Crowdsourcing Big Brother In Lancaster, PA 440
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by
timothy
from the nerd-campers-running-amok-at-the-market dept.
from the nerd-campers-running-amok-at-the-market dept.
sehlat writes "From the Los Angeles Times comes word that in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, 165 public surveillance cameras are being set up to be monitored by a 'non profit coalition' of volunteers. The usual suspects, including 'the innocent have nothing to fear' are being trotted out to justify this, and the following quote at the end of the article deserves mention: 'But Jack Bauer, owner of the city's largest beer and soft drink distributor, calls the network "a great thing." His store hasn't been robbed, he said, since four cameras went up nearby. "There's nothing wrong with instilling fear," he said.'"
How Is This Crowdsourcing? (Score:5, Insightful)
Crowdsourcing Big Brother in Lancaster, PA
Uh, I read the article and it sounds like 10 self-appointed people running the show with 12 volunteers. How in the hell is that crowdsourcing?
... one operating outside my elected official's jurisdiction would be a true horror show.
Don't even get me started on a who will watch the watchmen rant. Such a monitoring activity operating at all upsets me
'the innocent have nothing to fear' (Score:4, Insightful)
Really, Jack Bauer? (Score:3, Insightful)
"'But Jack Bauer, owner of the city's largest beer and soft drink distributor, calls the network "a great thing." His store hasn't been robbed, he said, since four cameras went up nearby. "There's nothing wrong with instilling fear," he said.'""
Sheize: Ugly things are happening across the earth.
Following the UK's lead... (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm sure it's not hard to find volunteers for this sort of thing. Anyone who is nosy/power-seeking/voyeuristic would enjoy watching these cams without pay.
How much more freedom do we have to lose before we do something about it?
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
Who is this "we" you talk about?
Neighborhood watch? (Score:3, Insightful)
So, what's the difference between this and a neighborhood watch? No, seriously, I'm asking.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
We love the nanny state when it protects us from ourselves, but we don't want them watching.
I don't know about the rest of Slashdot (I haven't really seen that rhetoric but if you do, I won't argue) but I am certainly against all meddling. I hate the fact that the state that I live in has seat belt laws now, Blue Laws, and the fact that some intersections still have cameras on the street lights (red light cameras were declared unconstitutional in Minneapolis).
If a private business wants to have cameras which only view their own private/personal property, that's fine. As soon as it's opened up to a group outside of that private business or they are viewing public property then it's not acceptable. No, I don't believe in the whole "if you can be seen by a private citizen then it's the same thing." Once that citizen can play back an exact copy of the event in his/her head at a later time without any chance of fault, then I'll consider it the same damn thing.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
We love the nanny state when it protects us from ourselves, but we don't want them watching.
Hmm, don't find that I need protection from myself...
big effing deal (Score:3, Insightful)
it's great, because parents can let their kids go to the park without the need to be supervised (assuming the kids live in a nearby neighborhood). i often rode my bike down the street to a neighborhood park when i was a kid, and i'm sure my parents would have appreciated the cameras at the time.
they ought to make the feeds publicly available, so parents could watch what is going on, as well as allow for residents to watch parades, public gatherings and other things from home.
people who get all pissy about this stuff make no sense to me.
Re:No different (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Instilling fear? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Neighborhood watch? (Score:5, Insightful)
A town gone "funny' (Score:5, Insightful)
A chilling quote:
"Years ago, there's no way we could do this," said Keith Sadler, Lancaster's police chief. "It brings to mind Big Brother, George Orwell and '1984.' It's just funny how Americans have softened on these issues."
I am not sure "funny" is the term I would use to describe the change.
But then again, I for one welcome our new...actually I don't, screw them and the fear they rode in on!
Is it a crime? (Score:2, Insightful)
If no one is around to see me running around naked, is it a crime? Because the camera is there watching, it could be. What if I pee on a bush? If no one is looking it wouldn't be a crime, but with camera's watching everywhere... And what about the children? What about those toddlers running around or getting their diapers changed in public, would those now be child porn? If it is child porn, who is responsible?
