Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support

Originally posted by Justin Oldham
The real nub of the problem is this. Once we start that kind of monitoring, it doesn'tstop until there are cameras everywhere, which eventually means on and in your home. Why? Because government and special interest groups can't be moderate when it comes to this issue. Why? Becasue one legal precendent justifies the next. Why? Because we have a long-standing tradition of legalized surveillance when that surveillance is overt, above board, and advertised.

[edit on 1-8-2007 by Justin Oldham]

Circa 1970.

Colossus: The Forbidden Project?

Now, there's an oldy but a goody. If we permit a survellance society, there will be no exceptions for anyone except the ruling elite. As said by Orwell, who watches the watchers?

Streets full of cameras do not prevent crimes from happening, they just record the event for later examination and investigation. In that respect they are a bit like the police who also spend most of their time turning up after the fact to investigate a crime rather than preventing it. The BIGGEST deterrent to crime is still us, the general public as most criminals will not commit their crimes if there are people around to identify them later.
The fact that there's a camera pointing at you does not necessarily mean someone is actually watching the output in some bunker somewhere, ready to send in the SWAT teams at the first sign of a suspicious looking character.
With modern camera infrastructures in place it then becomes easy to add other capabilities to the system, such as audio transmit / receive (no loitering, move along citizen), RFID readers, ANPR systems etc. So, the backbone for total surveillance is already in place in many areas.

It's ok to argue that if we are doing nothing wrong then we have nothing to fear, but that's a very defeatist and short sighted viewpoint. If simply dissenting or demonstrating against the government or big corporate interests can get you branded as a criminal / terrorist (the latest BAA injunction as an example), then these systems will be used to track your movements.
It comes down to the issue of privacy. Do we, in return, get to monitor the goings on of our elected representatives who allow these systems and more invasive and oppressive laws? Of course not, they're above the laws that they enact for the rest of us to follow

We had a courtcase here in Anchorage some years ago in which a crime was solved thanks to footage taken by a camera set up to monitor speed zone violations. The defense argued that because the intent of the camera was to catch speeders, and not house burglars, the case had to be thrown out and the law which allowed for those cameras in speed traps had to be re-written.

As you might expect, the city council moved to close that loop hole by re-writing the law. The next thing we knw--bam! that speed trap camera is now a neighborhood watch camera that doubles as a speed trap. Public reaction was swift. After a petition and a ballot mesure, and a new law, speed trap cameras are no longer allowed.