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If I put a camera outside of my house I want police to be able to access/react to what it’s captured. Our PD even has an app where you can register a camera wit

by option 7y ago

If I put a camera outside of my house I want police to be able to access/react to what it’s captured. Our PD even has an app where you can register a camera with them (not direct access though)

moate 7y ago
Great. You pointed that camera directly at my house and are now infringing on my right not to have it watched by the police 24/7. Please explain why your rights are greater than mine.
- smileypete 7y ago
  It's the neighborhood equivalent of 'Five Eyes'!
- lotsofpulp 7y ago
  >right not to have it watched by the police 24/7 I'm not aware of any legislation in the USA that would make a video feed of the exterior view of a property from one's own property illegal.
  - gameswithgo 7y ago
    The person you are responding to never mentioned laws. I believe he or she would be referring to certain ethical rights we should have.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      The right to privacy is the right to wear a mask, not the right to go around poking out other people's eyes. There is no ethical distinction between installing a camera to record, and watching with one's own eyes and remembering what was seen. We might, perhaps, have an ethical right to be informed when someone is watching us, that we might take reasonable privacy countermeasures if necessary. On the presumption that people may look in as easily as we look out, we typically put blinds and curtains in our windows. It is not so difficult to do similar things with sight-lines around the exterior of buildings. An umbrella here, an awning there, a fence around, planting some bamboo or arborvitaes--the further away the observer, the smaller their potential viewing angles, and the easier it is to block their view in without also blocking your own view out. While it may be unsettling to think about our neighbors monitoring our comings and goings, it might also be comforting that they would notice any unusual activity around our property, and maybe also take action to interrupt it, or at least report it. If you put up a screen such that no one else can see it when you go in and out of your front door, likewise no one can see it when a housebreaker is patiently picking its lock. So you put up a camera that you control, to monitor your own threshold, and the surveillance/privacy arms race can stop there. Your neighbor can no longer either look out at you, or look out for you.
      - homonculus1 7y ago
        >There is no ethical distinction between installing a camera to record, and watching with one's own eyes and remembering what was seen. Yes there is, simply by the fact that you can't stand in multiple places and remember everything all the time. The problem with mass surveillance is the scale.
        logfromblammo 7y ago
        Where is the cutoff point, then? At what number of cameras, or cameras per square meter, is it no longer ethical to record what is visible from your property? Exactly one camera? Can you multiplex multiples, so the video feed simulates a person walking around the property? Are the ethics limited by human capabilities, or by human intent? Or it strictly a matter of outcomes?
        homonculus1 7y ago
        If you were to stand on your porch with phone in hand, on the line with the police, and narrate aloud that your neighbor is out getting the paper, and what he looks like, and that he has a strange car in his driveway from the night before, etc. it would be immediately obvious how socially inappropriate and unacceptable this degree of surveillance is. The fact that we have not already codified a specific right or social norm against it is an accident of the fact that nobody has the time to do this manually, and most people don't know or fully realize that their neighbors' doorbells are doing so electronically. Any networked camera continuously filming a field of view off your own property is bad.
        logfromblammo 7y ago
        It would not be obvious to me that the narrating neighbor is doing anything unacceptable. Your appeal to obviousness (bandwagon fallacy) leaves out any meaningful ethical argument as to why such behavior should be socially unacceptable. One neighbor has a right to record, memorialize, or journalize anything they may observe. The other neighbor has a right to privacy, sometimes. But that does not include those times when they are out and about in public. If you don't want neighbors tattling on your activities, be somewhere where they can't see you without trespassing. There is a case to be made for a right to pseudo-anonymity in public, to not be gratuitously identified by strangers, but this does not apply to your hypothetical. Please take a moment to think past obviousness, and consider the non-obvious implications of establishing a right to privacy based on invisible-to-the-human-eye private property lines and the potentially obfuscated ownership or unpublished tenancy rights in those properties. The only question that needs to be answered is whether the owner of the camera has the right to be where the camera is while it is recording. Opening it up beyond that, to what the camera might be able to capture from there, is a whole new can of worms. That introduces the potential for censorship based on the content of the recordings, a possibility far more unacceptable (to me) than having a relentlessly