Living in an open society with 0 privacy would be ok IF the only things the camera's would be used for were theft and assault. But since our society seems to think it has the right to decide what is morally ok and put people in jail for things like having sex and doing drugs, it is not and never will be ok. When society gets to the point where I can shoot crack on the courthouse steps while having sex on the steps screaming racially degrading remarks and preaching the truths of the noodle god and nobody care, then and only then will camera's watching our every move be a good idea. Until then some prude with their panties in the wad is going arrest innocent people for child abuse, lewd conduct, or a number of other crimes that really aren't crimes just moral impositions on society.
Re:big effing deal (Score:5, Insightful)
it's a public place where anyone can see what is going on at any point in time. there is no infringement of privacy if this is a public area, and with cameras being visible, there is no deception in the intent.
Actually, I have to agree, but I also think that the camera feeds should be made public. Absolutely public. Publish them on the Web, local cable, anywhere people can get to them. The more people watching, the better.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
You're against seat belt laws? I can probably spew a little bit of 'anti seat belt rhetoric' -
Rhetoric aside, you should have a seat belt cutter in your car in case the seat belt suddenly becomes an irremovable hazard. In any case the seat belt may help, it may also become life threatening.
Privacy, Yes. Anonymity, NO. (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
You're against seat belt laws? I can probably spew a little bit of 'anti seat belt rhetoric' -
"I should have the right to risk my own life, it doesn't affect anyone else"
"I would wear a seat belt anyway, so why have a law"
Aside from protecting the driver from himself...
If I hit you with my car, and you fly out of your windshield and splatter somewhere- I'll feel pretty bad. Maybe i'll go into therapy for it. If it was my fault, I'd probably feel worse. I really don't need that on my conscience...
I don't want to sound all 'think of the children' but these laws also motivate ignorant/stupid parents to force their children to 'buckle up' for safety (or fear of getting another ticket). I am glad my parents instilled in me the habit of buckling up...
Except for the fact that people continue to not wear seatbelts, no matter what the law says. Laws don't make people do something. If people are dumb enough to drive without a seat belt, then why should the rest of society care? Yeah you might need therapy if you hit someone without a seat belt and they splatter all over the road, but you're going to feel bad anyway even if you hit someone and it wasn't even your fault.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
I wear my seat belt and require them to be used by others when I drive. I'm not against that but I am against the police having the authority to pull someone over for the offense (it hasn't come to that in MN yet but it will eventually). I can't always tell when my wife has her belt on in the car when I'm sitting next to her (it blends in with the color of clothing she wears most frequently), how the fuck is the cop going to do so from afar?
Re:Instilling fear? (Score:5, Insightful)
Historically, the two have had high correlation. See Persians, Romans, British, American, etc.
While they weren't perfectly free nations, they each had quite progressive legal systems that provided relatively good degrees of equality and freedom to its citizens compared to other major powers of the world at the time.
Re:No different (Score:5, Insightful)
How does being watched in public spaces restrict your freedom?
Because you are not free to do things that are not illegal, but may be frowned upon by your community.
Meeting your mistress. Attending AA. Organizing a protest rally. Attending a meeting of an unpopular political group. Going to a fertility clinic. Going to an abortion clinic. Not resting on the sabbath. Going to the wrong church. Going on a date with a woman of a different race. Going to a gay bar. Going to a strip club. Purchasing alcohol. Looking at a child or married woman for too long or in the wrong way. Checking the wrong book out of the library. Stopping to offer condolences to the last victim of wholesale surveillance.
See "chilling effect."
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
I can probably spew a little bit of 'anti seat belt rhetoric' -
"I should have the right to risk my own life, it doesn't affect anyone else" ..
If I hit you with my car, and you fly out of your windshield and splatter somewhere- I'll feel pretty bad. Maybe i'll go into therapy for it. If it was my fault, I'd probably feel worse. I really don't need that on my conscience...
Protecting you from something unpleasant, possibly unpleasant enough to go into therapy, is not a good reason for a law. Hate to sound callous, but those are your issues for you to deal with.
I don't want to sound all 'think of the children' but these laws also motivate ignorant/stupid parents to force their children to 'buckle up' for safety (or fear of getting another ticket).
