Why Did a Tech Executive Install 1,000 Security Cameras Around San Francisco? (nytimes.com) 148
The New York Times explains why Chris Larsen installed over a thousand surveillance cameras around San Francisco to monitor 135 city blocks:
It sounds sinister. A soft-spoken cryptocurrency mogul is paying for a private network of high-definition security cameras around the city. Zoom in and you can see the finest details: the sticker on a cellphone, the make of a backpack, the color of someone's eyes... While violent crime is not high in the city, property crime is a constant headache. Anyone who lives here knows you shouldn't leave anything — not a pile of change, not a scarf — in a parked car... locals are tired of the break-ins.
So how do they reconcile "defund the police" with "stop the smash and grabs"? Mr. Larsen believes he has the answer: Put security cameras in the hands of neighborhood groups. Put them everywhere. He's happy to pay for it.... Here is what he is doing: Writing checks for nearly $4 million to buy cameras that record high-definition video of the streets and paying to have them maintained by a company called Applied Video Solutions. The rest is up to locals in neighborhood coalitions like Community Benefit Districts, nonprofits formed to provide services to the area. Here is how the project works: Neighbors band together and decide where to put the cameras. They are installed on private property at the discretion of the property owner, and in San Francisco many home and business owners want them. The footage is monitored by the neighborhood coalition. The cameras are always recording...
As proponents of Mr. Larsen's network see things, they get the safety of a surveillance state without the state... It is arguably more compelling evidence in court because the video is monitored by a third-party intermediary who can testify that it is a continuous feed. It is time stamped. And because the network covers many blocks, the footage can tell a broader story than a single camera about an event that might be moving from block to block, in the case of, for example, a fight.... "This has underscored the importance of not just cameras but of communitywide camera coverage," Mr. Larsen said.
"Body cams show some pretty core weaknesses because we don't have universal access to police body cam footage, and there's a fundamental conflict of interest if the video shows something bad for the department." The answer is more cameras, he said, and then keep that footage in the hands of citizens. He argued that trust will come in the form of full city camera coverage, so police can play a smaller, more subtle role. Individual vigilantism will not work, he argued, but strong neighborhoods with continuous video feeds on every corner will. "That's the winning formula," Mr. Larsen said. "Pure coverage."
The locally-stored footage is erased after 30 days. Thought it's not covered by the city's newly-enacted ban on facial recognition software, Larsen says "We're strongly opposed to facial recognition technology. Facial recognition is too powerful given the lack of laws and protections to make it acceptable."
So how do they reconcile "defund the police" with "stop the smash and grabs"? Mr. Larsen believes he has the answer: Put security cameras in the hands of neighborhood groups. Put them everywhere. He's happy to pay for it.... Here is what he is doing: Writing checks for nearly $4 million to buy cameras that record high-definition video of the streets and paying to have them maintained by a company called Applied Video Solutions. The rest is up to locals in neighborhood coalitions like Community Benefit Districts, nonprofits formed to provide services to the area. Here is how the project works: Neighbors band together and decide where to put the cameras. They are installed on private property at the discretion of the property owner, and in San Francisco many home and business owners want them. The footage is monitored by the neighborhood coalition. The cameras are always recording...
As proponents of Mr. Larsen's network see things, they get the safety of a surveillance state without the state... It is arguably more compelling evidence in court because the video is monitored by a third-party intermediary who can testify that it is a continuous feed. It is time stamped. And because the network covers many blocks, the footage can tell a broader story than a single camera about an event that might be moving from block to block, in the case of, for example, a fight.... "This has underscored the importance of not just cameras but of communitywide camera coverage," Mr. Larsen said.
"Body cams show some pretty core weaknesses because we don't have universal access to police body cam footage, and there's a fundamental conflict of interest if the video shows something bad for the department." The answer is more cameras, he said, and then keep that footage in the hands of citizens. He argued that trust will come in the form of full city camera coverage, so police can play a smaller, more subtle role. Individual vigilantism will not work, he argued, but strong neighborhoods with continuous video feeds on every corner will. "That's the winning formula," Mr. Larsen said. "Pure coverage."
