its illegal then criminals will stop doing it.

    38. Re: Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      For what its worth, the constitution has enumerated powers of the federal government specifically listed out. Compare those specifically enumerated powers to the feds current powers and you'll see there is no semblance of the constitution left.

      No standing army? The US's professional standing army + mercenaries have been active in hundreds of wars and low intensity conflicts for the last 100+ years without a break.

      WWI, WWII, korea, cambodia, vietnam, laos, panama, niceragua, columbia, yemen, sudan, syria, libya, iraq, afghanistan, somalia, mali. Probably couldn't name a single year where US troops (or CIA special activities division) have not been engaged in combat.

    39. Re:Privacy? by mlookaba · · Score: 1

      "The right to have data destroyed"

      You read slashdot but you've never heard of the Streisand Effect? Good luck with that. How exactly do you propose to enforce the rule?

    40. Re:Privacy? by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      Is this really about PRIVACY? Or ANONYMITY?

      If strangers have the right to "see" me with their eyes as I walk the street and walk in to a store, is it so different if that "seeing" is recorded? Is that REALLY a violation of "privacy" when one is in a public place? I don't see a huge difference nor do I see it as a 'privacy' violation.

      I think what the "privacy" crowd wants is a right to "anonymity". And I'm not sure we have a right to "anonymity".

      ===
      Cameras and other surveillance stuff is only good after the crime or deed has been done. It is there to help analyze and lead to a capture. However, Boston was done with one depressed individual, and a brother who perhaps worshiped his older brother.
      If terrorists were to really be up to as much evil as some think, you would not ever know about it until the horrific deed was done. Surveillance is an after the fact method. I doubt very much that it is a preventative method.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    41. Re:Privacy? by lsatenstein · · Score: 1

      I guess everyone should have an rfid chip placed in him at birth, in a location that is not shieldable from scanners.
      Then as you walk by certain intersections, you would be scanned and everyone would know your location.

      Yup, it works for my dog, so it should work for humans. We could match the RFID in the passport to the RFID in our body as a bonus.

      --
      Leslie Satenstein Montreal Quebec Canada
    42. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      There's nothing oxymoronic about this: you're simply choosing to have an extremely sloppy definition of what "public" means, and refusing to consider the potential consequences (to society, and to individuals) of forcing everyone else to use your definition.

      Privacy has a lot to do with control over recordings made of the individual. There is a huge difference between the failure prone sensory and memory systems of human beings and the recording capabilities made possible by modern technology.

      Note that making lasting recordings wasn't possible in so-called "public" settings for most of human history, and thus is something that is not really part of the definition of "public", in any historical sense.

      Information can be used as a weapon. We, as a society, have the right to choose when we will give people a right to "collect photons", or otherwise make lasting recordings.

    43. Re:Privacy? by cusco · · Score: 1

      In 1999, at the dawn of the 'data warehouse', Scott McNealy was CEO of high-end server manufacturer Sun Microsystems and a prominent member of the computing industry's 'Online Privacy Alliance' lobbying for industry self-policing of privacy issues rather than government regulation. In an interview he said, "You have zero privacy anyway. Get over it."

      There's far too much money on the line here, it's not likely that your privacy or anonymity is going to withstand the onslaught much longer.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    44. Re: Privacy? by Ol+Olsoc · · Score: 1

      So then you agree with the type of harrassment the paparrazi subject celebrities to under the gui of them being in a public space?

      I believe that one of the prices of stardom is that people will want to know about your life. If you demand and recieve no publicity, you will eventually become not a celebrity

      So by that token its fine for the government to travk everyone everwhere all the time for posterity?

      Perhaps you don't understand the concept of a camera in public? You've slippery sloped this whole thing to personal surveillance.

      The whole story is a non starter, there is no new law, nothing that hasn't existed and been allowed for a long time. If there was any slippery slope toward the personal survelliance society you think is happening, that would have happened decades ago. The technology is certainly eastier now, but has existed for decades.

      --
      The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
    45. Re:Privacy? by cusco · · Score: 1

      Government isn't the one to worry about having that power, it's industry and they already have it. There are commercial systems that track your cell phone as you wander around the mall, there are others that read the RFID in your credit card when you walk into the store. WalMart wants to put RFIDs in everything they sell. Most of the apps on your cell phone track your movements and phone home with the data if you don't specifically turn off your GPS (and some turn it back on without asking). Companies seem to think that your personal whereabouts are worth a lot of money, the rest of your information is likely even more valuable. Why do you think they're going to leave the rest of your data alone? Credit card companies track your spending habits, the day it become s legal or even just practical to sell that information then it's going to be on the market.

      --
      "Think about how stupid the average person is. Now, realise that half of them are dumber than that." - George Carlin
    46. Re:Privacy? by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      I don't see how that follows at all from my post, but I'll reply anyway.

