9 ms·

I think one of the few really, really good things we have left in the US is that I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing. I was in Singapore, a rich,

I think one of the few really, really good things we have left in the US is that I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing. I was in Singapore, a rich, orderly state for an internship a couple of years ago. There were cameras everywhere: Cameras on the sidewalks, cameras on the staircases, cameras in residential apartments, cameras in the subway, cameras at the workplace. There were very few places I feel not watched. I have to hunt for them. This is very contrasted with the US, where mostly I feel that I have my privacy and trusted to do the right thing. That's a very powerful feeling. But that is going away with smartphone cameras and surveillance cameras. They are getting cheaper, and no one is here to be fighting against them. Maybe that's a one-way road, there is not much we can do about it. Maybe that's for the better, but somehow I feel life is much more boring that way.

fellellor 9y ago
Isn't it the same in UK? I read somewhere there 1 cctv camera for every 10 citizens in that country.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- Steve44 9y ago
  I read recently that figure was done by extrapolating the cameras visible in one section of a street in London to the UK as a whole. I've had a look and can't find that particular link. > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10172298/One-surveillance-camera-for-every-11-people-in-Britain-says-CCTV-survey.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10172298/One-surveilla... > Britain has a CCTV camera for every 11 people, a security industry report disclosed, as privacy campaigners criticised the growth of the “surveillance state”. > The survey’s maximum estimate works out at one for every 11 people in the UK, although the BSIA said the most likely figure was 4.9 million cameras in total, or one for every 14 people. > “Because there is no single reliable source of data no number can ever be held as truly accurate however the middle of our range suggests that there are around five million cameras.” and also from 2008 :- > http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+many+cctv+cameras/2291167.html http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+... > The Claim : > "A CCTV camera for every 14 citizens." David Davis, resignation statement, 12 June 2008 > The basis comes from a survey of the number of CCTV cameras in two busy south London streets, Putney High Street and Upper Richmond Road. > The researchers sampled 211 "premises" - banks, estate agents, pubs, shops and office blocks - and found that 41 per cent had CCTV systems, with an average of 4.1 cameras per system. > By assuming this is "broadly representative" of CCTV coverage across the whole of London, the authors estimate that 41 per cent, or 102,910, of the 251,000 VAT-registered businesses registered in London would have a CCTV system. Multiply this by 4.1 and there would be 421,931 cameras. > Bingo - there's the claim, but we've got to it based on two London streets, multiplied out to reflect the whole of London, and then multiplied again to reflect the whole country. > When counting cameras, he reckons it's also important to look at what exactly they are monitoring. "Some may be in a private business such as a corner shop, some may be one camera outside a pub that isn't actually monitored, something like a building society may have more cameras 'back of house' which are not actually on the public," he said.
- kurtisc 9y ago
  Usually pointing at private land or with signs if they can move. There's also number plate recognition on major roads and services. I don't really get the fuss, it's more private than having a security guard watch you. And they work at preventing crime and tracking people who commit them. I'm surprised people from other countries aren't more turned off by our speeding cameras. I don't like them.
yadongwen 9y ago
Didn't know Singapore has so many cams as well. But then it's one of the safest countries and in the US i dare not walking alone in many places not worrying about being robbed..
- agorabinary 9y ago
  Whether your wallet or your privacy, you are being robbed regardless.
  - stickfigure 9y ago
    When someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet, you will reconsider this equivocation.
    - yadongwen 9y ago
      exactly.. i've been robbed a few times with knifes etc but never guns in countries not discussed here. i really hoped there were cams
    - thunderbong 9y ago
      This can happen even with cameras being there, no? In which case, you've lost both
      - kercker 9y ago
        Everything can happen to anyone. I think stickfigure is trying to say that, with cameras above head, which will result in higher probability of being caught if someone commits a crime, the one who would commit a crime if there was no camera will refrain from committing a crime. With cameras, the probability of losing life will be smaller than without them.
    - kelnos 9y ago
      Scared people are nearly the worst kinds of people you want making policy decisions. If you can establish statistical significance that no cameras -> cameras (actual causality, not mere correlation) causes a drop in (public) robery-related homicide, and a majority of people believe that drop to be significant enough to warrant the loss of privacy, then sure, you put up cameras. You don't do it because a few people got scared. You know what also reduces gun-related incidents: denying people the ability to have guns. It won't eliminate them (there's always a black market for everything), but it'll damn well reduce them, probably to a point that reasonable people would believe is an acceptable number.
profalseidol 9y ago
lol, haven't you heard of Snowden?
crdb 9y ago