The locally-stored footage is erased after 30 days. Thought it's not covered by the city's newly-enacted ban on facial recognition software, Larsen says "We're strongly opposed to facial recognition technology. Facial recognition is too powerful given the lack of laws and protections to make it acceptable."
Insanity (Score:5, Insightful)
It's STILL A SURVEILLANCE STATE.
Worse, because it's being done in the open there's no government regulations or oversight to how the video is used or diverted or that it may end up as vigilante justice.
Got your competitors going out for a midnight tryst while their partner is in bed? That might be some good blackmail material.
Did all the citizens approve of this? No.
But hey, we're not using Facial Recognition because We Care.
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No, this is brilliant. I'd pay to have this done in my neighborhood in an instant, and I live in a very safe area. I feel perfectly safe, but some members of my family don't. If I had some way of reassuring them that the neighborhood is being watched, I think it would help.
If you wouldn't object to someone making a smartphone video of a public scene, you can't possibly object to the same thing being done on a regular basis by a neighborhood committee. Other than the regularity of it, it's exactly the same t
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I would like to think you have never been to a nasty, no holds bar, HOA or COA meeting.
These meeting people say the darndest things.
Vigilante justice / some else's moral rules would rain supreme. You have a friend come
over ( sexual or just a friend ), and your partner would get a copy of it within a few minutes.
Privacy would be gone in a minute.
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A smartphone video is a one time thing. This is recurring. Perhaps you don't care if your neighbours know you leave the house at 7:30AM every day except on Saturdays, or that you don't sort your recycling properly, but people talk. You might get little notes on your do
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Sure, but this whole debate is ignoring one very important thing:
Why are people committing crimes in the first place?
In kindergarten, when asked what they want to be when they grow up, not many kids are choosing petty thief or back alley crackhead giving $10 blowjobs.
It almost always comes down to economic opportunity. A friend and I were drinking and discussing the crimes in our area one night and we both realized that the percent of the population out on the streets at 3am was surprisingly high. If you ha
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Please MOD parent up.The REAL problem isn't going to get fixed with new technology or throwing money at it.
Too many k-12 schools these days are gladiator academies. The life skills taught are succeeding through violence and crime instead of personal responsibility, social skills and career advice.
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Totally different things. A person with a smartphone will only start recording when something interesting happens. It's up to them if they come forward with the video or keep it to themselves.
A camera watching 24/7 and saving that data for 30 days is a prime target for law enforcement. They can grab the footage from all cameras in the area and round up anyone they see for questioning. We have already seen this happen with cell tower data and with GPS data from cycling apps. Merely being in the area around t
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I'd also expect that data to be sampled by security agencies, illicitly, simply because it's available and poorly secured. It was more difficult to download the old VHS based store cameras, now such systems are expected to be Internet accessible for remote monitoring.
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Worse, because it's being done in the open there's no government regulations or oversight
I trust my fellow citizens more than I trust the police.
to how the video is used or diverted or that it may end up as vigilante justice.
The police have a greater vested interest to divert, destroy, or alter video evidence.
Also, vigilante justice and the police are not mutually exclusive. The police regularly make harassing arrests just to throw people in jail without charges. There are many incidents of police officers harassing and even murdering ex-girlfriends or ex-spouses, and using their badge to avoid accountability.
Re: Insanity (Score:4, Insightful)
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As a citizen you have a voice in what the government does.
It does not help. People vote their tribal loyalties and whatever they can be emotionally manipulated into supporting.
Government unions prevent anything in government from improving. We don't have a voice in government union decisions.
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HOAs are elected, as are city councils.
I live in a city of a million people. So my voice is 0.0001%.
There are about a hundred homes in my neighborhood. So my voice is 1%, or ten thousand times as much.
I don't particularly like how either is run, but to say I personally have more influence on a large city than a small neighborhood is absurd.
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They need not be elected. And they're often mandated for people moving into a neighborhood, with no opportunity for those new residents to vote before moving in. It's also _very_ common for realtors to neglect to mention an HOA before the financing of a house is completed and the contracts presented.
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That's the trick. They present "all the information" after the client is emotionally and fiscally invested in securing loan approvals, and slip the HOA agreement in as "oh, yes, I *just* found out about this!!". It's very emotionally difficult for a purchaser to balk at that point.
