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The Return of Surveillance Camera Man
theodp writes "Remember Surveillance Camera Man, the anonymous guy who walked up to random people around Seattle and creeped them out by taking video of them without explanation? GeekWire reports that he's back with a new video compilation of his adventures in pushing people's privacy buttons, the latest installment in an apparent ongoing commentary on the pervasiveness of public surveillance, which has taken on a whole new twist with increased fretting over the recording capabilities of Google Glass and heightened concern over privacy in general, thanks to the NSA data surveillance controversy."
Annoyingly filming other people. The subjects are obviously annoyed and almost go hit him. I hope you see why Google Glass is a ridiculously bad idea.
He's still injecting people's aversion to being physically stalked into the equation. Whether through ignorance or deliberate slight of hand, he makes the assumption that peoples' reactions to being unwillingly made the sole object of attention in public is the same reaction of of those people if put under surveillance.
your thin skin doesn't make me a troll
This guy is brilliant. The idiots are the people sitting around outside yakking on their cellphones who want to label it a "private conversation". Not when you're inflicting it on everyone at the next table.
And this guy:
Passer-by: "I don't really care for other people to just be taking a random video of me."
Surveillance Camera Man: "Didn't you just come out the drugstore?"
Passer-by: "Yeah."
Surveillance Camera Man: "They have cameras in there."
Passer-by: "So?" (pushes Surveillance Camera Man).
If you're ready to assault this guy, why are you not out wrecking the surveillance state, spraypainting cameras and calling for better privacy laws? The cognitive dissonance is amazing.
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
For every recording he used in his video how many did he have of people who didn't care in the slightest he was recording?
Selective editing can pretty much twist any story.
[The Universe] has gone offline.
I think this is a strong right that we should all be defending. Why should only the police/FBI/NSA/corrupt politicians in charge of security companies have the ability to film the public at will any time they want to? We should defend our right to see and film anything that is public. We shouldn't be beating these people up - be it Google Glass, a Go Pro cam, or your cell phone. We should be thanking them. This is the only way that the general public will wake up and realize that pervasive surveillance is a good thing that everyone should have access to so as to help defend ourselves from unscrupulous authorities. It should not be concentrated in the hands of a few with strong incentives to abuse it.
So what? An act is right or wrong independent of whether the state has issued a piece of paper making the part of the planet on which it occurs someone's so-called 'property". And many surveillance cameras, privately and publicly owned, record public spaces.
Their cameras are for whatever the store management decides they are for. If a woman has a nip slip that gets caught on the store's cameras, you can bet it will be viewed...
Oh, I'm sure the bike guy would have been mollified by SCM saying "It's not random, I deliberately targeted you."
Amazing the anger and hostility SCM brings up, especially among people who are apparently ok with being filmed by hidden cameras controlled by corporate and government agents.
I'd rather be filmed by a obvious person than a hidden camera -- if there's a person where I am, I know I'm being observed. The problem with surveillance is when it separates "being observed" from "being in the company of others".
Tom Swiss | the infamous tms | my blog
You cannot wash away blood with blood
There are anti-mask laws in some places in the US too. It's not because of hostility towards protestors. It's because of a little organization you might have heard of, called the KKK, whose members would attack people while wearing masks.
Isn't there a difference between a video taken for the purpose of a store safety, and a creepy asshole guy taking a video of you while you go about your stuff?
Yes there is a difference, SCM isn't hiding when he's taking the video.
Besides that, plenty of people are proving themselves willing to hurt him, while he is in full compliance with the law, he IS recording for the purpose of safety.
Okay, maybe i'm not stoned enough yet (working on it), but what I found amusing was people used dude with a camera as an excuse to be violent. Almost everyone was violent, or at least passive aggressive towards the guy. Even though we know we are being recorded by stores and other things, when a person with a camera gets in our face, people tend to try to do something about it. Why? I'm leaning that there is actually a face associated with this camera. You do into a store, there's a camera or 6 on the wall, but you can't get to them, you can't do anything about them. But the moment a camera appears in your face, with a person holding it, suddenly you have a target to put your frustrations on. And on top of it, people are being violent on a guy recording them being violent. WTF? Not only are you suddenly breaking the law but you are being recorded doing it.
Here's the best part. I bet the person gets people not reacting. They don't make it on to his youtube clips, do they? In other words, if you want to be sure you are seen in youtube if this guy appears, start acting like a twat.
Be seeing you...
So, because some people might abuse the ability to wear masks, doing so should be severely restricted? I thought we were supposed to the land of the free and the home of the brave, not the home of the sniveling cowards. I don't want the government dictating what clothing or accessories I can wear on my own body.
Your expectation and reality are quite different. If you are in public, your privacy is OFF, except in certain very limited circumstances.
Good-bye
This is the dumbest argument EVER. We see people acting a fool on security footage ALL THE TIME. Security footage is used EVERYDAY to change lives for good or bad.
Good-bye
Picture this...instead of the stationary cameras on the wall/ceiling at the drug store, there are employees following people with cameras. I'm betting customers would react the same way as surveillance guy. Funny how the visible attachment of a person to the camera makes all the difference for some reason. Why is that?