Houston Police Chief Wants Cameras in Homes 804
An anonymous reader writes "In one of the most blatant and frightening statements made on privacy, the Associated Press reports that Houston's police chief wants surveillance cameras in apartment buildings and even private homes. Chief Harold Hurtt wants building permits to require cameras in shopping malls and large apartment complexes. He also wants them in private homes if the homeowner has called the police repeatedly. So, if you're in Houston, don't call the cops too much, or they might install a camera the next time they show up. And what does Hurtt have to say about privacy concerns? 'I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?'"
Good god (Score:5, Insightful)
Big Brothers, Big Sisters (Score:5, Insightful)
Last argument of the moral cowards (Score:5, Insightful)
This is the most cliched argument that any law enformcemnt officer could ever give. the answer to it is that it's none of my business what you're doing, and that it's not your place to decide what's right or wrong. That's what we have legislators for. There are very good reasons for resisting the erosion of privacy, and one of them is to keep assholes like this out of our lives.
No one will be happy... (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh please... (Score:5, Insightful)
Because, you miserable idiot, that's not the point. The point is the right to privacy, the point is the state minding its own business, not the citizen's.
Does this happen in the same country where people don't want an id card because of privacy concerns? Amazing.
Not with a bang (Score:5, Insightful)
What should I worry about? (Score:4, Insightful)
But I have to say that I can't always trust police. They are only human, too.
Re:By counter-example (Score:5, Insightful)
Chief Hurtt is an African American. In the sixties, Martin Luther King was the victim of illegal wiretapping by Hoover's FBI. How would he respond to an assertion that 'If Dr. King is doing nothing worng, why should he worry about our wiretapping.'
You'll install a camera in my house over my dead body.
Hunters (Score:5, Insightful)
Bonus goodie points to the person who actually names the logical fallacy behind "if you have nothing to hide" etc. If possible, please include a link. More people need to know how to intelligently refute arguments such as these.
Re:unreal (Score:3, Insightful)
Why I should worry about it. (Score:5, Insightful)
Because I want to scratch my balls while watching hockey naked, fart while making nachos in the kitchen, and have passionate sex with my wife on the couch and dining room table.
And here's the kicker... I DON'T WANT YOU TO KNOW ABOUT IT.
Re:Hunters (Score:5, Insightful)
It's all in Foucault, all in Foucault. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh please... (Score:3, Insightful)
Would it be okay to put the cameras in your house, then?
Re:Hunters (Score:3, Insightful)
post-nietzschean world (Score:2, Insightful)
junior, you're right, down there playing xbox in your parents' basement, you won't need to worry about it.
for the rest of us who are living in a post-nietzschean world where absolute standards of right and wrong do not exist and cannot be meaningfully codified into a series of laws, a plan which furthers the extent to which an external police force can monitor and impose imaginary laws on the people is not going to go over real well...
As Montaigne put it, "Laws are now maintained in credit, not because they are just but because they are laws. It is the mystical foundation of their authority; they have none other."
Re:Big Brothers, Big Sisters (Score:3, Insightful)
reality (Score:5, Insightful)
Where do you think he got his ideas from? Seriously. Most people read 1984 and Fahrenheit 451, and are either frightened, or mildly disturbed ("That'd never happen. People would be outraged!")
People like him read 1984 and think, "I wouldn't use those cameras like that...", missing the point completely.
Police these days are so far removed from reality, it's not even funny. I recently read an article about police stepping up speeding enforcement on "the most deadly road" in a particular county in (I believe) Ohio. The officers bragged about writing 40+ speeding tickets in two hours, using a LIDAR gun ($2k-$4k each, often paid for by Geico), one officer clocking vehicles, and 4-5 motorcycle units pulling people over. They talked about how they really want to get one patrol car to spend one day each week sitting out pulling over speeders, and they were makin' the roads safe.
Except the reason that the highway is so deadly is because it's a single lane highway with nothing but a double yellow line between you and oncoming traffic; the fatalities are from head-on collisions.
So instead of patrolling the road and pulling over anyone who tries to pass on a double-yellow, they write speeding tickets, making more people drive EXACTLY the speed limit, which is only bound to result in more idiots trying to pass the "law abiding" "safer" drivers. Not to mention, they're pulling people over on a single-lane highway, where all those flashing lights and whatnot are a major distraction.
Way to go, guys!