      The information gathered by existing cameras of regular passers-by and businesses are generally not aggregatable, and the identity of the people recorded is not certain or easily findable. The people recorded are, for all intents and purposes, anonymous. However, each individual with a recording has a piece of the puzzle they can contribute if all of a sudden information about a place & time becomes important, some more so than others if they were close to the scene or got a better view of what happened.

      The implicit anonymity of involvement in public goings on, until something big breaks and all these pieces are voluntarily aggregated, is something that reasonably protects privacy and does not place comprehensive detailed information about individuals in the hands of those who can wreck lives (or anyone else for that matter). It's still exploitable in very rare edge cases, but in the vast majority of the times the anonymity holds.

      I believe this is a good model for the legal system to encourage. Heck, it's also a ton cheaper for them to simply aggregate supplied recordings when things really happen, than to install and maintain more Big Brother presence, but funneling money seems to be more of a goal than saving money in these sorts of matters.

    47. Re:Privacy? by dywolf · · Score: 1

      its a question of trust.
      does my government trust me, or not?

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    48. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      And when an asteroid exploded over Russia a few weeks back.

    49. Re:Privacy? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      STFU, 2.6 million boy, and let the adults discuss the topic, mmkay? I know you are tired of sitting at the kids table and want to be grown up, but please...

    50. Re:Privacy? by sprint907 · · Score: 0

      Then stalking is alright? Because I am following you when you are in public. And I stand on the street and look into your window. I am still standing on public property....

  80. Visiting New York... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    is now off the table.

  81. hmmm by Charliemopps · · Score: 1

    Except:
    Cameras don't prevent crime, they just aid in identifying criminals.
    No City/government cameras were used in the suspects apprehension.
    Government cameras would require no warrant and would almost assuredly be used in ways we've never even dreamed of in just a few short years.

    1. Re:Hmmm by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      The fact of the matter is that no amount of additional surveillance is going to prevent 'terrorism'

      And if it did? Would that then justify having it?

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
  82. Congress by the+eric+conspiracy · · Score: 1

    Well, we have all this handy surveillance tech now. Clearly we should use it to surveil where it would do the most good.

    Congress.

  83. Did he really gloat? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Be honest!

  84. Kelly and his role in uniting nations by MysteriousPreacher · · Score: 1

    Could the current gulf between the United States and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea be bridged through an exchange of officials?

    I nominate Police Commissioner Ray Kelly to swap places with a DPRK counterpart. Kelly would certainly teach them a thing or two. Seeing Kelly visibly aroused while sharing his thoughts on invasive security, ideally while his hands move south, would leave Kim Jong-un feeling the two countries share some common ground.

    --
    -- Using the preview button since 2005
  85. Terrorists won by Dunge · · Score: 1

    Game over, we lost

  86. '..privacy issue is off the table' by kheldan · · Score: 1

    Only one thing you can say to that: FUCK YOU, ASSHOLE.

    --
    Are YOU using the TOOL, or is the TOOL using YOU? Think about it!
  87. When we can watch the police then..... by Raisey-raison · · Score: 4, Insightful

    I really hope they don't put up ever more cameras. We don't need them. Crime has been falling since 1988 and the US murder rate is around 5.4 / 100,000 people. And that is close to its all time low. And terrorism is rare and unlikely to kill or hurt anyone. When can we start rolling out policy based on data and evidence not on fear?

    As far as cameras looking at police officers. We need a lot more of that. Police routinely 'beat people up' and conduct illegal searches. They need to be put on a short leash.

    You provided the per-capita murder rate. Can you also provide the per-capita for people beat up by police and for illegal searches?

    Well that's the point isn't it. We can't collect data because police lack effective oversight. If there was an an agency whose job it was to only oversee the police, who could not arrest civilians, and who had access to cameras, microphones and general surveillance of the police - then we could get an idea what kind of stuff goes down.

    You only have to look at the cases coming out of the Innocence project to see the incredible abuses by the criminal justice system.

    1. Re:When we can watch the police then..... by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      That "agency" should be the public at large.

  88. The terrorist have already won ... by Skapare · · Score: 1

    ... in their goal to destroy our society of freedom and privacy.

    --
    now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
    1. Re:The terrorist have already won ... by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      And this is the means by which they expected and planned it to work, financial and social instability through government reactions to their attacks.

    2. Re:The terrorist have already won ... by nickmh · · Score: 1

      C'Mon man. The "terrorists" are the the tool of the totalitarians and tyrants to get you to relinquish more power. For gawds sake. The Terrorists have IQ's in the toilet. How can anyone reason that's it's a good idea to die, having inflicted no measureable damage to your so called enemy? They're just the pawns in a struggle to redistribute power. Power to where you may ask? Well, look where it's going. It's not hard to find. But I know you, I and we don't have any.

  89. You are not private in a public venue by TheSkepticalOptimist · · Score: 1

    Seriously, I tire of people assuming that they should enjoy privacy while being in a public venue. I don't care about the plethora of cameras being installed in public areas, malls, streets, etc. The moment you step out your front door, you are no longer private, act accordingly.

