Atlanta's Growing Video Surveillance System

McGruber writes "An Atlanta newspaper reports on the city's 'Video Integration Center,' which allows Atlanta's Police Department to control more than 100 public and private cameras. 'Officials say hundreds or thousands more private-sector cameras will eventually feed into the center.' According to the Atlanta Police Foundation, 'This is going to grow by leaps and bounds over the years. The goal, of course, is to have the entire city blanketed [with cameras].'"

Re:Camera Vandalism?

[houstonbofh]

A super Soaker filled with cooking oil will render it unviewable for more then 5 feet. But I am sure that falls under domestic terrorism in most of the "Free" world.

Cripe people, wake up and stand against this crap

[metalgamer84]

It blows my mind that people think this is a good thing. Why are people so damn eager to give up freedoms, liberties and privacies? Why do people want to live under constant surveillance? Why are people so eager to be cattle led to slaughter? FFS, crap like this should be causing outrage and riots. Instead people are complacent and eager for it.

Re:4th Amendment

[GritsConQueso]

In cases where the government argues that the 4th Amendment exclusionary rule does not apply because the search was conducted by a private party, the government loses if it can be demonstrated that the private party was a de facto government agent, or acting at the behest of a government agent. Surely it would be the same with cameras?

Re:Camera Vandalism?

[MyFirstNameIsPaul]

A few years ago I ran into a guy from Arizona and he was telling me how they put post-it notes on the traffic cameras [thenewspaper.com]. It actually went to court and a judge decided that the post-it notes were not vandalism.

Re:Open it to the Public

[Riceballsan]

Personally I have to agree with that one, I am all for a public DVR database where anyone on the street can just pop in, cut to 3:53 corner of north main and broad street, and see exactly what happened. It even eliminates the cops 1/4th legitimate complaint of civilians filming them (cops claim the civilians may be cutting out the suspects attempts to attack or run before they use force), If the camera is opened to the public, then both the civilians and the cops adn judges can see the entirety of what happened. Unfortunately in general the right to pick only the evidence that helps their case and hide the portion that contradicts is something the police will always want to have exclusively in their hands.

Re:Camera Vandalism?

[exploder]

I'm sure your envisioned "open-source target acquisition system" can distinguish between the reflection from a surveillance camera lens and the reflection from my eyeglasses, right?

Private Cameras...faking evidence?

[shellster_dude]

So if private feeds are coming in, what's to prevent a malicious private party from staging anything from a robbery to a murder and editing the footage to implicate their choice of targets and splicing said footage into the feed?

Other than tampering with evidence (and the actual crime), I doubt it would even be illegal since they own the feed.