6 ms·

Just theoretically if surveillance was good enough to catch every single crime in public, would this be "worth it"? I think maybe some cities/countries would op

Just theoretically if surveillance was good enough to catch every single crime in public, would this be "worth it"? I think maybe some cities/countries would opt for this such as Singapore and China. I can even imagine cities in the US would trade privacy for safety.

cronix 7y ago
> I can even imagine cities in the US would trade privacy for safety. Several already have, working with Palantir and Amazons Rekognition. LA, Chicago, Portland, New Orleans, Tampa and probably more. https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predictive-policing-tool-new-orleans-nopd https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict... https://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/2019/05/amazons-facial-recognition-technology-is-supercharging-washington-county-police.html https://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/2019/05/amazons-...
zzzcpan 7y ago
> Just theoretically if surveillance was good enough to catch every single crime in public, would this be "worth it"? But you also have to remember that there are good crimes and bad laws, there are bad cops and bad use of force and general abuse of power. Would you want to give them more power, give up a possibility to organize and fight against anything in public?
- pmoriarty 7y ago
  To add to this, information is power. When you give away information about yourself, you are also giving others power over you. This power can be abused in all sorts of ways. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that the information gathered with all of this surveillance will remain in the hands of "the good guys". In addition to abuse by corrupt or malicious police, administrators, and politicians who may legally get access to this data, the data can be leaked to or stolen by all sorts of criminals, stalkers, bullies, abusers, pedophiles, etc. Just about every week there's a new story about a massive data leak. It seems unlikely that data collected through mass surveillance will stay out of the wrong hands forever. How many parents would willingly broadcast to the world the path their child takes to school, their schedule, and photos of their kids. How many people would willingly allow live streaming of their family's bedrooms and bathrooms? All of this surveillance could potentially prevent or solve crime, but most people still have some sense of privacy left, and a concern about ways information about them and their loved ones could be misused -- even if they don't think about it deeply or very often. Unless, of course, they or people they know have been victims of harassment, stalking, identity theft, and other abuses of data collected about them. In which case they probably think about it much more.
- solotronics 7y ago
  Possibly if everyone started getting arrested for the 'little illegalities' we all commit daily the law would quickly change. It might even result in a more fair system, especially if everyone could look up every recording not just the government.
laminar_flow 7y ago
I can also see a domino effect happening if one or a few cities start to use this. If a city/group of cities becomes drastically safer after implementing this, it could pressure those that don't have it to opt in as well.
pavel_lishin 7y ago
> Just theoretically if surveillance was good enough to catch every single crime in public, would this be "worth it"? No. Problem #1 is unfair and biased prosecution. If every time someone smokes a blunt, the police get alerted, but only minorities are actually arrested and prosecuted, that's bullshit. Problem #2 is that not every crime should be punished, period. Nobody is harmed if I walk across a street without waiting for a green light. Problem #3 is that every crime being captured means that literally every citizen has a backlog of blackmail material waiting for them that the government could use to pressure them for one reason or another. Commit a more serious crime, and you could be pressured into a plea bargain in exchange for not bringing the others to bear. Speak up against an unpopular policy the government is trying to push, and suddenly you're being arrested for something that happened three years ago. No thanks. This would be a nightmare world.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- mhuffman 7y ago
  I agree with arguments #2 and #3 However, just as a thought experiment, wouldn't total surveillance actually help stop #1? If there existed video proof of illegal bias, it could be targeted and stopped, vs now, where you just have to imagine that all groups are committing crimes at the same rate and police are only focusing on minorities.
  - pavel_lishin 7y ago
    > However, just as a thought experiment, wouldn't total surveillance actually help stop #1? How would it? Prosecutors decide who to prosecute based on available evidence. It's systematic societal bias (and obviously, personal bias, too.) But it's not like video surveillance would show anything new - we already have statistics on which groups get sent to jail over minor crimes, and which ones get slaps on wrists.
    - mhuffman 7y ago
      > How would it? Prosecutors decide who to prosecute based on available evidence. You answered your own question! > we already have statistics on which groups get sent to jail over minor crimes, and which ones get slaps on wrists I think you will find those statistics correlate almost exactly to income and only overlap race because there is also a correlation between income and race in the US. So without video that is hard evidence of actual racism (eg. arresting blacks and ignoring whites committing the same crime) we have to do a two-step mental trick to get to the racism. Poor people that are arrested can't afford lawyers (or good lawyers) and have worse outcomes. Black people tend to be poorer than Whites, so the courts are racist! I believe it would be a different case altogether if you had "actual" direct proof (ie. video that could be counted and compared to outcomes), not just correlational proof that involves a lot of other noise that may or may not be racism or that is a couple of steps removed.
kindatrue 7y ago
If you live in the US, I'd suggest you join your local NextDoor.com - especially a suburban one. You'll quickly learn that people would vote for a totalitarian authoritarian fascist state with constant surveillance and instant death penalties if it meant eliminating the risk of their Amazon package being stolen from their porch, or their car being broken into.
- pavel_lishin 7y ago
  Or a pigeon being fed.
- Gibbon1 7y ago
  Or as a friend said. Nextdoor taught her that the white middle class women in her neighborhood are utterly racist.
  - spamizbad 7y ago
    What's the joke? "I turned around in some strangers driveway and now I'm wanted fugitive in 3 separate neighborhood groups"
NeedMoreTea 7y ago
Or just go with the plot of "Years and Years" and put a fence and guards around estates that are designated criminal. It would be completely unethical and punish countless law abiding citizens, but it would undoubtedly be popular. Pretty much everywhere.
lostmyoldone 7y ago
If I recall correctly, there is some theoretical work on complex systems seem to imply that if you quickly introduce a large factor in just about any system, the behavior tends to result, almost certainly, in a completely divergent system. Usually with a more or less complete breakdown until the introduced factor is removed. It's not entirely unlikely that these kind of system level effects, or something similar is why - well intended - efforts regularly end up "tyrannical" in nature after a while. One argument goes roughly like this: If something exists, persistently, it is likely to have one or several strong driving forces. If you apply enough counter force in a single direction you get a "buckling" behavior as soon as you completely overwhelm the principal drivers. Now the opposing forces, known to be existing from previous behavior, will be almost entirely unopposed/undamped, and together with the introduced factor come to completely dominate the system. Thus long term stability might only be achievable by small, relatively slow, iterative changes that slowly chane the often vast number of driving forces, and their opposing forces, in relative synchronicity. A wholesale prevention of crime in public places would likely be such a factor, and while I can't predict the outcome, it's almost certainly going to be disastrous. Criminal activity is driven by extremely strong forces, some of them likely related almost purely to, potentially misdirected, survival instincts.
rightbyte 7y ago
Yes it would. But you don't need to track people and use mass data to personalize adds to do that. It is totally possible to just have a lot of cameras and look at the recordings when a crime is reported and delete the video after half a year or something. If one trust the government to have a monopoly on machine guns and tanks, video cameras is my least concern if they turn evil. Public video surveillance without audio is not that bad compared to wire taping, risk profiling etc. The nightmare would be Google, MasterCard, Amazon or what ever running those cameras.
stcredzero 7y ago
Just theoretically if surveillance was good enough to catch every single crime in public, would this be "worth it"? As noted elsewhere, when football hooligans had cameras installed to identify them, they scouted out locations where there was not surveillance. Criminals would learn to commit their crimes under the cover of a roof or awning. This would make people safer from criminals, while making them less safe from the authorities.