Re:Big Brothers, Big Sisters (Score:4, Insightful)
Long before Mayor White was elected those cameras were put in place. He's the first one who decided that Houston needed a "Safe-Clear" towing policy to make sure that nobody got hurt on the freeway and that the traffic kept flowing. In the past they would clear your vehicle if it was obstructing traffic. Now they make bank on towing you if you're on the shoulder of the road. Since the plan was implemented more people have been killed and injured on Houston freeways than were before the wreckers began making mad dashes for stalls and flat tires.
It's not the cameras on the freeway. It's how this particular mayor (and police chief) think they should be used and where they want to go next (evidenced by this story). I feel like this is just the beginning and while I live outside of Houston I work in it. Outside of that M-F commute I never enter the city.
Re:I work with law enforcement... (Score:2, Insightful)
were not giving up our freedom to make your job easier. Its already filled with morons as it is. Making it simpler will only increase the number of morons who work in police.
That man, (Score:5, Insightful)
Additional reasons: (Score:5, Insightful)
1. People have an annoying habit of abusing their power. Statistically, there are just as many criminal police officers as there are criminal normal citizens. I certainly wouldn't give an average citizen, for example, decryption keys to the password file on my computer. I don't want to give an entire police department a video feed entering credit card numbers into websites. Or plans for protest marches at the RNC. Or meetings, for example, of a group trying to get a new police chief elected. The police and other information gathering organizations have in the past most definitely not been bastions of holyness when it comes to ethical management of valuable information.
2. There are secrets people have that aren't illegal. Maybe you're seeing a psychological councelor, and the stigma attached with that could lose your job if that slips out. Maybe you got really drunk and made a mistake that you don't want to break up your family. Maybe J Edgar Hoover just doesn't want people to know that he wears women's underwear. Why should people know any of that? Why take the risk of telling that to people, and just pray that it doesn't 'slip out'.
3. Because there are lots of little things we do every day that break the rules. These include: j-walking, downloading MP3's, subletting without telling your landlord, recording sporting events without express written concent, undocumented domestic help, recreational drug use, stealing cable, logging on to other people's wireless networks, "leaking" company information to your girlfriend, anything besides the missionary position (in many states), cheating on your wife (in many states), rolling stops on empty streets, u-turns in the middle of empty streets, locking your bicycle to the handrailing, lying about your age to get into movies, lying about your age to get senior citizens discounts, lying about your age to avoid getting senior citizens discounts, telling your company that you're "sick" when you really mean you're "sick and tired of this crappy job," not reporting e-bay sales as taxable income, grabbing an extra newspaper when someone else buys one from the machine, putting chairs in the street to save your parking spot, stealing office supplies, stealing the towels, littering, loitering, the office NCAA pool, etc etc. All of these are necessary for the functioning of our society in some way or another, but are illegal. Yet we would go batshit insane without a few personal pet vices.
And the system has been built with this in mind: nobody wants to stop your weekly 5$ poker match, they wanted to stop the gambling houses where people lost their rent money. Enforce the letter of the law, and the intent of the law gets lost.
4. Because there is a big difference between serving the public interest and fascism.
wrong (Score:5, Insightful)
and on and on..how much more evidence is really needed? Then you have fascist gangsters like this pig chief saying what he did, in all seriousness. Any one of them...hmmm, ALL OF THESE THINGS and it isn't even close to stopping yet??
Nope, it's way past time to roll it back and JUST SAY NO to ALL of it. They crossed the line years ago, any defence of them is illogical and unwarranted, it's a pure slow speed fascist takeover, perfectly clear, nothing different from any third world fascist takeover except these boys are a little slicker how they are doing it, and having you on candid camera 24/7 and RFID tagged and working for their pig corporations as a second world serf slave is EXACTLY their goal. Look back 20 years. Now look at right now. Now turn around and look forward 20 years. Watcha see? How are things doing? Really, is it going to get magically better somehow unless there's a firm line that they have to go back and stand behind? They sure as hell aren't going to do it voluntarily!
You have to look at the big picture to get the full grasp of this.
NOW is the time to get scared, concerned then angry and change this stuff. We still have 10% of a chance, your kids won't have any.
Innocent until? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok Chief, let me clue you in. In this country people are innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around. People should not be required to repeatedly prove their innocence to your satisfaction by being subjected to 24/7 monitoring.
It is your job as a police officer to respond to criminal complaints, protect the innocent, and arrest the persons reasonably suspected of committing those crimes. Police officers have been performing those tasks long before you came along and they did it without the benefit of modern investigative technology. And they also did it without subjecting the entire citizenry to invasive monitoring such as what you are proposing. If you and your officers are not up to the task, you may want to consider a career change because you are obviously not going to live up to the level of you predecessors.