Funny how these things work... I've lived in Singapore for close to 7 years, have permanent residence, and it is when I travel to the US that I feel slightly uncomfortable. It starts with the immigration agent who sometimes feels the need to ask me questions for 20 minutes as if I were a criminal, there's the part where they get to look through all your social media accounts and hold you indefinitely, and then there's the thought of a traffic stop by a bored cop "degenerating"... it's tough to travel to countries like these when you're used to a polite government whose agents treat you, the foreigner, with consideration and like a customer. For example, when I went to my PR interview, my medical checks had expired (and it was transparent I had hoped to get away with it); the lady very helpfully opened up a slot for me a few hours later and recommended me a range of clinics nearby to do the missing medical checks. A breath of fresh air after dealing with the French and other "first world" governments... No CCTV in my street except for the hedge that borders the Istana 100m away. We do get the odd police car patrolling the perimeter, but since the President lives there and the Prime Minister works there, I can understand. As for the US, I've never been in a building with more than a couple storeys that did not have CCTV, so I'm curious about your frame of reference there (most of Singapore consists of 20+ storey buildings). I've never been in a US mall or office building without CCTV. The only reason my residential building in NYC did not have CCTV was because it was pre-war; it also didn't have working heating, and I'd rather have had both. I do agree that Singapore is probably not the place to move if you enjoy a suburban lifestyle in a big house with a garden. edit - here's something you can't do in the US: my friend and I bought a couple craft beers from a Japanese supermarket, then sat down on public benches in front of the Asian Civilisations Museum (opposite CBD and the Fullerton Hotel), cracked them open and sipped them slowly in front of the view.
- gvurrdon 9y ago
  Agreed about the customs officials - travel to the US is no longer pleasant. Concerning government officials, for a few years I lived in the same town as the prime minister of the UK. I used to see them walking about town or in shops, sometimes alone, sometimes with family, but never with any security escort. The CCTV cameras there are mostly private ones in shops, as far as I can tell.
olalonde 9y ago
> I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing. The cameras aren't there for you...
hux_ 9y ago
American beliefs about their freedom are just that - BELIEFS. The underlying implication ALWAYS is the Chinese and Singaporeans or whoever can't think for themselves about what is good for their societies and therefore need American moral guidance and leadership. This is the same tactic the British/French/Spanish etc used to justify colonization. They needed a reason cause by the 18th century, most of the local population had begun to wonder why their kids needed to get shipped off to get killed all over the planet. Read the views of an Indian or and African or a Brazilian visiting Singapore from more unstable homelands and see what their views are on surveillance is. Or better still pick up last month's natgeo on global happiness and ask yourself why Singapore tops the happiness index in Asia despite the surveillance. There is no one size fits all cultures solution to social problems.
- nyolfen 9y ago
  >This is the same tactic the British/French/Spanish etc used to justify colonization. this is a little tired. you can say this to literally any criticism of a developing nation.
- nate_meurer 9y ago
  Oh really, just beliefs? Is it merely my "belief" that I can publicly criticize our government in whatever way I want (short of threats) without fear of government reprisal? Is it merely my belief that no transaction with any bureaucracy, government or otherwise, has ever required me to pay a bribe, and that being asked for one would be offensive and probably just inconceivable to any American? Your defense of authoritarian regimes is a simple-minded rehash of "at least the trains ran on time". There's nothing clever or new about it; for all of history depots have used safety and convenience to justify stripping people of basic human rights.
  - taobility 9y ago
    You would also worry about be shoot when you walk on the street at night. You would also worry be bombed when you attend some concert, taking subway. Yes, you have your choice, and the other people also have their choice.
zipwitch 9y ago
I also live in the US. I think your feeling is just that. Two of my neighbors have internet-connected surveillance cameras around their homes. There are cameras at most street lights. The police have cameras in their cars, including ones that scan license plates automatically. I live near a school, which is festooned with cameras (and has a constant police presence, too, with their car and body cameras). The stores I shop at have cameras mounted everywhere, mostly behind shaded plastic globes so they're not obvious. (Small businesses tend to have fewer cameras, but still have them.) ATMs have cameras, as do gas stations. My workplace has cameras at entrances, elevators, stairwells and hallways. And that's before we get into cellphones, Facebook and government surveillance, or the advertising- and data-mining-driven stalkerware that haunts you on the internet. It is not that you are trusted to do the right thing. It's just that until you somehow gain the attention of some persons or powers with access to all that surveillance, they don't care what you do.
- JoeAltmaier 9y ago
  Hm. I live in the US. Our police have no cameras. None on the streets, none around the vast majority of homes. None in the schools. Shops have fake ones behind plastic globes (that's why the globes are there; so you don't know that all but 1 or two by the door are fake). Businesses have none.
- nova22033 9y ago
  From the article >The faces and ID cards of Xinjiang residents are scanned. >Near the Xinjiang University campus in Urumqi, police sat at a wooden table recently, ordering some people walking by to hand over their phones. Yeah...life in the US is exactly like that..
chrischen 9y ago
Tell that to a black guy.
oh_sigh 9y ago
Think of it this way: The cameras are there to prevent people who aren't doing the right thing from hurting you or other innocents.