I don't want to sound like I'm saying "You sound like you're saying that because you are" but that would be hypocritical. Overreaching laws cannot make for responsible parenting.
Anyway you missed the most important reason for getting rid of seatbelt laws: there's no reason TO do it. Not wearing a seatbelt is a self-autonomous safety issue. You're not going to kill someone else doing it. We don't (shouldn't rather) pass laws to protect you from yourself. You should be free to harm yourself as much as you want.
Re:Neighborhood watch? (Score:3, Insightful)
Neighborhood Watch is actually the neighborhood. Cameras being recorded by who knows, for who knows...
Re:Neighborhood watch? (Score:3, Insightful)
The fact that you can't see who, if anyone, is watching. You glance back & forth, then pick your nose, and you never know 10 people were watching & recording.
That said, this stuff is inevitable. Cameras and high speed networking become ubiquitous and cheap, and privacy anywhere that can be seen by a public space is gone.
Get used to it or it'll drive you nuts.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
No, I don't believe in the whole "if you can be seen by a private citizen then it's the same thing." Once that citizen can play back an exact copy of the event in his/her head at a later time without any chance of fault, then I'll consider it the same damn thing.
Let me see if I've got this right.
You have a problem with this, as opposed to a private citizen witness, because you want to preserve the right to accuse a private citizen witness who is telling the truth of lying? You want to preserve the option of lying about someone else who's telling the truth?
If I'm getting you correctly, I think I understand your point of view, but do not personally respect it.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
corruption.
shortening the length of the yellow light leads to more tickets and increased revenues for the camera company and for the locality.
if the goal is to reduce the number of accidents caused by people driving through red lights, then installing the cameras and lengthening the yellow would be the optimal solution.
however, the stories I've read/heard on the subject all seem to involve these cameras being installed and the yellow duration being shortened. And the camera's end up generating a good amount of money, but the number of accidents stays about the same.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:A town gone "funny' (Score:1, Insightful)
But when there's not a camera, you can look around and get an idea about who's watching and when, and you can be pretty sure about whether they're recording it or not.
It's the difference between your creepy stalker parking down the street and watching you through binoculars, which someone is likely to notice, or your creepy stalker covertly watching you from a nondescript building on the other side of town without any oversight.
From TFA: "Morales said he tries to weed out voyeurs and anyone who might use the tapes for blackmail or other illegal activity." Note that word "tries." Clearly nobody's doing any sort of serious vetting of these people.
Re:big effing deal (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder about that. I really do.
Why is it that photographs and videos taken of models need copyright consent forms in order to be used, but my images can be snapped by thousands of cameras and copied about servers until doomsday without me even being informed?
Why is it that if I followed someone around every day, taking pictures and recording their movements, I would be convicted or stalking or have a restraining order put on me, yet it's OK for any old group to set up a nationwide system of cameras to track and record forever the movements of every single person in the state?
Why is it OK for them to record me, but it's not OK for me to see the footage?
I think Jack Bauer's comment really says it all. This system is not about protecting people. It's about intimidating them. It's about instilling fear. It's about the watchers gaining power over the watched. That is the systems primary purpose.
Who do you think will be manning these cameras? College students and libertarians? Not a chance. Think prudes and gossips, closet authoritarians and morality police, the perpetually offended and those who long for a society in which people know their place. And that place will be certainly be on camera instead of behind it.
Surveillance systems like this are getting implemented, everywhere, and their effect on society will be colossal. I believe it will be uniformly negative. We will move from the freedom and anonymity of urban society right back into the parochial, scrutinized and regulated mores of rural society. It's coming. In many ways, it's already here. You're only hope is that such systems have legal restrictions placed on them before they run completely rampant.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
As far as the "no expectation of privacy in a public place" argument, I would say it is now, "If a passerby with a cell phone could have recorded the same video, then it is the same thing." One should never assume their actions outside of their own home are private. The addition of a few cameras doesn't change that principle. That being said, the video from public cameras should be available for everyone's use; they should not be able to suppress video of official wrongdoing while using other video to prosecute less powerful civilians. I also believe all interactions between police and civilians should be recorded, because an unbiased recording of events protects the police and the civilians equally. Granted, police would quickly learn how to do things "off camera", but if both the police and the suspect are recording, then it becomes much more difficult to hide wrongdoing.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
I wish I didn't have to pay for idiots who talk on cellphones while driving, or for stupid people to have kids. I wish I didn't have to pay for health freaks living to 100 using up all that money on health care. If they had any sense and smoked, drank, and ate cheeseburgers they would die at 65 and save us 10 million dollars.