The only other alternative I could suggest is a reeducation camp, with the purpose of instructing you and yours in the finer aspects of our US constitution and criminal investigation procedures. Perhaps Guantanamo is free for a few months?
Re:reality (Score:5, Insightful)
If you really look at traffic laws, saftey is not the top priority. Money is. Most people don't weave in and out of lanes for the fun of it. They do it because cops don't enforce the keep to the right policy. Try that on the Autobahn in German. In fact, the unrestricted speed parts of the Autobahn are one of, if not the, safest stretches of highways. Why? 1) Good design 2) strict enforcement of driving habits that actually yield accidents. Speed doesn't kill - the accident does. Speed just makes it more likely you'll be sorry after that accident. Road rage is one thing, but has anyone spent some time investigating why people are getting this rage? Are we all nuts or just sick of other inconsiderate drivers?
How about those seat belt check points? If I don't wear my seat belt, who am I going to hurt? Ok fine, parents can be more responsible for their children. I guess there's a finite chance you could become a missle in an accident and hurt someone else with your flying body. In reality, this is just another cash cow. A few years ago a State trooper was killed in NJ when he was hit at a toll booth checking for seat belts (fell into on coming traffic). Try explaining that one to his family.
...and don't get me started about GEICO (or auto insurance in general).
Re:See it from the police (station) perspective (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Big Brothers, Big Sisters (Score:5, Insightful)
Get a group of, say, 20 people together who dislike this policy (should not be too difficult). Get all 20 in their cars on different parts of the road system. At a predetermined time, all of the pull over, sit on the shoulder for 60 seconds, and start moving again.
Repeat two or three times a day, during a week or two, change it to no longer all do it at the same time, but in 15 minute intervals.
See if the policy survives...
Re:Jew-pork is a strawman (Score:3, Insightful)
Thats how it starts (Score:4, Insightful)
then later
2 times per month to the same house
then later
2 times per 6 monthes to the same street
then later
we are installing cameras because its the law
Any liberties violated are precursers to total enslavement you just have to wait long enough.
No, you know what this is? I'll tell you... (Score:5, Insightful)
They're hacking us people. They are hacking our minds. They know exactly what they're doing. This isn't tinfoil hat stuff, they have highly paid strategists that study how to pull shit like this off. We're in deep doo doo if we, as a people, don't begin to recognize the nature of this social "matrix".
The problem is... (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, who will pay for these cameras? Will the taxpayers pay more tax? If not, where will the money come from?
And, finally, which camera manufacturer left the big black suitcase full of unmarked bills in the police chiefs car in return for suggesting this?
Not knowing anything about Houston or Texas politics, I have no idea if this guy is just spouting his mouth off or if there is an actual chance that this will be implemented, any Texans want to enlighten me?
Re:Additional reasons: (Score:1, Insightful)
There is something psychologically important about coming home after a long day, closing the door and knowing you've shut out the world, that you're alone with yourself or with the people you've chosen to spend your life with. The government does not have the right to intrude on that.
Cops protect and serve other interests, not yours. (Score:3, Insightful)
In spite of the best intentions of many police officers to "stay honest" (whatever that means to them), their masters are the politicians who make the rules, civil servants trying to increase their department budgets, and police bureaucrats trying to protect their piece of turf in the state protection racket. The amount of true protection to citizens that is required to please these special groups is pretty low.
Compare your experience to the behaviour of private police on university campuses and other institutions. They're paid to assist visitors, keep everyone safe, and protect their customers. Pay and employment are linked to performance in a meaningful manner.
If the Houston police chief was the police chief in any number of other countries, he might just get his way with in-home cameras. Perhaps that day will come in the US too.
It's no wonder private security is such a booming business. It's not like you can get real security from the government -- only intrusion and bullying.
Re:unreal (Score:5, Insightful)
Install the first camera(s) in this Police Chief's house - in every room, then wire it up to the public access channel.
Install the 2nd set of camera(s) in the Mayor's house.
Finally, the Police Chief's and Mayor's office.
Simply claim, if you aren't doing anything wrong, why should you mind being monitored 24x7, and since you both are in public office, your lives are now 100% public.