snitchy, nosy, tattling neighbor. There is definitely an argument to be made against police being able to use all those shared video feeds without getting explicit permission from a judge, but I believe the doorbell-camera owner has an absolute right to record anything it can see, 24-7, and publish all of it, or none of it, to whomever they choose to share it with, or no one at all, to include turning it over to police. It is not meaningfully different from the nosy old fart that watches everyone in the neighborhood from their front window, and then gossips about what everyone is doing to their friends, who are doing exactly the same thing on their own streets. They can tattle to the cops whenever they like. We have always needed to draw the curtains to keep Peeping Tom and Bertha Busybody at bay. Preventing them from looking anywhere off their own property is not an ethical option. We can restrict the police from acting on those tips without independently verifiable evidence, because the cops are nominally public servants. And that's where the focus needs to lie. Restrict the cops from even looking at any of those shared feeds without some record of reasonable suspicion.
  - moate 7y ago
    You're correct. This is legal. That doesn't make it good. It's also legal for the police to have access to this. It doesn't make it good. It's also legal for everyone else in the neighborhood to send this footage willingly to the police anytime they see a "suspicious person" in the neighborhood. It doesn't make it good. I believe this is a bad thing. I believe that citizens helping subsidize the creation of an Amazon surveillance product that they then sell to police forces is a bad thing, even if it's legal.
- opwieurposiu 7y ago
  When someone films you, they are implicitly consenting to use their image sensor to receive any photons you may emit. Should you choose to emit a few extra photons, say with a 5 watt laser pointer, it is their problem if said image sensor becomes less responsive to photons in the future.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    Make sure you use exactly that argument in the civil suit against you for the willful destruction of someone else's property. You have no reasonable expectation of [visual] privacy anywhere that is plainly visible from ground level on the public right-of-way. Erect an opaque privacy barrier if you're worried about snooping cameras. Remember to have the utility lines marked before you dig your post holes. Anyone, anywhere in the US, is free to photograph or video-record anything they can see, from any place they have a legal right to stand. If you don't want your emitted photons captured by someone else, capture them yourself before they leave your property.
    - opwieurposiu 7y ago
      I agree 100%, In a public space, any one has the right to capture any photons I may emit. And I have the right to choose the quantity and wavelength of photons I want to emit(1st amendment in USA, natural right everywhere). I can do this by wearing a white or black shirt for example. If your image sensor can't hang with the big boys, don't bring it to the playground.
      - logfromblammo 7y ago
        If you think is acceptable to emit a damaging level of photons in public, you are also espousing shining blinding green lasers into other people's eyeballs, or setting off EMP devices, or radio jammers, or even just using reflecting mirrors to shine bright sunlight into other people's faces. And if it is acceptable for you to do it to others, it is equally acceptable for others to do it to you. Perhaps you could think of people as Part 15 devices, with limits on emitted power and a commitment to not interfere with other users of the spectrum? Your right to flail your fists around wildly stops at the end of my nose.
Johnny555 7y ago
I took great pains to mount my cameras so they only see my front porch or someone walking up my sidewalk, all they see of anyone else is their shins/feet walking by on the common area sidewalk. Then the HOA said I can't mount cameras outside due to "privacy concerns", a Ring doorbell is the only approved camera. So now my Ring doorbell captures a full video of everyone walking by my unit.
- RandomBacon 7y ago
  Are there any rules against having more than one "doorbell"? Do the rules say where the "doorbells" must be located or if they must be accessible by visitors? (Also, if there wasn't a rule against your cameras when you put them up, then you should talk to a lawyer.)
  - Johnny555 7y ago
    then you should talk to a lawyer I have a Ring now, which suits my needs to capture anyone stealing packages. I tried to do the right thing by positioning the camera to only capture my property, but oh well, I guess that's not my (or the HOA's) concern. I have no interest in paying money for a lawyer to argue against the HOA (alienating myself from the HOA board), plus any legal costs that I cause for the HOA is also a cost to me.
    - RandomBacon 7y ago
      True. You don't always have to talk to a lawyer, this could be something that a person fights themselves. But I think HOAs are something people should not let trample over them. Hopefully people become friends with their neighbors before something like this happens so it's not homeowner vs neighbors, but instead homeowner vs overreaching entity. Get your friends/neighbors to see that the HOA is wasting their money on such a petty, overreaching thing. Better yet, get yourself and your friends/neighbors on the HOA board to prevent this kind of stuff.