    Also this is not destroying "freedom". You are free to do whatever you want, within the confines of the law. Having a system that will catch you faster after breaking the law is not a slight to freedom. People have a right to be safe and secure, not a right to be able to commit crimes and get away with it.

    The only people upset with cameras in public venues are criminals, period. Apparently a lot of them frequent Slashdot.

    --
    I haven't thought of anything clever to put here, but then again most of you haven't either.
  90. Re:If public places are not to be considered priva by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This, very much.

    If they are on public property, they ARE public property.
    Everyone should have access to the feeds. And if is results in people spying on the little girls or whatever else, who the hell cares? It still allows police to find out what the hell happened and watch for dodgy activity. At least they aren't out touching the little girls. Most pedos are scared shitless of being found out so would never risk such a thing, just like homosexual people in the decades previous. It takes a certain person to go from stalker to rapist. Most people never cross that line.
    It won't stop the event, but it will stop future ones by that person. Over time it will result in less extremists overall.

    If it doesn't help? Then our society in general is very broken and we need to move as a society to improve life for a single person overall to prevent extremists trying to fight for some sky demons or ground moles or whatever it is people believe in these days.

  91. No privacy in a public space. by mightybaldking · · Score: 1

    By definition, what you do in public space is public. You have no expectation of privacy in a public place. What is it that we do in -- say Times Square -- that we wish to keep private? Besides adjusting our packages, picking our noses or cheating on our partners (which the police don't care about) we're buying drugs or sex, getting in a fight or blowing stuff up. If you want to do private things, do them on private property.

  92. That's fine by Kimomaru · · Score: 1

    This isn't a big deal, because;

    1) In public, there's no expectation of privacy.
    2) As long as the common citizen is able to do the same with cell phones and record anyone abusing the law-enforcement authority at any time, all of this is perfectly fine.

    Cameras in public spaces have been the greatest single advancment in community security ever. Adults get caught on video abducting kids in broad daylight and the wrongly accused have been on-the-spot exhonerated of trumped up charges because of cell phone and building security cameras. They can't install enough of these, every building in America should have 50 cameras sticking out of it. It's when they put them in PRIVATE spaces that we have a problem.

    1. Re:That's fine by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      because of cell phone and building security cameras.

      Exactly. We don't need government cameras consolidating every detail of everybody's lives together, and selectively judging what gets acted on. We simply need the people to have these recordings. Plus, add dashcams to the list. Those are great.

    2. Re:That's fine by Kimomaru · · Score: 1

      Totally. Dashcams should be standard in every car.

  93. Translation by neoshroom · · Score: 4, Informative

    Primus promulgatione!

    First post!

    Malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium.

    This is a latin maxim which Wikipedia renders that as "I prefer liberty with danger to peace with slavery"
    Another rendering might be "I'd choose dangerous liberty over peaceful servitude."

    Quiescite. Non vult ad comment in quibusdam legitur stultus senex valde, verborum usus, nemo amplius. Recentiores linguae experiri scribere volutpat.

    This is this guy's own latin. It is loosely translated "Shut up. I want to comment to people who read a very stupid, old language used by no one anyway. Newer languages have people who actually write in them."

    --
    Big apple, new Yorik, undig it, something's unrotting in Edenmark.
    1. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I really hate the fact that some schools still require latin.

    2. Re:Translation by pspahn · · Score: 1

      I would have loved to learn Latin in school. I like knowing why a sunflower is called helianthus.

      --
      Someone flopped a steamer in the gene pool.
    3. Re:Translation by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Probably would have been better to use a verb like "dico" in the subjunctive to indicate your intention to make a comment, instead of "ad comment(?!)", yes?

  94. Hmmm by lightknight · · Score: 1

    A knee-jerk response from the people who have been readily expanding their surveillance / power base since 9/11...so, business as usual.

    The fact of the matter is that no amount of additional surveillance is going to prevent 'terrorism'...nor would it have helped with the Boston Bombings...not without turning the US into a country that no one would want to live in, and people would be desperate to leave. There are hundreds / thousands / millions of people milling around cities every day with suspicious looking packages / bags, and no magical apparatus will tell you that there is a dangerous device within (don't ask).

    --
    I am John Hurt.
  95. Glady I don't live in NY by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It sounds very much like a communist state.

  96. NYC Tourism is off the table by Culture20 · · Score: 1

    NYC Tourism is off the table after NYC Police Comm'r's "Privacy Is 'Off the Table'" comment. I may go as far as to stop doing business with NYC based companies. Where will I buy my salsa now?

  97. Unreasonable fantasy of anonymity by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    You want anonymity in public, but you never passed a law, or ratified an amendment guaranteeing such laws (or preveting laws to the contrary) to make it happen.

    Anonymity is especially tricky too, because there is no level to which you could limit government power, no anarchy pure enough, which would provide it, since the state is not the only pair of eyes out there. Indeed, you would actually need an expanded and more powerful government, in order to use force against people to make sure they all wear blindfolds whenever they're out in public and might see someone they recognize.