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As a citizen you have a voice in what the government does. In this type of scenario you'll have about as much input as you do into a HOA, which is basically none.
Actually, most of the things that HOAs do that give them a bad reputation are completely illegal violations of rights arising under the 9th Amendment (rights retained by the people) and the 10th Amendment (rights reserved to the people).
For example, they are effectively function as another level of government - and the right to ethical government arises under the 9th Amendment - but there's no ethical oversight at all over HOA activities and clearly in many cases they are not acting ethically if one applies
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I trust my fellow citizens more than I trust the police.
Oh really [slashdot.org]? Are you sure about that [nbcnews.com]?
Also, vigilante justice and the police are not mutually exclusive.
It's not just the police [cbsnews.com].
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Detroit tried this? (Score:2)
The NYT is paywalled so I tried the FREEP
https://www.freep.com/story/op... [freep.com]
Google is not your friend here -- not much turns up. But it appears that portions of Detroit are surveilled.
How much of this is on private and how much on public property. I had "heard something" about Detroit becoming a real-life setting for Person of Interest. What do others, here, know?
Re:Detroit tried this? (Score:4, Informative)
The NYT is paywalled so I tried the FREEP
No, the NYT is not paywalled. You're simply too lazy to get rid of their cookie.
Posting as a lazy person (Score:2)
what do people know about what has been going on in Detroit? This appears pertinent to the grandparent pos.
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Neighbors band together and decide where to put the cameras. They are installed on private property at the discretion of the property owner, and in San Francisco many home and business owners want them. The footage is monitored by the neighborhood coalition.
Re: Insanity (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, ... US rules on this are very short-sighted and ignorant.
You say in public there is no privacy, so you can just film random strangers on the street.
But in reality, you are not just filming them. You are creating *permanent* records. And often, you even put them in front of a much larger audience. Maybe even for decades or centuries.
Which destroys two fundamental pillars of human society: Forgiveness and empathy.
It is never forgotten. So you can still receive painful hate for something ancient, when you were a completely different person. Or you might even be completely unable to ever change in the first place, as everyone would drag you back down, just like you're Billy Four-Eyes Fatass again, when meeting a group of former classmates.
And that large audience will not be able to feel empathy for you. You're just a member of their personal pet stereotype groups, that are way bigger than Dunbar's number. So they essentially are unable to *not* treat you like they are psychopaths/sociopaths. Even completely without intending to do so.
Doing a quick calculation, that means around 5000 people on this planet, with a reason, motivation and means to kill you. And no time limit.
That's the real problem. Unless it's 1. literally just live video, AND 2. you are told in advance, who is watching, and what he's doing with it. (No spying! No covert recording! Ya peeping tom of a creep!)
Which is why this is a key part of the EU GDPR, and you can see those info signs everywhere where there is surveillance. *Outside* of the recorded area!
So you can actually make a decision. E.g. not to go there.
And there we are, at the essence of the whole issue.
Freedom.
Re: Insanity (Score:2)
Have mandatory deletion and encryption laws .. key fragmented and held in multi-party escrow with decryption allowed only in highly violent crime cases upon approval by a citizen committee (randomly chosen, like a jury?).
We should not make ourselves unable to catch serial killers and rapists.
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We should not make ourselves unable to catch serial killers and rapists
Serial killers and stranger rape are both quite rare, is it worth giving up civil liberties for them? The last big serial killer here, the cops were repeatedly told about, but as he was only killing prostitutes, with a good number not even white, the cops couldn't be bothered for the longest time.
Re: Insanity (Score:2)
Stranger rapes are quite significant in number. From googling: The National Violence Against Women Survey, completed in 1995 and 1996 remains the most rigorous victimization study on the topic. Offenders raped approximately 302,000 women in the year preceding the survey. Someone the women knew raped the vast majority of them (83%). Only 21 percent of respondents raped by strangers reported the attack to the police, meaning that police did not know about nearly 80 percent of all stranger rapes. Although the
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Hmm, I'm somewhat surprised it is so high, though estimating the unreported seems to always be a bit of a crap shoot.
I wonder how many of those rapes and murders happen somewhere where video surveillance would catch the crime?
