Posted on 07/29/2007 5:40:02 PM PDT by ECM
Your kidding right?
Don't tell me you didn't know that.
I don’t think we disagree on that at all.
As a necessary evil it must be restrained.
You believe the Constitution already prohibits such acts. I can’t see anywhere it does, and I have apparently even less desire than you do to turn such questions over to judges to decide.
The abandonment of the amendment process is largely how we got into the mess we’re in now. Pressure groups no longer put together campaigns to get amendments passed, they put together lawsuits crafted to allow judges to find that the desired principle was “already in there.”
This has been disastrous for conservative principles and American freedoms.
That's so you don't think any of them are self-dealing under the table.
It's the law.
Most of this privacy violation stuff inflicted on public employees has its origin in Republican Congresses.
Our local garbage company now has them.
So our driveway cam can now argue with their truck cam on if we did or did not have our garbage cans out for pick up. Takes the human element right out of that issue. : )
Here where we have competitively private trash companies this is a real problem ~ guys who avoid payments by stuffing their trash in your can.
Why should it bother you that a camera follows you around in public? Are you afraid that the government is going to pay some government bureaucrat to look at every video and get his jollies out of watching you go into a 7-11? And if they did, so what? The only bad thing about it is that I’d have to pay for another bureaucrat’s salary.
But you know that isn’t what they are going to do. Like the cameras in the bank, no one is going to look at it unless something bad happens and they need information about what happened.
I fail to see how the camera issue is any different in principle from the authorities hiring enough cops to have one standing in each location 24 hours a day watching what goes on.
That wouldn’t be unconstitutional, although probably way too expensive. How is the use of cameras any different?
I am not advocating this going to the courts, although I know invariably it will. I’m advocating people use their common sense and put a stop to these idiot ideas before they have a chance to get to the courts.
My liberty is not going to be given up because some camera that no one looks at unless a crime is committed is running 24/7 on a street corner. It’s no different than putting a cop on the street corner, except it’s more efficient.
Exactly. I just said the same thing myself.
Good luck with that.
How can there be “little/no objection from the public, despite the scandals”? Which is it? I suspect the latter is the true public sentiment, the poll “data” is just eyewash, since the public isn’t consulted. It’s usually foisted as a public/private partnership - tax revenues are going down in many cities relative to inflation at least, and they are laying off uniformed officers. But a spiffy new camera setup owned by out-of-state entities is OK?
I don’t have a problem with the concept provided A. it is done with local taxpayer dollars, and B. it is generally approved at the county or municipal level. But the public is generally given a set of false choices, or really no choice at all. Smile! /s
[i]”Like the cameras in the bank, no one is going to look at it unless something bad happens and they need information about what happened.[/i][br][br]
Maybe there should be less dependence on recording atrocities for posterity, and preventing them in the first place? When was the last time you saw an armed guard at a bank? Didn’t that used to be standard? What happened?
You mean you’re OK with the violation of your friend’s privacy in a public place? Fascist!
How dare your company violate the privacy of those thieves!
They'll be demanding cameras there too soon enough. If you have nothing to hide, why should you mind?
Twenty years ago, I would have agreed with you. Given the improvements in storage and facial recognition technologies, however, some rather ominous scenarios are becoming increasingly likely.
It used to be that, even if the government had surveillance cameras on every street corner the only way they would have been able to track a person's movements and actions would be to know in advance who they were looking for. If technology trends continue, however, it will get to the point that anything you do in public will be archived forever someplace, and the government will be able to retroactively look back on your life and see all the things you've done.
How many people do you think would be able to achieve political office if those in power were to expose every remotely shady thing they'd ever done? The Big Brother systems give those in power all sorts of wonderful abilities to blackmail anyone they want; they could not only use these abilities for personal profit, but also to protect themselves from political competition. I hope I'm not the only person who thinks that's somewhat scary.
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