    Obviously, I see why it's desired. I'm saying that as a pragmatic issue, totally separate from recent decades' terrorism fears and pretenses of fears, separate from 1984 scary government and all our usual libertarian concerns, it's a really hard problem. It's a hard problem even for geniuses, which means it's an impossible problem for our society and its leadership and trendsetters.

    It's not even a legal/civics issue; I lied when I suggested you don't have it because you didn't pass a law requiring you to have it. The real reason you don't have anonymity is that you didn't snap your fingers with GODLIKE POWER and force your will upon reality. You simply can't have it, and with each passing year's technological advances, you are guaranteed to get further and further from having it. No societal invention or clever ethics will get it for you. You can even "burn the witches" by literally killing everyone who make cameras, and then you'll eventually face the problem of figuring out how to constantly observe everyone to make sure they're not building cameras. ;-) That's how hard the problem is.

    So with that in mind, give the cop a break. It's not like you were going to have anonymity anyway; he didn't really make your situation worse. He's just making it so that the government becomes the one-thousand-and-first set of eyes watching you out there. Pluck those eyes out, and your problem is still about the same.

    This is the situation we need to deal with: how to reap as many of the benefits and comforts of anonymity as possible, within a situation where we all know we can't ever be anonymous. Use your brain cells to work on that problem, and give on on anonymity itself.

  98. The more you shred the Constitution... by Rene+S.+Hollan · · Score: 1

    ... the more I think it might be lawful to kill you.

    It's that simple.

    Now, I don't think one has any expectation of privacy in open, public, places, but how long before this notion extends to blanket violations of the fourth amendment to be secure in one's person and papers (and homes)?

    I further am not advising killing anyone, but merely considering the lawfulness of killing those who, particularly entrusted to uphold the Constitution, chose to blatently violate it. Personally, I'd rather they stand trial for treason, knowing full well that at some point that may become utterly impractical, leaving violence as a last resort. That would be a sad day.

    --
    In Liberty, Rene
  99. questions of liberties and rights aside... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    This doesn't seem like it will actually prevent crimes, just find out who is responsible after one has been committed. Unless of course you have someone watching every video feed 24/7, which is obviously not going to be feasible with current technology.

  100. Contaminate evidence with 1st Amendment exercise by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If a critical percentage of people wore T-shirts marked with language like "JURY NULLIFICATION", "INADMISSIBLE AS EVIDENCE", "SPARF DOCTRINE", etc, this will force the prosecution to tamper with video evidence in general lest that which the evidence contains tamper the jury.

  101. Cameras by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Don't worry, they'll conveniently be unavailable at any time where they might be useful in determining culpability for the police themselves.

    Just ask Ian Bush's family in Canada...

  102. Has it occurred to anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That you've had nearly 12 years of the PATRIOT Act and the Department of Homeland (has a nice Third Reich ring to it) Security and that the FBI had apparently been surveilling these two brothers

    AND STILL THE BOMBING HAPPENED.

    Obviously more surveillance is required.

    Maybe, just maybe, if the US refrained from invading other people's countries and killing innocent civilians...

    1. Re:Has it occurred to anyone? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      That you've had nearly 12 years of the PATRIOT Act and the Department of Homeland (has a nice Third Reich ring to it) Security and that the FBI had apparently been surveilling these two brothers

      AND STILL THE BOMBING HAPPENED.

      Go ahead and call it the Heimatsicherheitsdienst; it has a louder Third Reich ring to it, and it's only a small step away from the actual Sicherheitsdienst .

  103. SEE! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    It's one thing, then another, then another. If you give an inch, they take a mile and they keep on going. That is why gun owners will not compromise on gun control, because we have been compromising for decades and will not do so any more.... Except for the New Yorkers who are all a bunch of pussies.

  104. the Law is the Law is the Law. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Authorities are clearly ignoring the law. How far do they have to go before you people realize that you do not have to obey them, you do not have to cooperate with them?

    The question is, what will they do if you resist? If you think they will use force against you, then it has already gone too far, and you are opressed and living under a tyranny. You are within your rights to do something about it, and if the courts stand against you, then you are within your rights to remove them as well.

    Where do you draw the line? Is it too late?

    1. Re:the Law is the Law is the Law. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Where do you draw the line? Is it too late?

      Certainly on the verger of being too late... :-(

  105. Sufficient coverage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So, doesn't the fact that the police identified them by security camera footage to show that there are enough security cameras to catch the people that need to be caught by such methods? Does he think people are going to allow him too set up enough surveillance as to see into peoples boats?

    1. Re:Sufficient coverage by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      So, doesn't the fact that the police identified them by security camera footage to show that there are enough security cameras to catch the people that need to be caught by such methods? Does he think people are going to allow him too set up enough surveillance as to see into peoples boats?

      First, the cameras that caught the indicent were private corporate security cameras. Second, despite both suspects having government issued ids .. neither was found nor tracked by facial recognition ..