I guess I'm just not very trusting that the video won't be wrongly used in the future. Safeguards can be remove.
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17% of 300,000 is 51,000. There are over 15,000 murders per year. We can prevent many of those rapes and murders by better surveillance AND safeguard privacy rights if we implement the system I mentioned. 51,000 stranger rapes are a major privacy violation too, itâ(TM)s worth preventing.
Cameras can't prevent initial attacks, only help to identify the assailant after the event. This may provide some deterrent affect and could prevent further attacks if it involved a serial offender, but many of the original crimes would still have happened anyway. Many potential offenders are too stupid to fully understand their risk and will still proceed.
Re:Insanity (Score:5, Informative)
How is this guy allowed to install these on public property to surveill strangers?
RTFS. The cameras are on private property.
I have had security cameras around my house for years. In addition to my own property, they record any traffic going into and out of my cul-de-sac. Many other people in my neighborhood have done the same. When there was a burglary last year, the victim posted on nextdoor.com. Several people were able to compare videos, identify the perp's vehicle, and pass on the evidence to the police.
This is no different.
Will the Circle be unbroken? (Score:2)
Did no one watch the movie "the circle". Even though Tom hanks and Hermione Granger starred in it, it wasn't a commercial success. The problem was not that the movie was bad but that it wasn't the movie people were expecting to see when they watched it. It was an ambiguous exploration of what happens when everyone can see everything and one coroporation is at the center of that. Unfortunately the company at the center wasn't Spectre but just Facebook (called "the Circle" in the movie). It was how evi
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Hollywood is bound to make such a film. They are used to being paid to be filmed. So they don't like it when people get to film them for free.
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You say that, but indeed in the US in the current form of the law, they absolutely do permit cameras on private property and the owners of that footage to store, combine and aggregate as they please. That law might change in the future, but it's a factual matter at the moment (not a value judgment) that this is where we are right now.
Indeed, the folks here by pledging to delete all footage after 30 days are far in excess of their legal obligations.
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As long as the crime stays below whatever the cut-off point for a felony is in your area ($1000 in most areas, but higher in others) the prosecutor will not bother with the case so the police won't bother with the case. Laptops are common and cheap, data has no value (as far as the police are concerned), he probably didn't have more than a couple hundred in the wallet, max. Not a felony, they don't care. Credit card fraud might interest them, but it's a separate crime from the theft. Two $999 crimes do
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How are you allowed to buy a camera and point it towards the street? Because your camera is your property, and the street is a public place.
You might as well ask how are you allowed to look outside your home towards the street? Same answer.
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''How are you allowed to buy a camera and point it towards the street?''
Because visual recording in public in all states in this country doesn't require disclosure or permission. Some states require permission for audio, none for video.
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especially if you record children.
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Most states require disclosure of video recording, but a sticker in a window is sufficient notification in most cases.
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''How is this guy allowed to install these on public property to surveill strangers?''
Jeeze you don't even have to read the article for the answer.
''They are installed on private property at the discretion of the property owner,''
And when you are in public, you don't have the right not to be visually recorded in any state in the US.
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Neighbors band together and decide where to put the cameras. They are installed on private property at the discretion of the property owner
Smile! (Score:2)
You're on Candid Camera.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
Ha! (Score:5, Insightful)
"they get the safety of a surveillance state without the state"
And without ANY regulations or accountability if misused. What a joke. Big Brother is great if I get to be Big Brother.
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Came here to say this. +1.
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This is so true that it's not even fun to think about.
Why reconcile? (Score:3, Insightful)
So how do they reconcile "defund the police" with "stop the smash and grabs"?
There is nothing to reconcile. That "defund the police" proposal is an idiotic campaign by radical left-wingers; it must be not only dismissed, but fiercely denounced.
Re: Why reconcile? (Score:2, Flamebait)
Uum no, as a "radical left-winger", aka average German and European... this is not us.
I assumed it to be the same right wing, I'm sorry, nutjobs, who openly carry assaut rifles and are members of a militia. You know the types.
Seems we both get played. I wonder by who. :) ;)
It smells very much like a scheme by the world's designated troll: Putin.
Although he certainly did anything but do this alone, given that it's one of the few issues where libertarians and hippies can unite.