cronix 7y ago

> I can even imagine cities in the US would trade privacy for safety. Several already have, working with Palantir and Amazons Rekognition. LA, Chicago, Portland, New Orleans, Tampa and probably more. https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predictive-policing-tool-new-orleans-nopd https://www.theverge.com/2018/2/27/17054740/palantir-predict... https://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/2019/05/amazons-facial-recognition-technology-is-supercharging-washington-county-police.html https://www.oregonlive.com/washingtoncounty/2019/05/amazons-...

zzzcpan 7y ago

> Just theoretically if surveillance was good enough to catch every single crime in public, would this be "worth it"? But you also have to remember that there are good crimes and bad laws, there are bad cops and bad use of force and general abuse of power. Would you want to give them more power, give up a possibility to organize and fight against anything in public?

pmoriarty 7y ago
To add to this, information is power. When you give away information about yourself, you are also giving others power over you. This power can be abused in all sorts of ways. Furthermore, there's no guarantee that the information gathered with all of this surveillance will remain in the hands of "the good guys". In addition to abuse by corrupt or malicious police, administrators, and politicians who may legally get access to this data, the data can be leaked to or stolen by all sorts of criminals, stalkers, bullies, abusers, pedophiles, etc. Just about every week there's a new story about a massive data leak. It seems unlikely that data collected through mass surveillance will stay out of the wrong hands forever. How many parents would willingly broadcast to the world the path their child takes to school, their schedule, and photos of their kids. How many people would willingly allow live streaming of their family's bedrooms and bathrooms? All of this surveillance could potentially prevent or solve crime, but most people still have some sense of privacy left, and a concern about ways information about them and their loved ones could be misused -- even if they don't think about it deeply or very often. Unless, of course, they or people they know have been victims of harassment, stalking, identity theft, and other abuses of data collected about them. In which case they probably think about it much more.
solotronics 7y ago
Possibly if everyone started getting arrested for the 'little illegalities' we all commit daily the law would quickly change. It might even result in a more fair system, especially if everyone could look up every recording not just the government.

laminar_flow 7y ago

I can also see a domino effect happening if one or a few cities start to use this. If a city/group of cities becomes drastically safer after implementing this, it could pressure those that don't have it to opt in as well.