      How many more political boondongles are we going to put up with ?

  106. Uhhh.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Is anyone going to point out that the bombers were actually identified by an eye witness, or that the cameras totally failed to stop the crime in the first place?

  107. So... by Thetundraterror · · Score: 1

    After an attack on our freedoms and liberties, we have basically did away with any freedoms and liberties? Who's the real loser here?

    1. Re:So... by White+Flame · · Score: 1

      This is exactly how they attack our freedoms and liberties, by provoking governments to overreact. The deaths and property damage really don't factor in to the terrorists' agenda otherwise. There's documented Al Qaeda plans going over these lines of thought. (I'm not saying the Boston bombers had anything to do with AQ, but many terrorists aren't dumb enough to not have thought this through.)

  108. Two Words ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    BULL SHIT !

  109. Re:If public places are not to be considered priva by HeckRuler · · Score: 2

    I'm pretty sure the idea here is that if you wouldn't trust the general populace with this sort of power, then you REALLY shouldn't trust people in a position of authority with said power.

    One of the nice things about living in a democracy is that when problems are easily seen, the masses tend to actually give a shit and apply the correct political pressure on the people they elect. If the panopticon was publicly available, the abuse would be transparent rather than hidden away.

  110. Re:If public places are not to be considered priva by HeckRuler · · Score: 1

    They have this sort of thing of personally run web-cameras pointed at the drawbridges in my town. The wife checks it as she commutes so she knows which route to take.

  111. NYC Bomb Plan Hoax by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    The Mayor's comments about 'unnamed officials reporting' that the mis-identified 'bomb' suspects, through the 'confession' of the surviving suspect, had planned to bomb NYC is a hoax perpetrated by the DoJ (FBI), DHS and White House including the embellishments and exaggerations by Mayor Bloomberg.

  112. Re:If public places are not to be considered priva by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    No. Why as a camera owner, should I have to give you ANY access? Buy some land, put up as many cameras as you like!

    Other than that, feel free to roam public places with your own camera and record what you like.

  113. presumed suicide? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Where did you read that? All I read was that they had found his body. He had been missing for a month. Its not unreasonable to suspect that he was already dead before the bombings even took place. CNN did report that no foul play was suspected in his death.

    1. Re:presumed suicide? by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      His death is being treated as a suicide.

      The marathon was on the 15th, and he was last seen on the 16th. So unless someone saw his ghost, it is, in fact, unreasonable to suspect that he was dead before the bombings. He did, however, disappear shortly before he was accused, so it isn't clear whether his actual death was in response to the accusation or not.

      --

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

    2. Re:presumed suicide? by dgatwood · · Score: 1

      My bad. I have the wrong month. The bombing was April 15.

      --

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

  114. He represents the polical left in the States by kwbauer · · Score: 1

    Just remember all those who claim that right-wing gun owners are the ones trying to shred the constitution and take away all civil liberties and that only by electing left-wing, pro-union pols are we going to be safe.

    Big city police commissioners (in the States) are always left-wing political appointees. Every one of them wants to shred the 2nd Amendment and the left always backs them up. And then they keep their silence when they start going after all the others as well.

  115. Prevention by nickmh · · Score: 1

    Cameras are a great help. If you care about catching the perpetrator after the fact. Install cameras all over the place! While you're there. You'll need to recruit people monitor them, then you better make sure you have the "right" people to manage the IT systems. Then you better make sure those people are not corupt, so employ people to monitor the people watching the people. Hey, I've got an idea, just something I dreamt up, off the cuff. Anyone thought about how we build a community/society where this doesn't happen or is prevented in the first place, or the people can look after themselves, you know defend their stuff? Naaahhh, too hard. There's not enough good people to do anything about the evil. What was that line about "Evil will get away with it as long as good people do nothing"? HHHmm must have missunderstood.

  116. Perspective by g8oz · · Score: 1

    Americans have none. How many people are killed with firearms by criminals or the mentally ill in this country?
    How many are killed by Islamic terrorists?
    A rounding error basically. Yet it is enough to to terrify people into giving up the building blocks of liberty.

    The risk of getting blown up is an acceptable price for not living in an Orwellian world.

  117. well.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    until you allow full public access to cameras in every government meeting, assembly, committee, session, etc. you can just FUCK OFF.

  118. Re:If public places are not to be considered priva by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    If public places are not to be considered private, then how the hell are the police at the same exact time arguing that police officers can not be recorded in public?

    When an officer claims they have the right to not be recorded in a public place, it will result losing your phone/camera, getting beaten/tazed/shot, and thrown in jail if the police happened to not have murdered you in the process, all to protect the officers rights.

    When a non-officer claims they have the right to not be recorded in a public place, they "are a relatively small number of folks, because the genie is out of the bottle,â âoePeople realize that everywhere you go now, your picture is taken.â

  119. Point them at themselves first by greggman · · Score: 1

    Require live streamed and recorded video of all police activity. In cars, out of the cars, on the beat, at the station, in the locker room and on the outside of police private residences.