fellellor 9y ago

Isn't it the same in UK? I read somewhere there 1 cctv camera for every 10 citizens in that country.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
Steve44 9y ago
I read recently that figure was done by extrapolating the cameras visible in one section of a street in London to the UK as a whole. I've had a look and can't find that particular link. > http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10172298/One-surveillance-camera-for-every-11-people-in-Britain-says-CCTV-survey.html http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/10172298/One-surveilla... > Britain has a CCTV camera for every 11 people, a security industry report disclosed, as privacy campaigners criticised the growth of the “surveillance state”. > The survey’s maximum estimate works out at one for every 11 people in the UK, although the BSIA said the most likely figure was 4.9 million cameras in total, or one for every 14 people. > “Because there is no single reliable source of data no number can ever be held as truly accurate however the middle of our range suggests that there are around five million cameras.” and also from 2008 :- > http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+many+cctv+cameras/2291167.html http://www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/factcheck+how+... > The Claim : > "A CCTV camera for every 14 citizens." David Davis, resignation statement, 12 June 2008 > The basis comes from a survey of the number of CCTV cameras in two busy south London streets, Putney High Street and Upper Richmond Road. > The researchers sampled 211 "premises" - banks, estate agents, pubs, shops and office blocks - and found that 41 per cent had CCTV systems, with an average of 4.1 cameras per system. > By assuming this is "broadly representative" of CCTV coverage across the whole of London, the authors estimate that 41 per cent, or 102,910, of the 251,000 VAT-registered businesses registered in London would have a CCTV system. Multiply this by 4.1 and there would be 421,931 cameras. > Bingo - there's the claim, but we've got to it based on two London streets, multiplied out to reflect the whole of London, and then multiplied again to reflect the whole country. > When counting cameras, he reckons it's also important to look at what exactly they are monitoring. "Some may be in a private business such as a corner shop, some may be one camera outside a pub that isn't actually monitored, something like a building society may have more cameras 'back of house' which are not actually on the public," he said.
kurtisc 9y ago
Usually pointing at private land or with signs if they can move. There's also number plate recognition on major roads and services. I don't really get the fuss, it's more private than having a security guard watch you. And they work at preventing crime and tracking people who commit them. I'm surprised people from other countries aren't more turned off by our speeding cameras. I don't like them.

yadongwen 9y ago

Didn't know Singapore has so many cams as well. But then it's one of the safest countries and in the US i dare not walking alone in many places not worrying about being robbed..

agorabinary 9y ago
Whether your wallet or your privacy, you are being robbed regardless.
- stickfigure 9y ago
  When someone sticks a gun in your face and demands your wallet, you will reconsider this equivocation.
  - yadongwen 9y ago
    exactly.. i've been robbed a few times with knifes etc but never guns in countries not discussed here. i really hoped there were cams
  - thunderbong 9y ago
    This can happen even with cameras being there, no? In which case, you've lost both
    - kercker 9y ago
      Everything can happen to anyone. I think stickfigure is trying to say that, with cameras above head, which will result in higher probability of being caught if someone commits a crime, the one who would commit a crime if there was no camera will refrain from committing a crime. With cameras, the probability of losing life will be smaller than without them.
  - kelnos 9y ago
    Scared people are nearly the worst kinds of people you want making policy decisions. If you can establish statistical significance that no cameras -> cameras (actual causality, not mere correlation) causes a drop in (public) robery-related homicide, and a majority of people believe that drop to be significant enough to warrant the loss of privacy, then sure, you put up cameras. You don't do it because a few people got scared. You know what also reduces gun-related incidents: denying people the ability to have guns. It won't eliminate them (there's always a black market for everything), but it'll damn well reduce them, probably to a point that reasonable people would believe is an acceptable number.

profalseidol 9y ago

lol, haven't you heard of Snowden?

