NYC Adding 500 Cameras, Want to Track People, Cars.

New York Daily News ^ | March 22, 2006 | ALISON GENDAR and MICHAEL SAUL

[Brilliant]

OK, so you're saying that employing policeman to walk the beat is the equivalent of forced labor camps? I can see this conversation is going nowhere.

[Blue Jays]

Hi tumblindice-

"...I suppose you're against DNA evidence as well, as `intrusive'?..."

---

If a police officer approaches me in a crowded shopping mall and asks me for a DNA sample, you're darn right I'm opposed to it as being intrusive! That's essentially what government cameras are doing, they're peering into our lives and monitoring our comings and goings even though we've done nothing wrong. It is a broadbrush approach. I'll also stake the value of my home that any bureaucrat pushing for cameras will stridently advocate facial recognition software next year. It's a no-brainer.

Do you feel any apprehension at all knowing that your identity would be known and that you were FReeping from the Starbucks hotspot on the corner of Nassau Place & Liberty Street on Wednesday, March 22 @ 11:20 a.m. while wearing a beige dress and red scarf? Why should your life or mine be an open book to someone who happened to pass a civil service exam?

~ Blue Jays ~

[Blue Jays]

I don't understand your post to me about "tricks" or what that is intended to mean.

[af_vet_rr]

When you're in public, there is no privacy.

When the government tracks your movement, there is no privacy (or freedom).

Cameras won't keep you from getting shot, stabbed, mugged, whatever.

As a matter of fact, did you know that we had plenty of video footage of the 9/11 hijackers as they made their way on board the planes?

Cameras did the people in the WTC, Pentagon, and those aircraft a whole helluva lot of good, didn't they?

[Living Free in NH]

I think you're going to find, shortly, that most people on Free Republic don't much like the idea of Big Brother watching our every movement.

Yet the vast majority of them will also tell you that the Bush wiretapping issue isn't a problem - because they're only looking for terrorists. Can't have it both ways...

If they're not mugging folks on Main St, or running red lights, what are they worried about?

[Lazamataz]

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.

George Orwell's book 1984 was not so much a warning, as a training manual.

Doubleplus ungood.

[MineralMan]

Freedom through Surveillance.

[vrwc0915]

Comrades if you are not doing anything wrong than you have nothing to fear

If you aren't hiding anything then you shouldn't mind a cavity search comrade

If you don't have anything forbidden by the party then you shouldn't mind if we take a look in you house

[Blue Jays]

Hi Government Shrinker-

My opinion is that one could also learn about traffic jams and mass demonstrations by listening to the radio, watching TV, or accessing sites like FoxNews.com for updates. That should provide more than enough information to make a decision about one's evening commute home on trains, buses, and ferries. This prevents us from having to contend with statist abuse of the camera network, which would be a bundle.

~ Blue Jays ~

[ladyjane]

The downtown and financial districts of all big cities are blanketed with cameras already.

I can't imagine a square block in business areas in Manhattan that isn't already covered with cameras.

[nygoose]

Boy, I would sure vote for you for dictator.

[Lazamataz]

We should be doing this a LOT more. Remember when the Brits were bombed, and they ID'd the suspects within minutes, and arrested the accomplices? We'd have no idea who did it, if that happened here. It would also reduce general crime.

Statists with a desire for utter and complete control of our population, give me a chub.

Go, baby.

[Travis McGee]

Comrade, if you have nothing to hide, if you're not doing anything wrong, why do you mind being followed by our cameras?

[af_vet_rr]

This prevents us from having to contend with statist abuse of the camera network, which would be a bundle.

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.

[elkfersupper]

Another alternative to thousands of cops and hundreds of cameras would be for the people of NYC to persuade their keepers to let them have defensive weapons, or better yet, just acquire them anyway in open defiance of self-defense tool bans.

[Blue Jays]

Hi Laz-

You and I are definitely in agreement per my post# 26 earlier in the thread. What I find comical is how the statists won't describe how they are individually safer with the presence of government cameras. Even if that is taken out of the equation, public safety is hardly even impacted.

If both one of us and a murderous criminal or wild-eyed jihadist turns the corner and we approach one other, having five hundred or even a thousand cameras won't make a bit of difference. The criminal will still tighten his sweaty grip around his knife while the brainwashed terrorist will still inch his finger closer to the detonator on his bomb vest. The situation is still grave indeed and nobody would be using those fancy cameras to make an immediate positive change.

~ Blue Jays ~

[GovernmentShrinker]

Me either. Some people are just paranoid about government cameras. Frankly I don't think we should waste time on this trivial issue, when we're living in a city where our 2nd Amendment rights are already aggressively infringed by the government. When they abuse the cameras, I'll worry about it, but for now I'd rather worry about much bigger abuses that are already happening.

[GovernmentShrinker]

We also scrambled fighters jets right after the first tower was hit. Didn't stop the second tower from getting. Does that mean we should scrap fighter jets too? No single security measure is going to be effective against every danger, but a comprehensive array of security measures is quite helpful. Cameras are unlikely to stop a terrorist act in progress, but can be quite helpful in identifying a perpetrator and his associates, which may well prevent a future attack.

[Blue Jays]

Hi af_vet_rr:

We're in absolute agreement and you are 100% correct about how this will unfold negatively for our descendants. It will be cameras for now and satellites for later. Hey, how about some directional microphones while we're at it?

~ Blue Jays ~

[JamesP81]

The primary job of government is to maintain security.

Uhh, no, the primary job of govt is to protect our God-given rights. Note that I said protect those rights, not grant them.