EPIC Seeks DC Surveillance Camera Records 11
EPIC's request seeks information about the cameras, the policies on their use, and future plans for expansion of the network. The request was directed to the MPD and federal agencies that have access to the SOCC for monitoring. The MPD has plans to link even more cameras to the system, including cameras from private stores in Washington's Georgetown neighborhood.
Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD) has expressed objections to the monitoring network as well. Rep. Morella chairs a House Government Reform subcommittee that has oversight on DC policy, and has called for hearings on the issue.
On February 26, the MPD announced that it had turned off twelve cameras that monitored buildings in and around the National Mall. The cameras were deactivated with the close of the Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah and the end of the terror alert announced last month by Attorney General John Ashcroft; however, the cameras could be reactivated at any time.
EPIC Press Release on DC Surveillance Cameras: http://www.epic.org/open_gov/FOIA/dccameraspr.html
EPIC Face Recognition Page: http://www.epic.org/privacy/facerecognition/
Privacy International Video Surveillance Page: http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/cctv/in dex.html"
It's time (Score:1)
Hooray for EPIC !
It's time to STOP this "we serve you by watch your every move" thing.
I hope ACLU, as well as other Civil Liberty organization will join in the suit !
Same here (Score:3, Interesting)
I asked around and couldn't get an answer from anybody about them except that there had been no voting process, which is unusual for a town that votes on everything. It's also a little odd that a small town could even afford to put up that much surveillance. I'm no conspiracy theorist but I have to wonder if it isn't a test project.
Re:Same here (Score:3, Interesting)
one day all of a sudden that EVERY intersection on a main street (highway, actually) had sprouted a total of four cameras with an additional two at the midpoint between intersections
I'm not sure what's up with the cameras between intersections, but in a lot of places traffic control systems are beginning to use cameras in place of magnetic anomaly detectors or pressure plates to determine whether or not a car is waiting at the intersection. In most cases the signal from the camera never goes any further than the computer that controls the lights (and, of course, processes the imagery). The cameras are cheaper to install, easier to maintain (although more fragile) and, given appropriate image processing software can recognize when a vehicle is approaching the intersection rather than just when it has arrived. This means, for example, that an intersection that normally leaves the green light on constantly in the middle of the night can see a car coming the other way and change the red to green *before* it arrives, so it doesn't have to stop (as it would with the MAD approach).
Everetty may indeed be under massive surveillance of its streets, but it's also entirely possible that they've just installed a new traffic control system to improve the flow of traffic.
Not surveillance cameras, at least in Indiana (Score:2)
The most important bit of his answer was that they will NEVER store the data coming back from the cameras, simply because of the huge manpower and budget requirement this would put on the state. Not archiving and storing them, which although a large cost is nothing compared with the cost of answering every lawyer's request for tapes.
Can you imagine the number of requests for multi-angle videotapes of intersections that would come from lawyers on both sides of traffic accident cases? It is simply impossible for the state to keep this data due to their legal liability.
So, while I can't say for sure what is happening in Seattle, I imagine that despite the larger size of the city, they still cannot justify the gigantic expense of keeping that video.
FOIA Request... (Score:2, Interesting)
how long have the camera's been up? (Score:1)
It seems possible to get to the bottom of this condit thing, if we could have access to the street cams, eh?
--pay attention spounge_bob!.. what things you should never do at a stop light...