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In Australian Town, Public CCTV Off Over Privacy Concerns
freddienumber13 writes "The CCTV cameras operated by the local government in the country town of Nowra, NSW (Australia) have been turned off following an order by the Administrative Decisions Tribunal. The local government is crying because it believes that it is losing an effective method in combating crime in public. Locals however are rejoicing that they are no longer being recorded whilst walking down the street."
I welcome any and all pushback against monitoring of the public.
Here is related news, not quite the same implications, but a good trend none the less:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/02/22/states-local-governments-join-push-to-turn-off-red-light-cameras/
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
...or just "turned off"?
This is a victory for the people. I worked for a CCTV company for over a year and a half. Every move you made and conversation you had was recorded and the management did go back and listen and watch. If you didn't give 110% and say anything that could be remotely offensive to the management, you got called into the office and dealt with. A perfect picture of where we are heading as a nation and as a planet. I will say it again, the CCTV cameras getting turned off is a victory for the people and personal privacy.
Cameras don't combat crime. They don't prevent crime, they don't deter criminals, they don't allow police to stop perpetrators.
They are evidence after the fact, and a really easy way for the government to spy on you.
One night last year I was walking down a street when a car drove past me, the passenger threw a full cup of soda at me (and just missed). A block away I see the car has turned around and is coming toward me, so I whipped out my phone and held it up to record video. Like a vampire seeing a crucifix they stop their approach, then decide to leave down a side road, like the cowards they are. Sometimes, cameras do prevent crime.
Cameras don't combat crime. They don't prevent crime, they don't deter criminals, they don't allow police to stop perpetrators.
It's not unreasonable to argue that it was cameras that prevented the Tsarnaev brothers from carrying out their plan to travel on to New York and plant bombs in Times Square.
Granted, those were mainly private cameras, but public cameras would have done the job too.
My feeling (which I expect to be roundly flamed for, so go ahead if you must) is that camera surveillance in one form or another is pretty much inevitable in public places; and therefore the best way to ensure privacy and civil liberties is not to simply dig in one's heels and demand that the cameras be removed, but rather to figure out how to design cameras that are effective at recording crimes and also as resistant as possible to Big Brother-style abuse.
For example, imagine a law that allows government CCTV cameras, but only if they meet the following design criteria something like the following:
Now I'm sure there are plenty of holes in the above design -- cleverer people than I can come up with something better -- but my point is that civil liberties will be better protected in the long run if we design them into the hardware and into the laws governing the design of said hardware, than if we simply stamp our feet and demand that the government not use a technology which many people perceive (correctly or incorrectly) to be an obvious way to identify and catch criminals.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
Some bits and pieces:
Looks like the City Council has spent two years and about $95,000 fighting resident Adam Bonner in tribunal after it used $150,000 in federal funding to install 18 cameras. One of the article's comments provides insight on why the opposition: CCTV cameras have shown time and time again that they do help immensely in solving crime, but the stats to determine whether they prevent crime are less clear."
An audit report has found that the council may also intend to stage its own small scale "security theater", by
* "Increase the perception of Nowra’s CBD as a safe place and reduce the fear of crime amongst business operators and the community" but
* "From the available statistics, it appears to be too early to judge if the system acts as a deterrent for potential offenders. Statistics for a longer period of time may identify a trend up or down but at present this is not observable from only a little over a year of compiling data."
Then again... stepping on the "conspiracy theory" tracks (aren't they juicy?):
* it also seems there's a new jail in town and some may want to fill it up or else the employment and stimulus money may go down.
Questions raise, answers kill. Raise questions to stay alive.
Unfortunately it looks like a review of a bunch of studies indicates that CCTV usage actually has a positive impact on crime with it being markedly so in the case of car parks it seems. It appears that they're able to legitimately pull out numbers to prove the efficacy so I think the argument must be that the decrease in crime isn't worth the decrease in privacy. Some exceptions could be made, for instance, as it shows a 50% decrease in crime when used in car parks it seems. I imagine that compromises will need to be made and I'd personally rather the increased freedom over the increased safety though I'm aware that other people will not think the same and that it is, ideally, a democracy where I live.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."