Whatever. This reminds me again,
Isn't San Fransisco just a... (Score:5, Funny)
...huge bathroom for homeless people? I thought it was illegal to put cameras in bathrooms.
Re: Isn't San Fransisco just a... (Score:2)
We're equal opportunity here. Everyone is ok to shit on the street, not just the homeless.
Share and share alike!
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Sounds like a CHAZ for gays.
Re: Isn't San Fransisco just a... (Score:3)
You don't have to be gay to shit on the streets. Seriously, our streets are fully open to EVERYONE to take a dump anyplace that provides them a sense of personal fulfillment.
private eyes by Hall & Oates (Score:2)
Private eyes / They're watching you / They see your every move / Private eyes / They're watching you / Private eyes / They're watching you watching / You watching you watching you
You play with words you play with love / You can twist it around baby that ain't enough / 'Cause girl I'm
Who watches the watchmen? (Score:2)
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They're on private property with the permission of the land holders. Removing them would be theft.
Defund the police (Score:5, Insightful)
So how do they reconcile "defund the police" with "stop the smash and grabs"?
Because the police have been completely ineffective at preventing the smash and grabs.
For property theft, the police will fill out a police report for your insurance claim but put no effort into catching the perps.
When my spouse's cell phone was stolen in SF, the police told her they no longer deal with phone thefts "because they are too common." That statement is an amazing feat of logical acrobatics.
Re: Defund the police (Score:5, Insightful)
New York dealt with this properly years ago. Stop the little crimes and the big ones follow.
But that would be racist or misogynistic or something.
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New York dealt with this properly years ago. Stop the little crimes and the big ones follow.
But they failed to solve the problems in the NYPD using the same philosophy, and now they're paying the price for that.
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The result is the police don't try to stop it, because what's the point?
Re:Defund the police (Score:4, Insightful)
That isn't because of the police. California passed a ballot initiative in 2014 [wikipedia.org] which required a theft be at least $950 before it can be charged as a felony. Otherwise it's only a misdemeanor with a maximum sentence of 6-12 months in jail, usually immediately suspended for probation. Police don't have enough staff nor time to investigate and prosecute every crime, so they concentrate on the ones which are more likely to create a bigger reduction in the overall crime rate. Since these less-than-$950 thefts now usually result in the criminal immediately being released even if they're caught and convicted, they represent less bang for the police buck. So the police don't prioritize them as much as they did before.
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California passed a ballot initiative in 2014 [wikipedia.org] which required a theft be at least $950 before it can be charged as a felony.
So a guy is mugged in San Francisco and has $1,000 in his wallet.
The thief counts the money, gives back $50 and then says, "Thanks, keep the change."
The same guy's $1,200 laptop is stolen, and the thief is caught. In court the defense lawyer argues that the fence only offered $900 for it, so the case gets tossed.
Yet again the same guy goes on to write a bestseller titled, "How to Live in San Francisco on Just $950 a Day!"
Just walk into the same store every morning, steal only $950, and the police will
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required a theft be at least $950 before it can be charged as a felony.
My wife wouldn't be caught dead with a phone worth a mere $950.
Her latest phone is a $1500 iPhone 11 Pro Max. She'll trade it in as soon as something more expensive is available. Or maybe she can just buy the diamond-studded case. Whichever costs more.
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I had to laugh for 2 reasons :
a) I did not know you had a wife, I've enjoyed many of your post.
b) the thought of you having to fork over for the most expensive item. that's got to hurt LOL
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She runs her own app business and earns more than I do, so I don't have to fork out.
She's spending her own money.
She spends a lot on status indicators. That is somewhat of an Asian cultural thing (she is Chinese).
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Yes, a first time misdemeanor shop lighting is 6-12 with likely probation. That seems pretty darned reasonable to me, I don't think anyone should go to jail for that. But there's still a perfectly good reason to
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That and the fact that we voted in California to increase the dollar amount for non-violent felonies to $950.
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So how do they reconcile "defund the police" with "stop the smash and grabs"?
Because the police have been completely ineffective at preventing the smash and grabs.
For property theft, the police will fill out a police report for your insurance claim but put no effort into catching the perps.
