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

[paedraggaidin.livejournal.com]

1) Is high-tech surveillance just part of our lives now?

It is, but shouldn't be.

2) Is the ACLU doing the right thing?

Absolutely. Of course, I am an actual card-carrying member....

3) Are there any ways to prevent yourself from being recorded?

Sadly, nothing that won't possibly land you in legal trouble (witness the ways people try to defeat red light cameras). You can't shoot/cover up/blind/otherwise interfere with the cameras without bringing the rath of the Nascent Police State down on you. There are countless instances of people getting in trouble for filming the police, etc. Frankly, the Fourth Amendment has become so much toilet paper.

3 - a) I'm thinking technological solutions not legal.

See above.

4) Does the average citizen own their image?

Not sure, but they should.

5) Chicago style pizza vs. New York Style pizza?

New York. Sorry guys, but the best pizza on earth is in the little family-run joints on the Jersey Shore. Bow down and worship it! (http://www.mackandmancos.com/)

[gunslnger.livejournal.com]

I'll agree with most of this.

Technological solutions are theoretical at this point. Light is electromagnetic, therefore it can be interfered with. How to do it is left as an exercise for the reader. As for legal, I believe you only have to legally identify yourself when you are confronted by a physical police officer. Therefore, wearing a disguise at all times is not illegal. Until everyone does it and the government catches on.

No, you don't own your image as that's just EM radiation bouncing around. Just like you don't own that piece of skin you just shed on the ground that has your DNA in it. It's only when you take steps to contain things coming off your body that you can make a claim to own them after they are separate and distinct from you.

Pizza is a wholly subjective experience and cannot be objectively compared.