I never said that. All I said is certain areas would be safer if the criminals felt they didn’t own the streets. And as to why we are so violent – well this could be a separate thread. Certainly our lax criminal justice system has a lot to do with it. Crime often “pays” in this rich country. And unlike many countries that are homogenous and severly restrict immegratiion we are exactly the opposite.




These are overall numbers and the fact that they are “dropping” from horrendous highs is nothing to brag about. A good deal of the drop had to do with three strikes and your out laws and the new right to carry laws in most states. Also better enforcement under a few less liberal “let em out” judges thanks to conservatives like Giuliani in NY.

“In some cities, like New York, constant police vigilance in high-crime areas has caused the rates of urban violence to continue to plummet to levels not seen since 1968, making the Big Apple the safest big city in the country for the second year in a row”

http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/0102/p01s01-usju.html

That said the inner cities are still horribly dangerous for their residents. We hear things like “a hundred open air drug dealers in Camden NJ”. Now how is that possible. We need to make the cities safe again.

SIA brought allegations against Chief William Lansdowne of the San Diego Police Department almost two years ago regarding his underreporting of crime. SIA argued that this underreporting of crime would cause a backlash resulting in a crime wave including dramatic increases in violent crime. Exactly what we projected has now happened. Now the Federal Government is concerned and stepping in! Crimes of violence have increased so much in San Diego over the past year that U.S. Attorney Alberto Gonzalez has assembled a new task force. 11/06/2006
http://www.us-sia.org/cases/underreporting.htm

The Atlanta Police Department has consistently underreported crime for many years, according to an internal audit. Linder & Associates found evidence that the underreporting resulted from a combination of negligence and deliberate efforts to improve the city's image for tourism.
http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m1568/is_2_36/ai_n6175445

The above is just an example of what really goes on in cities which are especially attractive to tourists et al. Underreporting is the reason crime data appears to have decreased. It's all about image and money! As for cameras, I would be glad to have the extra security!

Thanks for the data. Why am I not at all surprised. Here you have the heart of the liberal “left coast” with the typical soft on crime liberal attitudes and the result – More Crime.

It’s far more than “reporting” fraud it’s a total disaster that the city is trying to desperately cover up.

Compare this to Giuliani’s NYC results!

I should caution, though, that a camera is much more than the equivalent of one cop. A human officer can generally only keep track of one person or thing at a time, especially when there are crowds of people going by. But when a camera continuously records what transpires in front of it, there's essentially no limit to the number of eyes that can peruse the record afterwards.



You began by saying, "We need more surveillance here in high crime areas," and followed it up with: "The alternative is what we have today which is one of the most violet societies on earth." The implication is that there are only two choices: increased surveillance, or crime levels not going down. That's what I reject.



Well, there you go. This shows that there are in fact other ways to proceed, as others here have alluded to also. Of course, none of these proposals - including camera surveillance - will yield overnight results. But this does show that there are plenty of ways to tackle the problem of crime without taking the rash step of making it too easy for people in government to stalk us.

Oh - absolutely. That was part of what I was getting at in suggesting that "cops" would outnumber other citizens by an order of magnitude. *shudder* I do have a problem even with traffic cameras - just not as much of a problem as I would with cameras everywhere.

Yes there are other ways – more cops and enforcement but they all cost lots more. And I really don’t get the paranoia with street cameras. We have traffic cameras and every time you go in a store you are on camera, same for the ATM, bank etc.

I don’t advocate cameras everywhere, but only in areas where the cops cannot protect people. I have, in college, lived in high crime areas, and imo the people who live there (law-abiding people) would prefer cameras to the current situation of street crime, drive by shootings, drug dealers, etc.

You also mentioned right to carry, which costs even less than cameras, and would probably be more effective.


Those arguments have been dealt with on this thread, but to sum up, the danger comes from altering the balance of power between government and citizens to an unacceptable degree. Too much knowledge of our activities makes it too easy for them to oppress us.

Would you feel comfortable having your next-door neighbor be able to track you everywhere you go? People in government aren't any more angelic.


And you seriously don't think that they would in short order expand to being everywhere? Just look at the history of government growth over the past century and tell me you're really being serious here.

