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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.
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.
After allegations made by a member of the public, only identified as SF, that the council had used its CCTV cameras to obtain personal information from him, the council was ordered to refrain from any conduct or action in contravention of the act.
The tribunal also ordered the council to render a written apology to SF for the breaches and advise him of any steps to be taken by council to remove the possibility of similar breaches in the future. The cameras are to remain turned off until the decision of the tribunal has been considered."
I wonder what personal info was gathered about the guy, and how.
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.
The cops sure hate it when they are prevented from thuggery by inane laws.
Or when someone records their actions with a camera. This is what bothers me. If the cops can monitor our every move the reciprocal should be true also. Why do they resist being photographed?
Since when is "public safety" the root password to the Constitution?
Wrong, public is public
And 1 is equal to 1. Who cares? The fact that you're in the public doesn't mean that ubiquitous government surveillance is a good thing or that it's intelligent to desire it.
Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
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."
Government surveillance isn't about the relationship to surveillance to an increase or decrease in crime, it is about control. It can have a positive or negative correlation. The end goal isn't solving a problem, the end goal is surveillance.
Priest: "Universe from nothing, no laws of physics, sped up time"+ huge discrepancies. Creationism? No. Big Bang Theory
That is an interesting line of thought but without further evidence I am going to conclude that the goal is the stated goal. It may make me a "sheeple" but I find that, by law of probability, I'm usually right about such things when I do it this way.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
Your argument for total police surveillance of public space is flawed on two points:
1) Your comparison between yours or your neighbour's private recording, and blanket systematic surveillance is not valid. It is not valid because of the difference in scale. When you commit a crime, or a good deed, scale always matters. Kill a person, vs. a million, and you will see very different reactions. Same thing if you give a homeless person a coffee, or feed million hungry.
If we were to allow blanket police surveillance of all public space, with automatic face-detection, and what not of other technologies they deem useful, we'd end up in a 1984 / Kafka world of tyranny. Only from the false positives alone, there would be a prison population dwarfing the US' current for-profit "correctional" facilities.
2) Secondly, you seem to believe that the police can be trusted and uphold the law and code of conduct to the letter. Spend any time searching (YouTube or Google) for police brutality and mistakes, and you will find that the opposite is true. And no, this is not that case of "a few bad apples", it is a natural effect from the abuse and corruption of power.
Any power or privilege will be abused by a not insignificant number of people it is given to. It is unfortunately human nature. The police force is no different, and that is why there is thousands on thousands of videos showing the police acting like thugs all over the place. They cannot be trusted, and we must seek to limit their power, not expand it.
So coming back to the original problem of camera surveillance, the case in the article was a typical example of abuse of power by those who were entrusted with it. Give out more power, and this effect will only multiply. Nor are technological solutions to this social problem adequate or possible; they never are. Instead, we must simply avoid putting up cameras everywhere.
To summarize: All power will be abused. Therefore, we must grant only as little power as possible to any system or person in control, lest they abuse it. That's a basic property of any modern democracy, and the police force is no different.
I know people aren't going to see this, and it'll never be modded up, but whatever.
I live in a country that has a high number of CCTV cameras (actually, mostly traffic cameras and webcams and security cameras that the police are allowed to access). I feel they are nothing but good.
Every day the news is full of crimes being shown on camera, and the criminals apprehended. While there isn't a lot of serious violent crime, there is plenty of petty theft and the like here, and the cameras help a lot in catching the perpetrators.
Do I worry about being spied on? No, why would I? The cameras are only in public places, somewhere anyone could film me without my knowledge anyway. I live in a fairly large city, why would anyone be interested in me specifically unless I commit a crime? Even if they were, what could they really find out about me by watching some cameras? The places I visit? That I pick my nose and scratch my balls while walking down the street? All of this is obtainable in other ways.
People, it's PUBLIC. You should have no expectation of privacy in public. The government isn't installing cameras in your shower. They aren't bugging your house. They are putting up cameras to record crimes and help catch criminals. All in public areas where you don't have any privacy anyway.
We are unlikely to do such a stupid thing.
I have first hand experience of seeing criminals caught because of CCTV and I have actually been the responder to an injury spotted by cameras,
At the hospital where I work, car theft and vandalism has almost disappeared since cameras were introduced in the car parks. I have also heard drunks warn each other to behave because there were cameras in A&E. I have also seen where someone was given a watertight alibi where they had been accused of a major crime. Yes, they also catch criminals. That does not worry me either.
I don't know if they have much effect on gun crime. This is the UK and we don't have your problems with that. The last time I heard gunfire not on TV, I was in army uniform and carrying one myself.
I'll see your Constitution and raise you a Queen.