When my spouse's cell phone was stolen in SF, the police told her they no longer deal with phone thefts "because they are too common." That statement is an amazing feat of logical acrobatics.
Dang. I guess we should find out who runs the police in these big cities and vote against them.
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Yep, stolen cell phones are certainly the kind of thing law enforcement should be working on. When the phone thief's big brother is in your house at 2 AM, you can be safe in the knowledge that despite you being on your own, they are out there pounding the pavement to recover all those phones.
Theft of a single item of small property probably stopped being a police priority sometime around the time the Andy Griffith show went off the air.
Neighbor against Neighbor? (Score:5, Insightful)
Has this guy not seen nextdoor.com? That place is a horrendous mess of people out to judge anyone not inside their own head. My neighbors snipe about everything. If it was left up to that crew we'd all be in violation all of the time.
One of the great things about a centralized, government, police force is that they can have rules placed over them. Our system teaches them to apprehend all criminals and to treat everyone the same. If that isn't ok, lets change the laws we ask them to enforce.
You really want to put the security of the neighborhood in the hands of the same types of people that run your local HOA?
--
There is a Providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children and the United States of America. - Otto von Bismarck
Re: Neighbor against Neighbor? (Score:3, Funny)
"You really want to put the security of the neighborhood in the hands of the same types of people that run your local HOA?"
Yes, paying more money on top of your mortgage so you can have a bunch of little brownshirts fuck with you because your mailbox isn't the proper shade of white.
It seems HOAs exist because of this more than keeping your neighbor from painting his house like a circus big top and littering his front yard with broken down I-ROCs up on blocks.
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I saw this article and the name "Larson", and immediately thought, "Yeah, this is something that we'd see in a Far Side comic".
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It is arguably more compelling evidence in court because the video is monitored by a third-party intermediary who can testify that it is a continuous feed.
So is monitored by a neutral third-party. It would seem they are aware of sniping neighbors
Bullshit (Score:2)
Zoom in and you can see the finest details: the sticker on a cellphone, the make of a backpack, the color of someone's eyes...
I've got HD(1080p and 4K) security cameras and they don't have near this resolution, unless the subject is just a few feet away, or there is an optical zoom lens that narrows the field of view to useless degrees wide.
But the hyperbole about the "finest of details" is the sort of thing that camera sellers will say. This guy isn't offering a new era of surveillance or neighborhood security. He's just another profiteer trying to take advantage of the moment selling bullshit.
Zoom! Enhance! Fleece!
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Those camera's probably have actual zoom lenses, not a fixed lens like your typical security camera. Not sure how this would be useful though when just recording...
You may want to rethink this. Consider HOAs. (Score:2, Insightful)
As someone else mentioned, it's still a surveillance state, just by someone other than the police.
But worse: Who will have access? Who, if anyone, will arbitrate that access? Everyone who's ever dealt with an HOA (especially in batshit crazy CA) is familiar with the issues surrounding a body having quasi-govenmental powers without the necessary legal checks and balances.
Just to make things a little worse, I predict that- like HOAs- most of the "officials" will be vindictive busybody types that have plenty
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Geez people at least read the TFS if you are not even going to read TFA before you rant.
In America, the dictator is the population. (Score:5, Interesting)
In countries like China, there is a dictator leadership, that installs surveillance, censors, polices, and terrorizes the population into submission.
America always says it is the land of the free. ...) and seem to actively *want* those horrible things. Because of the intense stream of manipulative influences imposing themselves upon them every day. Mostly via very basic triggers, like fear.
But really, in America, the control is just more advanced. It goes through the minds of the population. So they *themselves* put up surveillance, censor themselves in the media and speech, and terrorize each other into submission (e.g. SJWs, churches, fearmongering PR,
A perfidious system, that I don't know how to break, other than people deciding to focus only on local, real-world, personal, social circle communication, all by themselves, due to noticing that it makes them happier.
I guess that is what Schopenhauer meant, when he said: "Man can /do/ what he wants. But he cannot /want/ what he wants!"
Ever hear about the serial offender? (Score:3)
He commits crimes every 31 days. Of course you haven't seen him; just heard of him. The recordings have been checked; the equipment even more so.
He remains as elusive as ever
Scat fetish? (Score:2)
Scat fetish?