Do you want to be unapproved for health care or reproduction privileges because your DNA is more costly to maintain than some arbitrary level society sets? Do you want to live in a society where doctors run through extensive checklists, wasting precious time, to see if you did anything unapproved to disqualify you from receiving treatment for your heart attack, car crash, or bullet hole?
Plus, you are wrong. People who die in auto accidents stop being a drain. Those idiots that survive them with their seat belts cost big bucks to patch up and put back into active duty, only to tie up precious resources the next time something happens.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
You can probably blame insurance companies for this one. Or whoever has to clean up after an accident.
No probably to it...you can blame insurance companies and lawyers who sue everyone in sight (note I'm not referring to all lawyers). Seat belt laws are about financial risk management nothing more. Just one more example of why the state must protect us from ourselves. Our founding fathers really should have writting "Life, LIberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness as long as the money of the powerful isn't affected.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:3, Insightful)
You have a problem with this, as opposed to a private citizen witness, because you want to preserve the right to accuse a private citizen witness who is telling the truth of lying? You want to preserve the option of lying about someone else who's telling the truth?
In a court of law an eyewitness account can be filtered through time and personal judgment. I never said that the witness was lying, just that they aren't as useful as a video account of the happenings--especially when we're looking at 1+ year later.
Re:big effing deal (Score:4, Insightful)
it's a public place where anyone can see what is going on at any point in time. there is no infringement of privacy if this is a public area, and with cameras being visible, there is no deception in the intent.
tell that to all the police who arrest people photographing them...
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:4, Insightful)
Laws are not there to include that which is acceptable, but to exclude that which is unacceptable.
frikin lasers (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
get off your soap box, put the bloody belt on, and grow up. You're in a moving object traveling at what most living things would consiter crazy speeds, with a statistically high risk of that crazy speed being stopped abruptly. It takes you two seconds, quit whining and wear the damn thing.
Re:Ahhh, Slashdot (Score:2, Insightful)
If people are dumb enough to drive without a seat belt, then why should the rest of society care?
Because society has to clean up the mess you leave behind. It's more than that splotch you left behind on the road.
Did you have a wife and kids? That's half - and likely more than half - of their support, gone, poof. Pension fund? Life insurance?
The numbers had better add up, because if they don't, you've added four or five more people to the welfare rolls.
The seat belt isn't there just to keep you from being injured - it is there to help keep you in control of your car.
To prevent the accident.
Re:Neighborhood watch? (Score:3, Insightful)
I cant connect Mrs Simpson optic nerves to youTube, thats a big difference...
Seriously, if there was no difference, people would not bother with this project... So there must be a difference, whether its a positive or negative difference is what the discussion is about...
Re:I LIVE in Lancaster and I didn't know! (Score:2, Insightful)
I also have lived there for years (just moved), and this was the first I'd heard of it. Sorry, but something like that being mentioned in the newspaper "every so often" clearly isn't enough to get the word out properly, and shows the lack of attention the media pays to civil liberties issues. More likely, the thoughts of juicy images and video from crimes committed were dancing in their heads.
Legistlation of Micromanagement (Score:3, Insightful)
Husbands with mistresses (Score:3, Insightful)
Morales says he refuses all other requests. "The divorce lawyer who wants video of a husband coming out of a bar with his mistress, we won't do it," he said.
It seems that the guy doesn't know that a divorce lawyer can subpoena the video.
Any judge in any legal proceeding who decides that it's in the interests of justice to have the video can issue a subpoena for it.
That system doesn't just cover bars. It covers every public street. Even people who are single might not want a video record of everybody who walked through their door and spent the night with them.