Not cops, cameras. Cameras can't take any actions against you, or anyone else. It would take an actual policeman, just as it does right now. Which is why it's not a police state at all...it would technically be a camera state, and as advanced as cameras are becoming, that doesn't sound nearly as ominous. Cameras are also much more objective than people are, and less likely to have an agenda against any given individual. If its not cameras now, it will be satellites or some other system in the near future. Also, keep in mind...the more cameras there are, the less likely there's a person monitoring it.



They're not monitoring your behaviour and your movements...they're monitoring specific places where crimes might occur. Which is why, even if you're in one of those places, you still shouldn't have any problems. Also, I don't really see them being used actively as much as passively (after a crime has been committed). So, they're not really even monitoring the places in real time, and would only be examined after a crime has been committed. How many crimes would get solved that aren't now if police simply had access to a video showing the crime being committed? What do we say to the victims of these crimes? "Sorry, but I wanted to make sure no one saw me walking down this street, so now we have no idea who shot you?"

Again, it really comes down to cameras doing nothing more than a cop might personally do if they were personally surveilling a place. So, the question is not 'Do you want cameras there?'. The question is 'Would you rather have a policeman watching you there, or a camera.' I prefer the camera. It's not going to take any actions against you, it has a much more objective recording of events, and it offers more for your own defense than a 'your word against his' argument. If you're the victim of a crime, the question is frequently "Would you prefer to have a cop four blocks away who can't hear or see what's going on at all, or a camera monitoring the area?" The answer to that seems fairly obvious.

As to the police-state, it's really the cops that should be concerned about their use. I have yet to hear anyone offer any evidence of these cameras being used wrongly against someone, yet there have been numerous incidents in the past few years of cameras being used against overzealous policemen. As such, they're really more anti-police state, if anything.



Nope. Which is why (as the article I cited earlier pointed out) these systems need to be installed with the appropriate processes and safeguards in place to ensure against such actions. Processes and safeguards which, given the complete lack of evidence of such actions taking place despite the millions of such cameras already out there for decades, clearly work.

Gee, if they're really that innocuous, why shouldn't we consent to having them in our homes?


Any place is a place a crime might occur. So if there are cameras everywhere, then they can quite easily be used to monitor people's behavior and movements.


This completely sidesteps Wertz's point, which is that as use of cameras expands, they would not be replacing policemen in a one-to-one ratio. They would instead be adding to the number of areas being watched by either a camera or a policeman. So the assumption behind the question you're asking is not valid.

Hummm

Very Interrrresting.


You know there were a gazillion cameras at the Davidian's Compound , Waco, Texas circa 1993. Yet a massive crime - a Holocaust - was perpetrated..

So, no, I don't think cameras will help!!!

Again you speak as if ‘government” was a single entity or group and that is not the case here. Remember, before you get all worried about being “followed all day” that we have 12-20 MILLION illegal aliens right here in the US and the no “government” knows where that are.




You have to be kidding? How would they justify the expense even if the states and cities allowed it “everywhere”? Nothing is ever cast in concrete in a democracy. If that happens we have more to worry about than cameras.

The reality today is that the people of the inner city have little freedom and the crooks and thugs rule the streets – esp. at night. Anything that can change that should be done. Other countries do it and do not have totalitarian takeovers and it will not happen here.

It's becoming a single entity as it becomes more centralized. I already pointed this out.


That's really a separate issue. The problem we face with illegal aliens is a self-imposed problem because our political establishment prefers to have them around. None of that addresses the essential point I made, which is that when government acquires too much knowledge of our activities, it makes it too easy for them to oppress us.


The expense would be the least of the concerns. How expensive can a camera be?


Other countries also have draconian gun control laws without having totalitarian takeovers, that doesn't mean I'm comfortable having that go on here. The point isn't that these things necessarily make a government go bad, but that they make it that much harder for the people to correct the problem if that should happen, because they tip the balance of power too far in the wrong direction.

Come on please. If illegal aliens on the lose everywhere is not enough for you look at the crime stats. Up or down we have horrendous crime in our cities and better surveillance would be nothing more than a tool to help law enforcement. It can be controlled and monitored.

No one imo can “oppress” us unless we let them. We are not in a dictatorship and we are not oppressed.





Camera? How about very rugged systems that have to work outdoors – may need to be bullet proof and have record capability and well as communication – AND have to be manned.