The real consequences (Score:3)
Why would privately made video be trustworthy (Score:2)
This piece babbles about not trusting police video.
If there is a low level of trust in that, why would there be ANY level of trust in private video records?
By the people (Score:2)
It doesn't matter if it's police walking the beat (Like that happens anymore) or a HOA watching their serfs, surveillance always has unintended consequences. With the government, we could demand transparency and accountability. (Getting it is another issue.)
How does one prevent "strong neighborhoods" turning into 'weak' neighbourhoods? How does one prevent neighbours demanding vigilante justice and mob-rule? The problem with rules "by the people" is, it's easily corrupted by a self-interested minority.
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funny that you say "How does one prevent neighbours demanding vigilante justice and mob-rule? The problem with rules "by the people" is, it's easily corrupted by a self-interested minority." I keep on thinking of that episode of twilight zone where the guy has his own nuclear bunker and people try to break into his. https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0... [imdb.com]
How are arrests made? (Score:2)
You defund police and who is going to arrest the perpetrator? Sounds like you haven't thought about that and you just have a bunch of useless cameras. BTW the definition of defund is "prevent from continuing to receive funds" for those who don't know what the word means. Even $1 would be funds in that definition, so literally defund means $0.
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Yup, the cops already won't arrest people for these crimes. I had bloody fingerprints in my car from a B+E, they couldn't care less.
So - neighborhood vigilantes ? This will go great.
So what? (Score:2)
Why aren't cameras aimed at public areas 100% legal? If you want to do something private do it in private or in designated private areas. We could increase the homicide solve rate from 30% to 90% (and thereby deter them too) if we had better surveillance. Right now police are terrible at solving crimes because there is very little surveillance/tracking ability. Somebody gets shot in broad daylight in Chicago and 90% of the time they no clue who did it .. and on the very rare occasion the crime is caught on
Oh, yeah, like that's just SO much better (Score:3)
Not a tool of the state, just the local HOA.
Yeah, that's not even the least little bit terrifying...
Nearly time for popcorn... (Score:4, Interesting)
Anybody who has ever dealt with the board of a condo association knows exactly what kind of assholes are going to wind up in charge of those cameras. Stalking, voyeurism, vigilantism...take your pick.
This is not going to end well.
Convolutional Neural Net? (Score:3, Informative)
Where I'm from the proper solution is to turn the perp into Swiss cheese with an AR-15 or AK-47 when they get near your property.
A picture is worth a thousand words (Score:2)
Those who haven't had their car smashed, their windows broken, their home trashed and who have never been mugged in their life, well, you're very lucky and likely still young.
I've experienced it all and whenever there was a camera nearby did the police catch the criminals. Thanks to cameras could I put several people in front of judges, all of them got convicted and some even went to prison.
I love cameras and I get that young people believe the world becomes a bad place with surveillance, but what you don't
Hoodie (Score:2)
Criminals solution: wear a hoodie and a big pair of sunglasses.
Leftists are mind-bogglingly stupid (Score:2)
This is literally the blueprint put forward by Orwell's 1984, wherein a third of the (politically-conscious) population is devoted to a surveillance state watching the other two-thirds.
How'bout deepfames. (Score:2)
Nosy Neighbors (Score:2)
A tech billionaire giving away things for free ... (Score:2)
Why are we not more concerned about _that_?
There is never a scenario when a tech bro gives something away and wants nothing in return. I'd check the provenance of that private entity that maintains the cameras, especially any privacy policy they may have.
Re: (Score:3)
They do catch a fair amount of criminals with video evidence ... are you saying the cameras somehow induce crime to offset that?
Re: Right (Score:2)
Thats because they used really low quality cameras and encryption that made it impossible to identify or track anything.
Re: Right (Score:2)
Oops I wrote encryption, I meant video compression.
Re: (Score:3)
if someone started doing this where I live? There'd be lots of broken cameras around where I live. NO FUCKING WAY.
Sure... your dumbass would go around busting up cameras. What a blowhard you are.
Re: (Score:2)
You just don't get it: I quit a job over something like this.
Re: (Score:2)
Wait until you find out how many high-resolution satellite images of every square inch of your property your local government GIS has access to.