Re:That man, (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cops removed from reality (Score:2, Insightful)
It has always been this way
not "IN homes" (Score:5, Insightful)
He didn't, of course. The submitter (or perhaps Zonk) made that up. He never said "IN homes". he said "in large apartment complexes", meaning the public areas, and the exact words for honmes: "if a homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to require camera surveillance of the property". Which means the OUTSIDE of a property, unless the police chief is a raving lunatic. The lack of emphasis on this in TFA indicats this was understood to be the meaning. Not to say there are no problems with the idea, but argue about what he actually proposed.
Re:unreal (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Oral sex et al-Do you know if you're a criminal (Score:4, Insightful)
To quote Ayn Rand (from Atlas Shrugged)
""Did you really think we want those laws observed?" said Dr. Ferris. "We want them to be broken. You'd better get it straight that it's not a bunch of boy scouts you're up against... We're after power and we mean it... There's no way to rule innocent men. The only power any government has is the power to crack down on criminals. Well, when there aren't enough criminals one makes them. One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws. Who wants a nation of law-abiding citizens? What's there in that for anyone? But just pass the kind of laws that can neither be observed nor enforced or objectively interpreted - and you create a nation of law-breakers - and then you cash in on guilt. Now that's the system, Mr. Reardon, that's the game, and once you understand it, you'll be much easier to deal with.""
Re:Additional reasons: (Score:3, Insightful)
Hello, Trooper Harris! How is your wife, Brandy? Really? She sure has been buying a lot of birth control recently. Surprising considering how great Timmy and Candy are turning out. Why, Timmy hasn't been sent to the pricipal's office in over two weeks! Have Brandy say hi to Trooper Mbesi for me. He's a great guy- if you had his shift you could see Brandy as much as he does. Still, that shift differential helps pay your $14,111.48 in credit card debt and your $121,998.62 mortgage on 123 Steeltoe Way. Not to mention the big cash withdrawals you make every month that your reported cash seizures fall below $8,000.
Glad we could have this chat, must do it again over beers some time - bring your "friend" John - oh, that's right, s/he changed it to Joan last year, didn't s/he? Oops, my big mouth, you met this year, didn't you? Well, a word to the wise - check out the goods before you accept roadside payment, that's all I'm saying. Toodles!
The Land of The Free (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:An alternative (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cops removed from reality (Score:5, Insightful)
In 25+ years of driving I've been let off exactly one time because I'm not the kind of driver that gets let off with a warning. Just because you've can recall more times than I've ever experienced doesn't make you a better driver or mean that police don't abuse their power. In fact, it's evidence of it.
Re:unreal (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:See it from the police (station) perspective (Score:3, Insightful)
Being Watched (Score:4, Insightful)
My question is, if I'm not doing anything wrong, why do I need to be watched?
Frank
Houston, TX
Re:unreal (Score:3, Insightful)
Remember the garbage guy..from a few years back? (Score:5, Insightful)
There was a congressman...or was it a police chief...who favored the position that once garbage was placed at the curb, it was considered abandoned by the owner, and was not subject to search by warrant. The police could just pick up any given bag of trash and search for evidence...no privacy concerns.
All was well until a local paper picked through his trash and publised the contents...unread magazines and solicitation letters... food boxes...that's what I remember.
Man, was he pissed...and suddenly his view didn't apply to him.
So, hell yes, let's put publicly accessable GPS devices in police cars, let's have webcams in police stations...in every room. Let's watch the watchers.
Also reminds me of that sherrif in Arizona who had webcams in his jail...the man was ahead of his time.
Re:Cops removed from reality (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:reality (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:reality (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Additional reasons: (Score:1, Insightful)
Try to live with 0 bucks for a while without cutting corners.
Re:Remember the garbage guy..from a few years back (Score:1, Insightful)
Selective prosecution (Score:1, Insightful)
The sheer volume of the offending population makes it impossible to prosecute them all. The police, the courts and the prison system could not handle the load.
Under our current system, the law inhibits those activities by requiring the violators to be quiet and careful about what they're doing. It makes them more difficult.
With a system of cameras in place, you never know if your activities have been recorded. The police don't jump right on you when you do it. If someone in authority gets pissed off at you, they trump up a charge sufficient to get a warrant to examine your camera records. They find something you did wrong and they prosecute you for that.
The result is that everyone is vulnerable at all times. It's a massive machine generating blackmail material all day, every day. It does nothing for ordinary enforcement because it is beyond the bounds where enforcement is possible.
Re:Remember the garbage guy..from a few years back (Score:3, Insightful)
Because the GOP has been doing more to violate civil rights than the Democratic Party has been recently?