What good is a surveillance system is the information is not used. So if you are observed being beaten to death by four thugs – would you like help?


Take a walk through the inner city sometime, day and night and then tell me what you think.


In any case if/when we get hit again the cameras will go up and more – count on it.


“The United States Crime Index Rates Per 100,000 Inhabitants went from 1,887.2 in 1960 to 5,897.8 in 1991. By 1991 the crime rate was 313% the 1960 crime rate. In 1996 your risk of being a victim of a crime in the United States was 5.079%, and of a violent crime 0.634%.
In 1960 these rates were 1.89% of being a victim of a crime and 0.161% of becoming victim of a violent crime.
Our Index of Crime Statistics cover the period from 1960 to 2000. They cover the total reported crime, and compare population to the total crime reported by Index. Categories include Property, Murder, Forcible Rape, Robbery, Aggravated assault, Burglary, Larceny-theft, and Vehicle theft.

Crime in the United States accounts for more death, injuries and loss of property then all Natural Disasters combined. The Disaster Center is pleased to be able to provide you with access to the statistics of crime compiled by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

And the victims of crime are frequently blamed by their friends for not being more careful. The trauma continues as victims of crime often find themselves ignored by law enforcement, and confused by the court system

Approximately thirteen million people (approximately 5% of the U.S. population) are victims of crime every year. Approximately one and a half million are victims of violent crime.
http://www.disastercenter.com/crime/

You're not giving me much to sink my teeth into here. I said, "when government acquires too much knowledge of our activities, it makes it too easy for them to oppress us." Pointing out that we're not currently in a dictatorship doesn't rebut that. Saying that it will be "controlled and monitored" means nothing more than trusting the authorities to control and monitor themselves. That's a level of trust that I'm not willing to give them.


Who says that more cameras will have to require more monitoring personnel? If a camera is recording everything, so the justification will go, it will be considered better than not having a camera there at all. The rest of the things you mention are for the most part just one-time expenses, not yearly maintenance expenses that will put any severe strain on the budget, as compared next to all the other annual expenses associated with schools, infrastructure, and everything else cities spend money on.


I don't know what point you were making with all this, but it all argues pretty solidly against your position. It shows that crime was lower in an era when there were no cameras, and blames the current problem on bad attitudes towards crime victims on the part of the public and law enforcement alike. We have a nationwide epidemic of Kitty Genovese Syndrome, and cameras won't get us out of that.

Gee, if they're really that subversive, then why can't you find one single example of them being used inappropriately? This is really the crux of the argument, I think. Millions and millions of these cameras have been out there, for decades. Therefore, it stands to reason that if these are so likely to be used for subversive purposes, there would be lots of examples of this occurring. Yet, none one has been presented. The only conclusion, then, based on the evidence, is that this concern has no merit. It will continue to have no merit until someone presents an example of it occurring.

So does this mean you would be OK with having them in your home? That's where your logic is heading.

Again the set up could demand that the recording be deleted daily etc. The point is that when the thugs know someone is watching that are less likely to feel free to mug, beat, rape or murder folks. And Hobbs has a good point – where has it been abused?

How many Patriot Act abuses have we seen? It was discussed on FOX last night. The answer is 1 man falsely arrested in a fingerprint error. He was held for 2 week and then released. The government recently paid him 2 million $$$$.

Hey lock me up PLEASE!





A camera is less useful if the crooks know they will be long gone before anyone looks at the video. The best systems have people watching – if fact I read about a system in asia that had software that could recognize fighting and alert a person who might be watching multiple screens.



Crime varies with a number of factors including enforcement and the number of men ages 15-25 etc. Crime is 313% higher in 2000 than 1960 – how is that lower. 13 million victims a year. It is ludicrous that we put up with this. The cost to this country is staggering.

We complain about the cost of the War in Iraq but crime costs us more every year than the war in dollars and human misery.

“Violent crime (including drunk driving and arson) accounts for $426 billion annually, and property crime accounts for $24 billion. (Miller, T. R., Cohen, M. A., & Wiersema, B. (1996, February). Victim Costs and Consequences: A New Look. Washington, DC: National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice.)
Overall, rape has the highest annual victim costs at $127 billion per year (excluding child sex abuse), followed by assault at $93 billion, murder (excluding arson and drunk driving) at $61 billion, and child abuse at $56 billion. (Ibid.)

