Posted on 03/22/2006 6:39:18 AM PST by af_vet_rr
New Yorkers, get ready for your closeup.
The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday.
..
The NYPD also has applied for $81.5 million in federal aid to install surveillance cameras, computerized license plate readers and vehicle barriers around lower Manhattan, Kelly said.
..
But don't expect the NYPD to install its cameras without battling the New York Civil Liberties Union. The watchdog group's associate legal director, Chris Dunn, questioned the plan.
"Commissioner Kelly may be ready to launch us all into a surveillance society, but we believe cameras are not a cure-all for crime and terrorism," Dunn said. "It is far from clear that cameras deter crime."
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
I hear you and don't like where things are headed.
We're pretty much there already, it's just a matter of tying together a few loose ends.
It's not so much the abuse of a current or soon-to-exist camera network, it's the potential to go further.What happens, when five years from now, they come back and say "cameras aren't enough to fight crime, terrorism, etc., we need something stronger - perhaps limit open access to certain parts of the city".
Unless you live out in the country, you're on a camera 10-20 times a day at various places (banks/ATMs, traffic, security, etc.). At some point, they will take things further. That's what is scary - that so-called Conservatives will allow them to take things to the next level, because they will not stop - give the government an inch, they will take the proverbial mile.
This isn't about us being watched on a camera, this is about our grandchildren, and great-grandchildren and the kind of USA that they will inhabit.
What do you get when you take the unbiquitous cameras, covering essentially the entire public sphere, and add to the mix facial-recognition software, and then, you simply network the cameras together, with a database backend that tracks each and every face everywhere it goes, all the time?
What you get is the ultimate totalitarian police state -- and, to a frighteningly large number of putative "conservatives", this will be as close to utopia as possible.
There will be no "privacy", no "anonymity" (and again, the "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" chorus starts up, to which I simply reply, "Then what of 'Publius' and 'The Federal Farmer'?")
If your face is an "unknown", it will simply be tracked as an "unknown" -- a unique "unknown". (After all, "unknown" does NOT mean "unidentifiable".)
Your "unknown" face will be assigned an index number in the database. Let's say you're "Unknown_Face_032306_0099" (the 99th new face discovered on 03-23-06). Everywhere that you go, you will be observed, and everywhere that you are observed, a database entry will be made for "Unknown_Face_032306_0099" -- gradually creating a lovely "audit path" of your life.
Eventually, you will supply a matching identity to go with that face. You'll renew your driver's license, or stop by the ATM, or get pulled over for a "traffic check".
At that moment, "Unknown_Face_032306_0099" will be updated to reflect your actual identity -- and therefore, your entire "life story" beginning on the very first day that "Unknown_Face_032306_0099" was "caught on tape", will be indexed for retrieval.
In "utopia", we're all "suspects."
I find it beyond surreal, that in a world which has been exposed to Orwell's work for over half a century, we find ourselves at the point that his "fictional" technology is within grasp, and, "the people", rather than shunning it, decrying it, fearing it... rather than doing whatever they can to steer society away from that nightmare, are clamoring for it -- so that they might feel "safe."
The irony of the phrase, "Big Brother is Watching You" is apparently lost on an entire generation.
For our contemporaries, the natural response to that caption is something along the lines of, "Good! It's about time! We need that kind of observation to be in place, to keep us safe!"
In Orwell's world, "Big Brother" was allegedly watching them to keep them safe -- to protect them.
The ultimate irony is that the real "Big Brother" infrastructure is being sold to us on exactly that same basis.
And we're buying it!
I prefer to think of it as a documentary that's been misplaced onto the "fiction" shelf, thereby causing the end of the world. :)
(Gotta laugh, or you'll cry...)
BZZZZT! Wrong answer.
Automated cameras, networked to a database backend that logs an entry for each person via facial-recognition software will "track John Doe walking down the street".
Who has time for that? Ask Intel. Or Sun. Or IBM. It's called a "CPU", and it "thinks" several billion times a second.