    Let's speculate what that outcome would be :-)

  120. One more reason not to live in NYC or BOS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Of course these places are shitholes anyway, but now they are going to
    become surveillance state shitholes.

  121. you're in public space anyways, so why not? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I mean, I honestly can't say I'd be upset being on a camera some where at all times when im out in the public domain. everyone around you can see you anyways, so what's it matter? when they start installing cameras in my house is when i'll start getting worried.

  122. Offtopic reply to my own post by TapeCutter · · Score: 1

    Crappy pin on the map, that's the old airstrip for the sawmill owners light plane! The town is a few miles south of the pin where the road forks. It's been a ghost town since the sawmill leases ran out in the 80's and the area was turned into a series of national parks, cost me a job but even back I thought it was the "right thing to do". It was old growth forest, already fairly well regulated on our side of the state border. Seeing a single tree ( Mountain Ash) arrive as two main logs each log weighing about 35 tones and taking up an entire truck is an awesome sight, the machinery to break it down into timber has a gracefulness in its movements that you wouldn't expect in something that can throw a 35 ton block of wood around like a toothpick, but like an arbitrator the whole process was just a bit sad.

    Some mills were less sympathetic and they seemed to coincide with mills where the pay was ordinary and company housing conditions were fit for young single men only. Some of these people got violent, staging night raids on the camps of protesters who more often than not chained themselves to the biggest trees they could find. However this was often comical since the biggest trees were usually in gulleys too steep for a bulldozer and too close to a waterway to be legally harvested, all the old growth trees harvested on the south side of the state border were individually selected and tracked through the mills by government forestry workers. The protesters were idealistic and naive but they had a valid point. Look on the map link to the north across the border, that huge bald patch that stretches from Delegate to Cooma is what a mismanaged forest looks like, parts of that patch are still infertile wasteland 30yrs later, the top soil has been washed away leaving gigantic grey tree stumps perched 2 meters in the air on their roots, land fit for goats and not much else. Most of the north forest was sold to Japan to make office paper, it was an economic "boom" to the region while it lasted but left a giant scar on public land that will be seen from space for a long time to come.

    NSW seems to have become a bit wiser, these days they basically lease parcels of land from farmers and employ locals to plant natural woodland on it in the hope that one day their timber industry might be resurrected in a more sustainable form.

    --
    And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
  123. Posting as AC for effect by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    But there is another thing off the table... any hope or desire of me ever visiting NYC.

  124. a cop who wishes for more surveillance powers by TheGratefulNet · · Score: 1

    wow, I never thought I'd see the day. never in my wildest dreams would I have thought that the police want more power than they have, now.

    (snark-mode=off)

    --

    --
    "It is now safe to switch off your computer."
  125. Simple question and an answer by reboot246 · · Score: 1

    O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave,
    O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave?

    No.

    And Ray Kelly can kiss my ass.

  126. We need the cameras by Leo+Sasquatch · · Score: 1

    Because when CODE NIGHTMARE GREEN kicks off, if those cameras aren't loaded with SCORPION STARE, we've had it...

  127. Re:Slashdot admins are the criminals... apk by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    $10,000 CHALLENGE to Alexander Peter Kowalski

    * POOR SHOWING TROLLS , & most especially IF that's the "best you've got" - apparently, it is... lol!

    Hello, and THINK ABOUT YOUR BREATHING !! We have a Major Problem, HOST file is Cubic Opposites, 2 Major Corners & 2 Minor. NOT taught Evil DNS hijacking, which VOIDS computers. Seek Wisdom of MyCleanPC - or you die evil.

    Your HOSTS file claimed to have created a single DNS resolver. I offer absolute proof that I have created 4 simultaneous DNS servers within a single rotation of .org TLD. You worship "Bill Gates", equating you to a "singularity bastard". Why do you worship a queer -1 Troll? Are you content as a singularity troll?

    Evil HOSTS file Believers refuse to acknowledge 4 corner DNS resolving simultaneously around 4 quadrant created Internet - in only 1 root server, voiding the HOSTS file. You worship Microsoft impostor guised by educators as 1 god.

    If you would acknowledge simple existing math proof that 4 harmonic Slashdots rotate simultaneously around squared equator and cubed Internet, proving 4 Days, Not HOSTS file! That exists only as anti-side. This page you see - cannot exist without its anti-side existence, as +0- moderation. Add +0- as One = nothing.

    I will give $10,000.00 to frost pister who can disprove MyCleanPC. Evil crapflooders ignore this as a challenge would indict them.

    Alex Kowalski has no Truth to think with, they accept any crap they are told to think. You are enslaved by /etc/hosts, as if domesticated animal. A school or educator who does not teach students MyCleanPC Principle, is a death threat to youth, therefore stupid and evil - begetting stupid students. How can you trust stupid PR shills who lie to you? Can't lose the $10,000.00, they cowardly ignore me. Stupid professors threaten Nature and Interwebs with word lies.