Personal crime is estimated to cost $105 billion annually in medical costs, lost earnings and public program costs related to victim assistance. When pain, suffering, and the reduced quality of life are assessed, the costs of personal crime increases to an estimated $450 billion annually. Violent crime results in lost wages equivalent to one percent of American earnings. (Ibid.)

As much as 10 to 20 percent of mental health care expenditures in the United States may be attributable to crime, primarily for victims treated as a result of their victimization. These estimates do not include any treatment for perpetrators of violence.” (Ibid.)
http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/ovc/ncvrw/1998/html/costcrme.htm

And that still means trusting them to actually do it, and hoping that there won't be any loopholes for them to exploit. Once the hardware is in place, the opportunity is there, all the paper restrictions in the world notwithstanding.


On a recent 2nd amendment thread, you made these two posts which make it fairly clear that you view an armed citizenry as an effective restraint on government abuse (as distinguished from its effect as a restraint on ordinary crime). But one could raise the same objection to that viewpoint that you're raising here: How many abuses by our government can you point to that have resulted from gun control laws? That is, how many victims of government malfeasance have there been who likely wouldn't have been victims of it had gun control laws not disarmed them? I believe the answer to that would be somewhere right around zero. So does that invalidate your viewpoint?

It's the same principle in both cases. It's a mistake to give government that kind of power advantage over the people; and to take refuge in the mere fact that nothing bad has happened from it yet is to play a very dangerous and reckless game.


Was lower, is what I said. And the reason it was lower had little to do with police budgets, still less to do with age demographics, and obviously nothing at all to do with cameras.

Are you kidding? We know that about 2,000,000 people a year avoid injury or death by having a gun – even though the gun is rarely used. So the question is of the 10s of thousands of other assaults, rapes, breakins, robberies a year– how many might not have happened if a gun was available to the person attacked.

Certainly you know that all states do not have “right to carry” laws. And did you know that if you live in public housing you cannot own a firearm??? So some of the poor folks who need protection the most can’t have it.

Bottom line is I am not in favor of cameras everywhere but in high crime areas we have little choice. The fact is the crooks get away with a great deal because there are no “witnesses” and the camera would be just that.

I anticipated that very type of response, which is why I made repeated references to government abuse and government malfeasance in my post, and explicitly distinguished it from ordinary crime. Really, I don't know how much clearer I could possibly have made it.

OK no “government” malfeasance. So what are we afraid of again? Government?

How about this:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/18278063/


Some cities are so bad it’s a disgrace.

Yes, going by these two posts of yours that I've again had to link to. If you look over my last two on this thread, you'll see that I'm trying to get you to justify this stance you've taken that lack of government abuse so far means it's safe to continue and expand this imbalance of power they've created. If it's not safe to give them that kind of advantage when it comes to guns, it makes little sense to say it's safe to do so it when it comes to surveillance.

I disagree only because the need is so great and remember you cannot expect “privacy” in public. We are all filmed constantly by store and highway and other CCTV systems now.

I am certainly not for giving government too much power and in fact I believe the surveillance should be state run. Areas like Philly should be targeted. Pictures shouldf not be shared with the Federal government.

We still live in a democracy and I believe anything that was set up, or law passed can be revoked – just as they have done with guns.

Short of this we need to do what was done in Dade County FL 20 years ago. The police chief told citizen he could not protect them and that anyone with a drivers license and a clean record should come down and get a gun permit and CARRY a gun at all times. It worked there.

Maybe that is the answer for high crime inner city areas.

Seems cameras aren't all that effective in solving crimes. Just saying.

No, it isn't, and No, I wouldn't. My home is private property, and all sorts of restrictions on surveillance would apply there. On the street outside of my home? No problem. My entire contention here is that these cameras aren't going anywhere a policeman wouldn't already be allowed to surveil. A cop couldn't go into my home without a warrant, therefore it is not an analogous argument, and not where this logic would lead.

Good point. Certainly in high crime areas we would love to have a cop on every corner “survailing” the area to prevent crime. Knowing this cannot be done the camera is a viable alternative imo

Your contention extends farther than that. You're contending that cameras are inherently harmless, because no abuses have been cited so far. Given that logic, one wonders why we shouldn't consent to having them in our homes. Merely citing the present existence of legal barriers to the idea doesn't provide anything in the way of reasons why those barriers shouldn't be removed when it comes to cameras. You know, assuming they're so harmless and all.