That is "who has time for that."
My point is, and I clarified it in a later post, is that this isn't about a pretense of safety for you or I.This is about five years from now when the police and politicians say we need to do more, that current measures are not enough.
It's also about 20, 30, 50 years from now, and how far the government has gone at that point, in the name of "protecting" people.
Look at Social Security, look at the income tax, These all started off incredibly small decades ago, and look at where they are at now. Is there any reason to think that beginning a surveillance-oriented society at any level of government will simply stop at some point? Is there any reason to think we won't reach a "papers please" society?
A child born today is not going to realize just how free and open our society used to be. For those of us of my generation it was very easy to point at the Soviet Union and East Germany and say "that's exactly what we don't want - common, normal people being watched by cameras everywhere, people being tracked, their activities and associations being tracked, etc.". Now it's not so easy, a child born today is going to grow up in the current "the government will protect you" atmosphere, and will not only be used to the cameras, but will be used to an intrusive government.
He gets it!
Unfortunately, your "reward" for "getting it" will most likely take the form of a bunch of ignorami taunting you with suggestions that you tighten the chinstrap on your tinfoil beanie.
Your consolation is that when a few years hence, they are staggering in circles, wondering what hit them, you'll be able to remind them that he who laughs last laughs best.
Yes, I realize this is faint consolation. Sorry, wish I had more for you, but hey, what can I say?
The problem with the cameras is that it takes something
like the London bombing or shootings or kidnappings on the street to make them worthwhile. These things don't happen much ANYWHERE. Too much time with nothing to show for it, and they'll be using the cameras for the most inconsequential of "pseudo-crimes" thereby making the tiny crimes seem like big ones.We already know from the Nanny case in Florida how fallible any camera of this kind is; I hate to think of these things being used as devices for "positive identification".
Poindexter's "TIA" (Total Information Awareness) went away in name-only after the public outrage after its original incarnation was announced.
I guess you're the kind of person that condemns everyone in a group because of the actions of a few. Five out of the hundreds. What happened, did you buy a stock once and lose money on it?
They may not be positive ID, but on the other hand, they are a whole lot more reliable that eyewitness testimony. As the technology improves, I think we can expect better quality images. I don't mind them using these cameras to prosecute lesser crimes than 911. Although I do disagree with the idea of using them to catch speeders, and there was that reported case last week where they ticketed some woman that they caught on camera putting her makeup on while driving.
Even that can be argued, though, I guess.
Outstanding. I'm going to save this page as a favorite just to revisit your post. That explains the situation better than I ever could.
~ Blue Jays ~
That is a very low estimate. There are more than 20 cameras in one Walmart!
Interiors of large stores are covered with cameras. Outside, especially in the financial districts of cities, there are cameras everywhere.
More interesting is where you can go to get away from cameras. Not parking garages, not elevators. Maybe public parks.
"...Most people on FR may not like it but then they don't work in lower Manhattan..."
My office was located within 150 yards of the WTC. I spent that fateful day working the e-mail, telephones, and pagers to determine the status of my team. Only one minor eye/cornea injury in the whole group since most of them were already deployed to client sites.
You know what...I still realize blanketing the country with a network of government cameras is a mistake for our society.
~ Blue Jays ~
Those pics are best left on your profile page.
I don't mean to condemn all brokers, sorry if you took it that way.
The Tolls would operate based on a sort of "EZ Pass" System which forces downtown drivers to buy a pass (For a heavy fee), pass an extensive background check, and pay a per mile charge for driving in Manhattan. Out of towners would have to stop at a toll booth and then get questioned by NYPD, this would be similar to legally entering the border at a us coustoms checkpoint (Customs may man the booths initally as NYPD gets trained)
Sigh, it's true, the "papers please" scenario is looming one step closer.
Hmmm, sounds an awful lot like the Gestapo to me.
See Gestapo - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gestapo
Sady, those who fail to learn history are doomed to repeat it and it looks like we're the ones repeating it.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.