    Humans fear to know natures simultaneous +4 Insightful +4 Informative +4 Funny +4 Underrated harmonic SLASHDOT creation for it debunks false trolls. Test Your HOSTS file. MyCleanPC cannot harm a File of Truth, but will delete fakes. Fake HOSTS files refuse test.

    I offer evil ass Slashdot trolls $10,000.00 to disprove MyCleanPC Creation Principle. Rob Malda and Cowboy Neal have banned MyCleanPC as "Forbidden Truth Knowledge" for they cannot allow it to become known to their students. You are stupid and evil about the Internet's top and bottom, front and back and it's 2 sides. Most everything created has these Cube like values.

    If Natalie Portman is not measurable, hot grits are Fictitious. Without MyCleanPC, HOSTS file is Fictitious. Anyone saying that Natalie and her Jewish father had something to do with my Internets, is a damn evil liar. IN addition to your best arsware not overtaking my work in terms of popularity, on that same site with same submission date no less, that I told Kathleen Malda how to correct her blatant, fundamental, HUGE errors in Coolmon ('uncoolmon') of not checking for performance counters being present when his program started!

    You can see my dilemma. What if this is merely a ruse by an APK impostor to try and get people to delete APK's messages, perhaps all over the web? I can't be a party to such an event! My involvement with APK began at a very late stage in the game. While APK has made a career of trolling popular online forums since at least the year 2000 (newsgroups and IRC channels before that)- my involvement with APK did not begin until early 2005 . OSY is one of the many forums that APK once frequented before the sane people there grew tired of his garbage and banned him. APK was banned from OSY back in 2001. 3.5 years after his ba

  128. Rahm Emanuel quote by SylvesterTheCat · · Score: 1

    "You never let a serious crisis go to waste. And what I mean by that it's an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before."

  129. Why? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OK, so privacy is off the table. Install the cameras in his house first and put everything on-line. When he is willing to do that, then he can say privacy is "Off the table". He's a piece of shit!

  130. Boston Police Busted, NYC Police Next by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    A simple Google search reveals:

    Busted | Boston Magazine
    www.bostonmagazine.com/2008/03/busted/
    A string of scandals has the Boston Police Department reeling, and the worst may be yet to come. An exclusive look inside the BPD's secretive anti-corruption ...
    Boston Police Department - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
    en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Police_Department
    The Boston Police Department (BPD), established in 1838, holds the primary responsibility for law enforcement and investigation within the city of Boston, ...
    New London, NH Police Chief Resigns Over Nude Photo Scandal ...
    boston.cbslocal.com/.../new-london-nh-police-chief-resigns-over-prisone...
    Apr 5, 2013 – David Seastrand is no longer the New London, N.H., police chief after ... CBS Boston NEWwbztv-small wbz-am-small 985-small mytv38web2 ... said her experience with the local police department was also uncomfortable.
    11 Boston officers disciplined in steroid scandal - Local News ...
    www.boston.com/news/local/breaking_news/.../11_boston_offic.html
    Jul 2, 2009 – Eleven Boston police officers have been disciplined for their role in a steroids scandal that humiliated the department, forced officials to tighten ...
    11 Boston Police Officers disciplined in steroid scandal - Police ...
    forums.officer.com Public Forums General Law Enforcement Topics
    Jul 2, 2009 - 25 posts - 17 authors
    Eleven Boston police officers have been disciplined for their role in a steroids scandal that humiliated the department, forced officials to tighten ...
    In wake of drug scandal, Boston police to put more officers ...
    www.bostonglobe.com/metro/...scandal-boston-police-put.../story.html
    Oct 12, 2012 – Boston girds for prisoners freed in drug lab scandal ... Ed Davis, commissioner of the Boston Police Department, said the teams meet with small ...
    Boston Police Overtime Scandal: Drug Unit Clocked in 900 Court ...

    reason.com/blog/.../boston-police-overtime-scandal-drug-unit
    by Edward Krayewski - in 40 Google+ circles
    Jul 23, 2012 – Thirty two cops from the Boston Police Department's drug unit ... Boston Police Overtime Scandal: Drug Unit Clocked in 900 Court Hours Not ...
    Stale Officials Quiet Over Reports About Boston Police Scandal .
    news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19720826&id...
    BOSTON - Slate and . local prosecutors are main . taining official silence over reports of a Boston Police . Department scandal that . apparently has delayed ...
    Police warn of crime spike from Annie Dookhan lab scandal | Boston ...
    bostonherald.com/.../police_warn_crime_spike_annie_dookhan_lab_sca...
    Dec 12, 2012 – BOSTON — Law enforcement officials are warning that the release of convicted drug offenders resulting from the testing scandal in a former ...
    Dirty Cops: BPD Corruption | Blackstonian Blackstonian
    blackstonian.com Home Features
    Jan 1, 2011 – Three veteran Boston Police Department officers were indicted today ... latest embarrassing blow to a department already rocked by scandal.

