Data-Fed Monitoring System Will Put New Yorkers Under Police Surveillance

Nerval's Lobster writes that New York City isn't just gathering data on citizens with cameras and other data sources for sifting through later to seek evidence in the event of violent acts; it's using some of that data in real-time in an attempt to reveal potential criminal activity. They've even picked a name for their system that echoes DARPA's Total Information Awareness, which I guess is more diplomatic than just calling it Precrime: "The Domain Awareness System will draw data from 911 calls, previous crime reports, license-plate readers, law-enforcement databases, environmental sensors, and roughly 3,000 closed-circuit cameras. It will rely on the New York City Wireless Network (NYCWiN), a high-speed wireless broadband infrastructure that allows city agencies to rapidly transmit data, and used for everything from emergency response to reading meters. Mayor Bloomberg argued that the system isn't an example of Big Brother overstepping the line. 'What you're seeing is what the private sector has used for a long time,' he told Gothamist. 'If you walk around with a cell phone, the cell phone company knows where you are. We're not your mom and pop's police department anymore.'"

"We're not your mom and pop's police department"

[John Hasler]

No. You're our Big Brother's police department.

Re:The problem

[Sentrion]

And the laws are so vague that nobody knows if you're really guilty until a judge says so. It's such problem that lawyers today usually advise against taking advantage of some new law until the law has been "tested" in court. It is not unheard of that a person can be complying with law a and compying with law b, but when doing so simultaneously without complying with law c they are guilty of some horrendous crime and must spend years in prison for what most people would perceive as routine day-to-day business.

Import business can be very scary because you can be tried and imprisoned in the US for violating the law of some other country, even when that other country sends diplomats and sworn affidavits that their laws were not violated.

You don't even have to break any known laws. A judge can simply find you in contempt and leave you to rot in prison for six years, at his sole discretion.