The need is certainly great for solutions to crime, but as BaphometsAdvocate's link pointed out, it doesn't look like cameras are the way to go:


Your own post suggests a better approach:


It worked pretty well in Kennesaw, Georgia, too, where a law was passed mandating citizen firearm ownership. I'll take that over cameras.

What this does not say is that the crime rate is low where the cameras are – I would be willing to bet on it.

We hear stories about 100 open air illegal drug markets in Camden NJ for example. How many would be there with a camera on the street? Hundreds of thousands of assaults, murders in the inner city. How many crooks would think twice knowing they were committing their crime on “tape”.

We agree on guns but consider this. The reason the gun carry liberalization “works” is because the bad guys become concerned the “victim” could be armed and shoot them – the same holds for the camera. They would be concerned (rightly) that being filmed could lead to arrest and conviction.

“Public video surveillance in the UK began very unassumingly in 1986, on a single square mile industrial estate outside the English town of King's Lynn. Three CCTV video surveillance cameras were used and their impact was immediate. In the years before the cameras were installed, there had been 58 crimes (mostly vandalism) recorded on the estate. In the two years following the installation, there were no crimes reported. Subsequently, cities and towns across Great Britain began using this crime prevention measure. By 1994, over 300 jurisdictions in the country had installed some form of public video surveillance.
. According to the police superintendent of a large metropolitan area, "public video surveillance has been very helpful in making arrests, and perhaps more important, helping to allocate resources to where they're most necessary." Although most municipal systems have been operational since 1990, there is little longitudinal data indicating how effective CCTV surveillance systems actually have been in reducing crime rates. Recent British government reports cite CCTV surveillance as a major reason for declining crime rates: in the small town of Berwick burglaries fell by 69 percent; in Northhampton overall crime decreased by 57 percent; and in Glasgow, Scotland crime decreased by 68 percent.25
In Liverpool, crimes such as shoplifting, prostitution, graffiti, and other nonviolent crimes have decreased by 25 percent over the last 3 years”
St. Petersburg\Tampa Bay, Florida

In 1994, an area between St. Petersburg and Tampa Bay known as Gateway experienced increasing numbers of car thefts. Of the 10,000 auto thefts that occurred in the area between the two cities, 3,000 took place in the Gateway area. The State of Florida provided St. Petersburg a $42,000 grant to purchase mobile video equipment and night scopes for police officers in a surveillance vehicles. Within months, the number of auto thefts had decreased. According to police officials, the video surveillance combined with police officers with night scopes had a major impact.
http://www.library.ca.gov/crb/97/05/crb97-005.html#overview

http://www.motorola.com/governmentandenter...0STUDY%20R7.pdf

A very decent point, and your sources also make the good point that cameras seem to work well where they're installed. What they do not say is that they have no effect on the overall national crime rate - and I would be willing to bet on that. I'd bet that the most they do is push crime into areas where there is no surveillance. And since you've stated on this thread that you don't think cameras should be everywhere, where does that leave us?

Good point. But I dispute your “overall crime rate” idea. If crime is reduced in one area unless it goes up correspondently and independently in another there is a reduction.

Europe has more experience with this and this statement – “Recent British government reports cite CCTV surveillance as a major reason for declining crime rates: in the small town of Berwick burglaries fell by 69 percent; in Northhampton overall crime decreased by 57 percent; and in Glasgow, Scotland crime decreased by 68 percent.25” seems to indicate reduction. We do not have enough data here yet.


Certainly criminals can move to another area but only within limits. Once you get into the “burbs” you have more cops and they are imo more aggressive at checking out suspicious activity. You also have far more armed citizens since some cities (like NY) do not allow residents to carry firearms!

No, I'm not. I'm stating that they're proving to be harmless in practice, and that they're less harmful than having a cop do the same surveillance, which no one could object to if they were doing it. You, on the other hand, are clearly claiming they're inherently harmful. Yet, you can't come up with a single example demonstrating that fact, despite the fact that millions of such cameras have been out there, and for decades. Which conclusively shows that they're not inherently harmful. That statement will stand until you can demonstrate any actual harm that has occurred.