pavel_lishin 7y ago

> Just theoretically if surveillance was good enough to catch every single crime in public, would this be "worth it"? No. Problem #1 is unfair and biased prosecution. If every time someone smokes a blunt, the police get alerted, but only minorities are actually arrested and prosecuted, that's bullshit. Problem #2 is that not every crime should be punished, period. Nobody is harmed if I walk across a street without waiting for a green light. Problem #3 is that every crime being captured means that literally every citizen has a backlog of blackmail material waiting for them that the government could use to pressure them for one reason or another. Commit a more serious crime, and you could be pressured into a plea bargain in exchange for not bringing the others to bear. Speak up against an unpopular policy the government is trying to push, and suddenly you're being arrested for something that happened three years ago. No thanks. This would be a nightmare world.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
mhuffman 7y ago
I agree with arguments #2 and #3 However, just as a thought experiment, wouldn't total surveillance actually help stop #1? If there existed video proof of illegal bias, it could be targeted and stopped, vs now, where you just have to imagine that all groups are committing crimes at the same rate and police are only focusing on minorities.
- pavel_lishin 7y ago
  > However, just as a thought experiment, wouldn't total surveillance actually help stop #1? How would it? Prosecutors decide who to prosecute based on available evidence. It's systematic societal bias (and obviously, personal bias, too.) But it's not like video surveillance would show anything new - we already have statistics on which groups get sent to jail over minor crimes, and which ones get slaps on wrists.
  - mhuffman 7y ago
    > How would it? Prosecutors decide who to prosecute based on available evidence. You answered your own question! > we already have statistics on which groups get sent to jail over minor crimes, and which ones get slaps on wrists I think you will find those statistics correlate almost exactly to income and only overlap race because there is also a correlation between income and race in the US. So without video that is hard evidence of actual racism (eg. arresting blacks and ignoring whites committing the same crime) we have to do a two-step mental trick to get to the racism. Poor people that are arrested can't afford lawyers (or good lawyers) and have worse outcomes. Black people tend to be poorer than Whites, so the courts are racist! I believe it would be a different case altogether if you had "actual" direct proof (ie. video that could be counted and compared to outcomes), not just correlational proof that involves a lot of other noise that may or may not be racism or that is a couple of steps removed.

kindatrue 7y ago

If you live in the US, I'd suggest you join your local NextDoor.com - especially a suburban one. You'll quickly learn that people would vote for a totalitarian authoritarian fascist state with constant surveillance and instant death penalties if it meant eliminating the risk of their Amazon package being stolen from their porch, or their car being broken into.

pavel_lishin 7y ago
Or a pigeon being fed.
Gibbon1 7y ago
Or as a friend said. Nextdoor taught her that the white middle class women in her neighborhood are utterly racist.
- spamizbad 7y ago
  What's the joke? "I turned around in some strangers driveway and now I'm wanted fugitive in 3 separate neighborhood groups"

NeedMoreTea 7y ago

Or just go with the plot of "Years and Years" and put a fence and guards around estates that are designated criminal. It would be completely unethical and punish countless law abiding citizens, but it would undoubtedly be popular. Pretty much everywhere.

lostmyoldone 7y ago

If I recall correctly, there is some theoretical work on complex systems seem to imply that if you quickly introduce a large factor in just about any system, the behavior tends to result, almost certainly, in a completely divergent system. Usually with a more or less complete breakdown until the introduced factor is removed. It's not entirely unlikely that these kind of system level effects, or something similar is why - well intended - efforts regularly end up "tyrannical" in nature after a while. One argument goes roughly like this: If something exists, persistently, it is likely to have one or several strong driving forces. If you apply enough counter force in a single direction you get a "buckling" behavior as soon as you completely overwhelm the principal drivers. Now the opposing forces, known to be existing from previous behavior, will be almost entirely unopposed/undamped, and together with the introduced factor come to completely dominate the system. Thus long term stability might only be achievable by small, relatively slow, iterative changes that slowly chane the often vast number of driving forces, and their opposing forces, in relative synchronicity. A wholesale prevention of crime in public places would likely be such a factor, and while I can't predict the outcome, it's almost certainly going to be disastrous. Criminal activity is driven by extremely strong forces, some of them likely related almost purely to, potentially misdirected, survival instincts.

rightbyte 7y ago

Yes it would. But you don't need to track people and use mass data to personalize adds to do that. It is totally possible to just have a lot of cameras and look at the recordings when a crime is reported and delete the video after half a year or something. If one trust the government to have a monopoly on machine guns and tanks, video cameras is my least concern if they turn evil. Public video surveillance without audio is not that bad compared to wire taping, risk profiling etc. The nightmare would be Google, MasterCard, Amazon or what ever running those cameras.

stcredzero 7y ago

Just theoretically if surveillance was good enough to catch every single crime in public, would this be "worth it"? As noted elsewhere, when football hooligans had cameras installed to identify them, they scouted out locations where there was not surveillance. Criminals would learn to commit their crimes under the cover of a roof or awning. This would make people safer from criminals, while making them less safe from the authorities.