crdb 9y ago

Funny how these things work... I've lived in Singapore for close to 7 years, have permanent residence, and it is when I travel to the US that I feel slightly uncomfortable. It starts with the immigration agent who sometimes feels the need to ask me questions for 20 minutes as if I were a criminal, there's the part where they get to look through all your social media accounts and hold you indefinitely, and then there's the thought of a traffic stop by a bored cop "degenerating"... it's tough to travel to countries like these when you're used to a polite government whose agents treat you, the foreigner, with consideration and like a customer. For example, when I went to my PR interview, my medical checks had expired (and it was transparent I had hoped to get away with it); the lady very helpfully opened up a slot for me a few hours later and recommended me a range of clinics nearby to do the missing medical checks. A breath of fresh air after dealing with the French and other "first world" governments... No CCTV in my street except for the hedge that borders the Istana 100m away. We do get the odd police car patrolling the perimeter, but since the President lives there and the Prime Minister works there, I can understand. As for the US, I've never been in a building with more than a couple storeys that did not have CCTV, so I'm curious about your frame of reference there (most of Singapore consists of 20+ storey buildings). I've never been in a US mall or office building without CCTV. The only reason my residential building in NYC did not have CCTV was because it was pre-war; it also didn't have working heating, and I'd rather have had both. I do agree that Singapore is probably not the place to move if you enjoy a suburban lifestyle in a big house with a garden. edit - here's something you can't do in the US: my friend and I bought a couple craft beers from a Japanese supermarket, then sat down on public benches in front of the Asian Civilisations Museum (opposite CBD and the Fullerton Hotel), cracked them open and sipped them slowly in front of the view.

gvurrdon 9y ago
Agreed about the customs officials - travel to the US is no longer pleasant. Concerning government officials, for a few years I lived in the same town as the prime minister of the UK. I used to see them walking about town or in shops, sometimes alone, sometimes with family, but never with any security escort. The CCTV cameras there are mostly private ones in shops, as far as I can tell.

olalonde 9y ago

> I _feel_ that I am trusted to do the right thing. The cameras aren't there for you...

hux_ 9y ago

American beliefs about their freedom are just that - BELIEFS. The underlying implication ALWAYS is the Chinese and Singaporeans or whoever can't think for themselves about what is good for their societies and therefore need American moral guidance and leadership. This is the same tactic the British/French/Spanish etc used to justify colonization. They needed a reason cause by the 18th century, most of the local population had begun to wonder why their kids needed to get shipped off to get killed all over the planet. Read the views of an Indian or and African or a Brazilian visiting Singapore from more unstable homelands and see what their views are on surveillance is. Or better still pick up last month's natgeo on global happiness and ask yourself why Singapore tops the happiness index in Asia despite the surveillance. There is no one size fits all cultures solution to social problems.

nyolfen 9y ago
>This is the same tactic the British/French/Spanish etc used to justify colonization. this is a little tired. you can say this to literally any criticism of a developing nation.
nate_meurer 9y ago
Oh really, just beliefs? Is it merely my "belief" that I can publicly criticize our government in whatever way I want (short of threats) without fear of government reprisal? Is it merely my belief that no transaction with any bureaucracy, government or otherwise, has ever required me to pay a bribe, and that being asked for one would be offensive and probably just inconceivable to any American? Your defense of authoritarian regimes is a simple-minded rehash of "at least the trains ran on time". There's nothing clever or new about it; for all of history depots have used safety and convenience to justify stripping people of basic human rights.
- taobility 9y ago
  You would also worry about be shoot when you walk on the street at night. You would also worry be bombed when you attend some concert, taking subway. Yes, you have your choice, and the other people also have their choice.

zipwitch 9y ago

I also live in the US. I think your feeling is just that. Two of my neighbors have internet-connected surveillance cameras around their homes. There are cameras at most street lights. The police have cameras in their cars, including ones that scan license plates automatically. I live near a school, which is festooned with cameras (and has a constant police presence, too, with their car and body cameras). The stores I shop at have cameras mounted everywhere, mostly behind shaded plastic globes so they're not obvious. (Small businesses tend to have fewer cameras, but still have them.) ATMs have cameras, as do gas stations. My workplace has cameras at entrances, elevators, stairwells and hallways. And that's before we get into cellphones, Facebook and government surveillance, or the advertising- and data-mining-driven stalkerware that haunts you on the internet. It is not that you are trusted to do the right thing. It's just that until you somehow gain the attention of some persons or powers with access to all that surveillance, they don't care what you do.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Hm. I live in the US. Our police have no cameras. None on the streets, none around the vast majority of homes. None in the schools. Shops have fake ones behind plastic globes (that's why the globes are there; so you don't know that all but 1 or two by the door are fake). Businesses have none.
nova22033 9y ago
From the article >The faces and ID cards of Xinjiang residents are scanned. >Near the Xinjiang University campus in Urumqi, police sat at a wooden table recently, ordering some people walking by to hand over their phones. Yeah...life in the US is exactly like that..

chrischen 9y ago

Tell that to a black guy.

oh_sigh 9y ago

Think of it this way: The cameras are there to prevent people who aren't doing the right thing from hurting you or other innocents.