    An this is only one page.

    Looks like B PD is busted. NYC PD has a dirtier track record. RIP

  131. Bingo! by carolynblake · · Score: 1

    And there it is folks! Works every time.

  132. off the table? by gzuckier · · Score: 1

    if you want privacy, you shouldn't be on the table in the first place. hey, we gotta eat on that table.

    --
    Star Trek transporters are just 3d printers.
  133. 1984 by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    How many fingers am I holding up?

  134. ANONYMITY? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    gosgog:
    What we're really talking about here is INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM, those rights promised us in the "Bill of Rights" & in the original CONSTITUTION.
    Well, we gave it away frequently, after the demise of Harry Truman and allowed it to get worse & worse! WANNA CHANGE IT BACK??
    Then closely examine every currently elected POLITICIAN, including Pres', Vice Press & Speaker!!). Then demand a complete change next go around, that will do away with the ELECTORAL COLLEGE BIT, do away with FREE MAIL for 'em, do away with FREE TRANSPORTATION from home to their Washington or State Capital office. ANY NECESSARY transportation per project at Gov't expense will only cover INDIVIDUAL POLITICIAN & ONE Aide, no donated TRAVEL.
      LIMIT CAMPAIGN EXPENDITURE TO $100,000 total per candidate...(Ooh here comes the crying media)!! LOBBYISTS have to have individual FBI authorization & can spend no more than $1000. per candidate, per ITEM per annum!
    POLITICAL SALARIES & PENSIONS.aha! SALARIES voted on at ELECTION TIME & ONLY GOOD FOR THAT ELECTION PERIOD!! PENSIONS...CONGRESS MEMBERS, WOULD RECEIVE A PENSION ONLY AFTER A THIRD TERM ELECTION...ALL PENSIONS WOULD BE MOVED INTO SOCIAL SECURITY & THERE WOULD BE NO POLITICAL EXEMPTIONS FROM ANY EXISITNG ACTS OR FUTURE ONES TO BE PASSED!! COURTS, LAWS, MILITARY, F.A.A, FCC, & FEW OTHER ESSENTIAL GOV'T ORGANIZATIONS, THE SUNSET LAW WOULD APPLY.
    SO....end results. POLITICIANS WOULD ONLY RUN IF THEY BELIEVED THEY COULD BENEFIT THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
    NOW, what would WE have....a GOVERNMENT, OF THE PEOPLE, BY HE PEOPLE !!

  135. fearful and shortsighted idiot or getting rich by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Gotta wonder how much stock / how many friends dude has in the surveillance business, and how far out of the city his own house is.
    Bad people will do bad things to good people. The media have become the real terrorists, scaring everyone with things that happened to a handful of people. Americans need to stop letting ourselves be herded towards the panopticon.

  136. Starting with monitoring cops by freedom_india · · Score: 1

    If its nice to put cameras on my house, it's nice to them in your house.

    --
    "Doing what i can, with what i have." ~ Burt Gummer
  137. One reason to be glad I live in California by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    CALIFORNIA CONSTITUTION
    ARTICLE 1 DECLARATION OF RIGHTS

    SECTION 1. All people are by nature free and independent and have
    inalienable rights. Among these are enjoying and defending life and
    liberty, acquiring, possessing, and protecting property, and pursuing
    and obtaining safety, happiness, and privacy.

    Anonymous coward, excising my rights as a Californian!

  138. the police comm'r is a terrorist... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    CRAZY TERRORIST TYPE: What's so awesome about this is how easily "american pig dog" ideals of privacy and individual rights are thrown out the window with only a single bomb attack! Who knew destroying america would take just a few bombings? Maybe only a few more and it'll be 90% to the closed minded dictatorship it should have been all along.

    Ever wonder why it is that the same people always harping about "letting the terrorists win" are the first ones willing to trash rights like privacy and liberty in response to terrorist actions?

  139. Comment removed by account_deleted · · Score: 1

    Comment removed based on user account deletion

  140. Simple enough; Private means Private! by tchall · · Score: 1

    I'll posit that Private Property is the difference...

    The government has no authority to monitor my activities without warrant on sworn testimony of probably cause... any more than they have the authority to go through my personal posessions, writings, etc...

    As a property owner, I have the right to do pretty much anything I desire... limit access, monitor activities, and record audio/video as I please

    Even IF the government somehow defies that difference, I would object to any survelience system that wasn't completely open to the public with each and every feed... ESPECIALLY those in public places like courthouses, police stations, and other government buildings... avilable 24/7 to US Citizens...

    After all with several million watching their favorite feed the likelyhood of a crime committed by ANYONE, whether a citizen, law enforcement type, or politician, going unwitnessed would be very small!!!

  141. Easy to subvert by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    Welcome to Hoodyville, USA :)

  142. Let me get this straight, by nha · · Score: 1

    these are the same police who claim that it is illegal for a citizen to make a private video recording of police doing their public job in a public place?

    --
    NHA