by option 7y ago

If I put a camera outside of my house I want police to be able to access/react to what it’s captured. Our PD even has an app where you can register a camera with them (not direct access though)

moate 7y ago

Great. You pointed that camera directly at my house and are now infringing on my right not to have it watched by the police 24/7. Please explain why your rights are greater than mine.

smileypete 7y ago
It's the neighborhood equivalent of 'Five Eyes'!
lotsofpulp 7y ago
>right not to have it watched by the police 24/7 I'm not aware of any legislation in the USA that would make a video feed of the exterior view of a property from one's own property illegal.
- gameswithgo 7y ago
  The person you are responding to never mentioned laws. I believe he or she would be referring to certain ethical rights we should have.
  - logfromblammo 7y ago
    The right to privacy is the right to wear a mask, not the right to go around poking out other people's eyes. There is no ethical distinction between installing a camera to record, and watching with one's own eyes and remembering what was seen. We might, perhaps, have an ethical right to be informed when someone is watching us, that we might take reasonable privacy countermeasures if necessary. On the presumption that people may look in as easily as we look out, we typically put blinds and curtains in our windows. It is not so difficult to do similar things with sight-lines around the exterior of buildings. An umbrella here, an awning there, a fence around, planting some bamboo or arborvitaes--the further away the observer, the smaller their potential viewing angles, and the easier it is to block their view in without also blocking your own view out. While it may be unsettling to think about our neighbors monitoring our comings and goings, it might also be comforting that they would notice any unusual activity around our property, and maybe also take action to interrupt it, or at least report it. If you put up a screen such that no one else can see it when you go in and out of your front door, likewise no one can see it when a housebreaker is patiently picking its lock. So you put up a camera that you control, to monitor your own threshold, and the surveillance/privacy arms race can stop there. Your neighbor can no longer either look out at you, or look out for you.
    - homonculus1 7y ago
      >There is no ethical distinction between installing a camera to record, and watching with one's own eyes and remembering what was seen. Yes there is, simply by the fact that you can't stand in multiple places and remember everything all the time. The problem with mass surveillance is the scale.
      - logfromblammo 7y ago
        Where is the cutoff point, then? At what number of cameras, or cameras per square meter, is it no longer ethical to record what is visible from your property? Exactly one camera? Can you multiplex multiples, so the video feed simulates a person walking around the property? Are the ethics limited by human capabilities, or by human intent? Or it strictly a matter of outcomes?
        homonculus1 7y ago
        If you were to stand on your porch with phone in hand, on the line with the police, and narrate aloud that your neighbor is out getting the paper, and what he looks like, and that he has a strange car in his driveway from the night before, etc. it would be immediately obvious how socially inappropriate and unacceptable this degree of surveillance is. The fact that we have not already codified a specific right or social norm against it is an accident of the fact that nobody has the time to do this manually, and most people don't know or fully realize that their neighbors' doorbells are doing so electronically. Any networked camera continuously filming a field of view off your own property is bad.
        logfromblammo 7y ago
        It would not be obvious to me that the narrating neighbor is doing anything unacceptable. Your appeal to obviousness (bandwagon fallacy) leaves out any meaningful ethical argument as to why such behavior should be socially unacceptable. One neighbor has a right to record, memorialize, or journalize anything they may observe. The other neighbor has a right to privacy, sometimes. But that does not include those times when they are out and about in public. If you don't want neighbors tattling on your activities, be somewhere where they can't see you without trespassing. There is a case to be made for a right to pseudo-anonymity in public, to not be gratuitously identified by strangers, but this does not apply to your hypothetical. Please take a moment to think past obviousness, and consider the non-obvious implications of establishing a right to privacy based on invisible-to-the-human-eye private property lines and the potentially obfuscated ownership or unpublished tenancy rights in those properties. The only question that needs to be answered is whether the owner of the camera has the right to be where the camera is while it is recording. Opening it up beyond that, to what the camera might be able to capture from there, is a whole new can of worms. That introduces the potential for censorship based on the content of the recordings, a possibility far more unacceptable (to me) than having a relentlessly snitchy, nosy, tattling neighbor. There is definitely an argument to be made against police being able to use all those shared video feeds without getting explicit permission from a judge, but I believe the doorbell-camera owner has an absolute right to record anything it can see, 24-7, and publish all of it, or none of it, to whomever they choose to share it with, or no one at all, to include turning it over to police. It is not meaningfully different from the nosy old fart that watches everyone in the neighborhood from their front window, and then gossips about what everyone is doing to their friends, who are doing exactly the same thing on their own streets. They can tattle to the cops whenever they like. We have always needed to draw the curtains to keep Peeping Tom and Bertha Busybody at bay. Preventing them from looking anywhere off their own property is not an ethical option. We can restrict the police from acting on those tips without independently verifiable evidence, because the cops are nominally public servants. And that's where the focus needs to lie. Restrict the cops from even looking at any of those shared feeds without some record of reasonable suspicion.
- moate 7y ago
  You're correct. This is legal. That doesn't make it good. It's also legal for the police to have access to this. It doesn't make it good. It's also legal for everyone else in the neighborhood to send this footage willingly to the police anytime they see a "suspicious person" in the neighborhood. It doesn't make it good. I believe this is a bad thing. I believe that citizens helping subsidize the creation of an Amazon surveillance product that they then sell to police forces is a bad thing, even if it's legal.
opwieurposiu 7y ago
When someone films you, they are implicitly consenting to use their image sensor to receive any photons you may emit. Should you choose to emit a few extra photons, say with a 5 watt laser pointer, it is their problem if said image sensor becomes less responsive to photons in the future.
- logfromblammo 7y ago
  Make sure you use exactly that argument in the civil suit against you for the willful destruction of someone else's property. You have no reasonable expectation of [visual] privacy anywhere that is plainly visible from ground level on the public right-of-way. Erect an opaque privacy barrier if you're worried about snooping cameras. Remember to have the utility lines marked before you dig your post holes. Anyone, anywhere in the US, is free to photograph or video-record anything they can see, from any place they have a legal right to stand. If you don't want your emitted photons captured by someone else, capture them yourself before they leave your property.
  - opwieurposiu 7y ago
    I agree 100%, In a public space, any one has the right to capture any photons I may emit. And I have the right to choose the quantity and wavelength of photons I want to emit(1st amendment in USA, natural right everywhere). I can do this by wearing a white or black shirt for example. If your image sensor can't hang with the big boys, don't bring it to the playground.
    - logfromblammo 7y ago
      If you think is acceptable to emit a damaging level of photons in public, you are also espousing shining blinding green lasers into other people's eyeballs, or setting off EMP devices, or radio jammers, or even just using reflecting mirrors to shine bright sunlight into other people's faces. And if it is acceptable for you to do it to others, it is equally acceptable for others to do it to you. Perhaps you could think of people as Part 15 devices, with limits on emitted power and a commitment to not interfere with other users of the spectrum? Your right to flail your fists around wildly stops at the end of my nose.

