Does Chicago have too many cameras?

[verytwistedmind.livejournal.com]

CHICAGO — A vast network of high-tech surveillance cameras that allows Chicago police to zoom in on a crime in progress and track suspects across the city is raising privacy concerns.

Chicago's path to becoming the most-watched US city began in 2003 when police began installing cameras with flashing blue lights at high-crime intersections.

The city has now linked more than 10,000 public and privately owned surveillance cameras in a system dubbed Operation Virtual Shield, according to a report published Tuesday by the American Civil Liberties Union.

At least 1,250 of them are powerful enough to zoom in and read the text of a book.

But the ACLU said the $60 million spent on the system would be better spent filling the 1,000 vacancies in the Chicago police force.

It urged the city to impose a moratorium on new cameras and implement new policies to prevent the misuse of cameras, such as prohibiting filming of private areas like the inside of a home and limiting the dissemination of recorded images.

"Our city needs to change course, before we awake to find that we cannot walk into a book store or a doctor's office free from the government's watchful eye," the ACLU said


http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5jkAV4zcy6Cesjf7a2CGtFm32t-qA?docId=CNG.ca75d68733ba56c6dff1582ac6bf480a.651


 

This is one of those stories where I usually wait for someone else who actually has an opinion on the subject to post it (Like net neutrality), and then carefully read all of the opinions and comments. However I'm afraid this one will get missed.

Questions:
1) Is high-tech surveillance just part of our lives now?
2) Is the ACLU doing the right thing?
3) Are there any ways to prevent yourself from being recorded?
3 - a) I'm thinking technological solutions not legal.
4) Does the average citizen own their image?
5) Chicago style pizza vs. New York Style pizza?

 

Comments

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

Don't spin this as some tragic failure of imagination on my part. I can easily imagine how I would feel if a cop were following me. I'd feel nervous and fearful, because I expect that the cop is following me for a reason and I would feel at risk because of what that means.

I don't apply those judgments to cameras because cameras aren't agents that make decisions, so I can't impart meaning to those decisions. I walk under cameras all the time without the same feeling.

The problem with judging something as 'wrong' when we can't (or aren't) willing to say why it is wrong, is that without access to the line of reasoning that lead to the judgment, we can't examine it to test if that judgment is flawed. People who insist on saying something is wrong without saying why, are either ignorant of their own feelings, or fearful that their feelings are, indeed, unreasonable, and are seeking to protect them from the scour of logic.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

It's no different than now, just more efficient

I can easily imagine how I would feel if a cop were following me. I'd feel nervous and fearful, because I expect that the cop is following me for a reason and I would feel at risk because of what that means.


I'd say those two statements are quite contradictory, the latter being true, the former bs.


Don't spin this as some tragic failure of imagination on my part.

Well gee Captain nice guy, you were spinning this as my inability to enunciate, though now I'm perhaps protecting myself from the scour of logic. But it seemed quite obvious to me that there were serious problems with people being followed by cops in public all the time, and you apparently didn't have much problem coming up with reasons why it would be a problem.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> I'd say those two statements are quite contradictory,

Let me be more precise. There is no difference in the expectation of privacy. If I'm in public, my actions can be observed, and recorded legally; by Federal, State, or Municipal agents, as well as private citizens. That's part of what public MEANS. Of course there are implied differences between a cop watching me and writing down what I do, and a camera... cameras don't drink coffee, for instance. They also don't have guns.

> Well gee Captain nice guy, you were spinning this as my
> inability to enunciate, though now I'm perhaps protecting
> myself from the scour of logic.

Sorry to offend, but I note that you still haven't enunciated your principle that explains why we should erect special barriers about recording devices in public when we have no such barriers for people.

By saying that such a network is 'wrong', by implication you are asking municipalities like Chicago to forgo investing in something that they feel will add to safety and justice, I presume because you think it treads on some essential freedom of yours/ours. What freedom is that? What right do you have to not be observed in public?

I'm open to the possibility that there might BE one that I haven't thought of. I'm not asking just to be an ass. As a matter of personal preference I am conflicted about this issue, and wouldn't mind hearing a sound reason for why such systems could be and should be legally opposed.

But if its just a matter of preference, rather than principle, then its simply a matter for the voters of the municipality involved.

-= Me

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

why we should erect special barriers about recording devices in public when we have no such barriers for people.


There doesn't need to be an actual law that says cops can't follow a person everywhere they go in public, everyday, even though they're not under suspicion, because cops would never do that in the first place (huge waste of time, resources, would give the department bad press and just might constitute harassment). So the fact that there (apparently) isn't a law against it isn't in any way a justification for not having laws against the cameras.


What right do you have to not be observed in public?

No one is saying you have the right to not be observed in public, it's about being observed/recorded everywhere you go in public. And the question seems a bit irrelevant. The (possible) fact that the US Constitution, written before photographs existed, doesn't give the right doesn't mean there shouldn't be a law against the cameras, it would just mean that they can't be declared unconstitutional.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

And because our system is supposed to assume innocent until proven guilty (or at least reasonable suspicion for the cops) we shouldn't have to feel nervous or fearful. Just because you can trick yourself into thinking that the cameras aren't cops and thus not feel that way, doesn't mean that everyone can or should do that. Each camera is identical to having a cop standing there watching you.

[notmrgarrison.livejournal.com]

In a way it is worse, since the images can/are stored.

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

Sure, there's multiple ways it's worse, but let's start with having it be just as bad, but with more of them.

[chron-job.livejournal.com]

> And because our system is supposed to assume innocent until proven guilty

How does this apply? Does the presumption of innocence prevent a policeman from LOOKING at you? Or from taking note of your presence?

If a bank is robbed, can a policeman testify that he saw me at the scene 20 minutes prior? Or would such testimony be inadmissible, because, no crime having yet to occur, he would have had no reason to be suspicious of me, and thus no valid reason to observe me and note my presence... and he thus violated the presumption of innocence by seeing me and remembering!

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

You're bordering on emotional incoherence now.