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

[underlankers.livejournal.com]

1) More than people tend to think about. If you think about it, people with cell phone cameras could take candid images, put them on the Internet, and someone might cause a viral sensation without even being aware of it.

2) Yes.

3) Not really, given the diffusion of photography and the kind of ease with which pictures can get all over the Internet.

4) Not any more than people ever did, the thing is that now the consequences of such are graphically illustrated in real time.

5) Neither.