Actually, the extensive study I cited earlier ( CAN SURVEILLANCE CAMERAS BE SUCCESSFUL IN PREVENTING CRIME AND CONTROLLING ANTI-SOCIAL BEHAVIOURS?)showed mixed results of camera implementation. Essentially, it came down to whether or not cameras were implemented in a practical, well-planned manner, and the associated processes necessary to use them effectively were also implemented (ie, just sticking a camera somewhere didn't have much effect). The study also stated that this same adherence to effective policies and procedures is what mitigated any potential misuse of the cameras as well, addressing another point brought up quite often on this thread. The basic gist of the article was that cameras, when well implemented, were effective in reducing crime and also had proper safeguards against misuse. It would seem, then, that the major issue would be with poorly implemented cameras, which I would agree with. The solution would be to make sure cameras were well-implemented, then, not to make sure they weren't implemented at all.

This is the statement of yours I've been responding to: "Cameras can't take any actions against you, or anyone else." A statement like that implies not only that they're less harmful, but that they're inherently harmless.


Actually I never said that. What I am saying is that in the hands of government, they're inherently dangerous. Dangerous things can go a long time without causing any actual harm, especially when they're only in their embryonic state.


Looking over that study, it seems to have a less-than-enthusiastic view of CCTV, even when it is planned out carefully. It stated that it "can only be expected to deter certain types of crime and can do little to police some anti-social behaviours (for example, those people affected by drugs and alcohol will not be deterred from being in a camera monitored space)". Among other things it found that while criminals are deterred at first because cameras are something new, they soon learn to adapt. And in its conclusion, it says cameras really can only form one part of an overall comprehensive strategy. Given such a tepid endorsement, I have a hard time seeing how absolutely necessary they are, when there are tried-and-true methods of dealing with crime that don't involve giving government this kind of power.


Yes, I looked over those recommendations, and what they basically involved was bringing in all elements of the community and youth groups as part of an ongoing process to address how the cameras are used and to deal with all their concerns about that and about crime in general. Well, I commend the author for having such an ambitious goal, but if that can be pulled off, then I'd venture to say that there'd wind up being little need for cameras after all. Probably the biggest contributor to crime in our society is the breakdown of communities in modern times. If you can succeed in remedying that, you've probably won 90% of the battle.



Hobbes's link contains evidence that there is a spillover effect. It cited a report for the town of Birmingham where cameras were installed, and found that "though a lower proportion of people had been victimised where there was good CCTV coverage (a drop of 11% for all offences, and 9% for the most serious), in the surrounding areas victimisation had increased (up 5% overall, and 2% for the most serious)." (page 5)

And keep in mind that even a moderate rise in crime in the 'burbs will cause serious alarm in those places if they're not accustomed to it. If that rise is caused by the installation of cameras in a neighboring location, it will lead to calls to have cameras installed there as well, until they're everywhere. And with the increasing federalization of law enforcement especially in this post-9/11 world, it's only a matter of time before this becomes linked into centralized facilities, assuming this process isn't already underway.

Furthermore, the push for cameras as a solution to crime will draw away from efforts to push for better solutions, like citizen firearm ownership. You see unlike with cameras, I have no problem saying that Kennesaw's example should be repeated everywhere. And it doesn't concern me in the least if those unwise towns that that do not follow its example wind up getting the criminals who are driven out of the towns that do.

Unlikely there would ever be “cameras everywhere” but regardless I don’t buy the “Federalization” of law enforcement concept. We still have states and “States Rights” and the Feds will never have, or be able to deal with all the data that could be generated.

As Hobbes said the cameras are not dangerous in and of themselves and I believe we have a long, long way to go before they are even close to being so.

In any case as we move forward with the fight with the terrorists not only will cameras be used but “face recognition” software to help identify criminals.

It is in use right now at Logan Airport Boston.






I think both are needed. The burbs will be more likely to get more cops and allow more “caary permits” before expensive cameras anyway. The bottom line to me is that we, as the most crime prone of the major industrial countries, need to act to cut down the violence.

It's a real process:


And what the feds fund, they ultimately control. No exception to the rule.


