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."

Comments

Guy deserves getting beaten

[futuramasd]

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.

Re:Guy deserves getting beaten

[BSAtHome]

I don't get it. This guy should be beaten? But the hundreds of stationary cameras, operated by the state, which are doing exactly the same thing is OK? I think the _state_ needs to get a beating.

He makes it a spectacle, yes, but he has a very good point. We are constantly stalked by cameras and mobile phones. I think you need to get your priorities straight.

Re:Guy deserves getting beaten

[Jawnn]

Oh. So all those cameras that are keeping us safe from teh terrorists are a bad thing? Is that what you're saying? That's just crazy talk, you socialist terrorist lover.

Re:Guy deserves getting beaten

[drinkypoo]

I don't get it. This guy should be beaten? But the hundreds of stationary cameras, operated by the state, which are doing exactly the same thing is OK? I think the _state_ needs to get a beating.

You know, there's nothing inconsistent about believing that both this man and the law are asses.

Re:Guy deserves getting beaten

[Rockoon]

Otherwise the message gets lost in the creepiness.

The message .. is .. that its creepy.

Re:Guy deserves getting beaten

[icebike]

The outside cams at Lords and Taylor was insufficient for an identification. Fuzzy nondescript images that showed clothing patterns at best.
Hundreds of private snapshots submitted by people were what nailed them. But even that failed to identify them until private people phoned in saying they recognized them.

But its funny you mention the Boston Marathon at all, because it is the biggest single failure of the NSA spying operation, the elephant in the room as the NSA testified before congress about how many bombings the program had prevented without any specifics at all. Yet it totally missed these guys even when the Russians handed them to us on a silver platter.

Critical infrastructure in the US is exploding seemingly every other month, all publicly written off as accidents. Refineries that used to operate for 10s of years without a significant accident go up in flames, and nobody asks why.

Again, ruined by implementation

[poity]

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.

Re:Again, ruined by implementation

[Charliemopps]

It's not the same reaction, and that's the point. It should be.

Re:Idiot

[Mr. Slippery]

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.

I have a question...

[mindwhip]

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.

Any excuse to get violent

[Nyder]

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.

Re:Richard Dawson: Surveillance...says!

[SJHiIlman]

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.