Johnny555 7y ago

I took great pains to mount my cameras so they only see my front porch or someone walking up my sidewalk, all they see of anyone else is their shins/feet walking by on the common area sidewalk. Then the HOA said I can't mount cameras outside due to "privacy concerns", a Ring doorbell is the only approved camera. So now my Ring doorbell captures a full video of everyone walking by my unit.

RandomBacon 7y ago
Are there any rules against having more than one "doorbell"? Do the rules say where the "doorbells" must be located or if they must be accessible by visitors? (Also, if there wasn't a rule against your cameras when you put them up, then you should talk to a lawyer.)
- Johnny555 7y ago
  then you should talk to a lawyer I have a Ring now, which suits my needs to capture anyone stealing packages. I tried to do the right thing by positioning the camera to only capture my property, but oh well, I guess that's not my (or the HOA's) concern. I have no interest in paying money for a lawyer to argue against the HOA (alienating myself from the HOA board), plus any legal costs that I cause for the HOA is also a cost to me.
  - RandomBacon 7y ago
    True. You don't always have to talk to a lawyer, this could be something that a person fights themselves. But I think HOAs are something people should not let trample over them. Hopefully people become friends with their neighbors before something like this happens so it's not homeowner vs neighbors, but instead homeowner vs overreaching entity. Get your friends/neighbors to see that the HOA is wasting their money on such a petty, overreaching thing. Better yet, get yourself and your friends/neighbors on the HOA board to prevent this kind of stuff.