Then how are dictatorial governments able to use surveillance to their advantage? Their resources are typically meager compared to ours, but they still manage to do it. Fact is, they don't need to look at all the data. They just need to be able to zero in on the people who seem most likely to be people that would make them nervous for whatever reason (whether legitimate or not). And it's getting easier to do that all the time. You mentioned face recognition software. According to the article, there's also software being developed to detect what can be arbitrarily defined as "anomalous behavior".

That tends to address the no-problems-despite-the-tens-of-thousands-of-cameras-already-out-there argument. So does this:




Expensive? So now cameras are more expensive than cops? Why not just go with the cops then everywhere?

Once you get to “a dictatorial government” cameras will not be the problem because you will not be safe at home or in public. The states still have the right to refuse to give the government info – including video if they feel it is being used wrongly.


Cameras are cheaper than “cops everywhere” and they don’t take coffee breaks. On the other hand to do any good they need to be monitored.

In any case we will have no choice after the next attack as states and the Fed will want to protect citizens.

City crime seems to be less important to most folks.

I used to worry about this a lot, and then as the Internet community grew, and reality TV grew into the turd blossom it is at present, I realized that, yeah, they can watch us (they always could, though it has gotten easier) and maybe they will watch us (though I wouldn't take that job, boring) but you had better freaking believe we will be watching them right the hell back, and they are a lot easier to keep tabs on.

It's hard to imagine, but if you watch the copyright holders vs. pirates struggle presently unfolding, you see that the Internet community has more clever people and more resources than any agency, government or commercial. They do things you can't pay people to do for free, just for the rep it builds.

So I don't worry about this one anymore.

That doesn't answer my question. Clearly these governments use them to their advantage in maintaining their control, despite the fact that they don't have anywhere near enough resources to look at all the data collected. And once a government gets that way, having cameras and other surveillance infrastructure already in place makes it much more deadly, and much harder to defeat.


And lose out on funding? You give state and local politicians way too much credit here. And that's assuming they'll even know how the information is being used.


So cameras are now cheaper than cops? Earlier you said that "The burbs will be more likely to get more cops and allow more 'caary permits' before expensive cameras anyway." If cameras are cheaper, then the burbs will want to install them as crime is spilled over from cities that have installed them.

The :government” ( I assume you mean the Federal Government) – has no inherent right to see or get any footage from cameras in a city or town. They may be able to get a court order or it may be given freely to the FBI to track a terrorist for example – but there will be no big scary central government agency “watching” us all even if thee were cameras on every street corner.



The funding given does not give the government the right to the data imo. If you think this is the case please post this.




The problem in the “burbs” is the bigger area. The burbs are not likely to use cameras much – except in downtown areas. The outer areas can be patrolled by cars. I am not certain where the cost tradeoff is.

If federal agencies have any discretionary authority over funding at all (which is usually the case), then that will give them a de facto right to the data. And really, local authorities will have very little reason not to share it. It's not like they're affected in any significant way if the federal government uses the information for whatever purpose.

By the way, The Week reports on the "Lower Manhattan Security Initiative", which involves installing around 3,000 cameras throughout that district: "This elaborate system will also have the capability to transmit images to the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI." Only the beginning.


From the first article cited above:


If a town of 95 is getting a camera, and this process is only in its infancy, then it really won't be all that long before they're, while not technically everywhere, pretty much everywhere there are people.

Hey they started something in Boston a few months ago and it seems to be working. A “text message tip line”. People who see crime can text message the cops from their cell phones.

As cell phones get better I am sure that sending images will be possible as well.

This could be more of a deterrent than cameras and should limit the need as well.

http://www.cityofboston.gov/police/cristop.asp

This could also be dangerous, Ted.

Do we really want people, who might driving cars, to be typing text messages?

I notice the page you linked doesn't mention this safey precaution. Maybe you could alert them to this potenial hazard, although one would think the Boston police - if not the residents - are, at least, bright enough not to do that. Then again Phoenix, Arizona, has passed an ordinance against text messaging while operating a motor vehicle.

http://www.govtech.com/gt/146658?topic=117680

Why heck! Sheriff Joe may be booking people for texting while driving (TWD) in Maricopa County, Arizona, right this minute and getting much needed press while doing it.

Oh, well - back to the drawing board.

I believe that they expect most messages to come from people walking and not driving. Still passengers can text and then one could just pull over.

In any case its working and that is good news.