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Tech-driven approach to neighbourhood watch is cementing community divisions

127 points by laurex 5y ago

Overtonwindow 5y ago
With the decline in police funding, and a hesitancy for police to engage, citizens may have to find ways to protect and defend themselves.
- deleted 5y ago
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- roywiggins 5y ago
  What decline in police funding? There may be a decline in city budgets generally but police are not proportionally affected: "law enforcement spending as a share of general expenditures rose slightly to 13.7% from 13.6%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg CityLab" https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-city-budget-police-funding/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-city-budget-police-f...
  - squidlogic 5y ago
    According to that article it sounds like yes, the average went up slightly, but that covers up the real story: some places have decreased funding and some have increased funding.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
- post_break 5y ago
  I mean ignoring everything you said right up to the end statement, that's always been the case since the police are under no obligation to protect you.
- alphabettsy 5y ago
  What decline in police funding?
EGreg 5y ago
At Qbix, we have a technology we can use to build pretty much anything for communities. So we set about to build NeighborCloud, a service that will take RTMP / RTSP camera feeds from regular security cameras, encrypt them on the fly and feed them into a control center that is owned and run by the neighborhood on their local computers (not a globally centralized service). We had been approached by a client (a friend of mine) who wanted to make a security center for neighborhoods, that we could sell. And for a long time, I had the idea that video encrypted as close to the camera as possible could be very useful in solving crimes where otherwise you'd only have personal testimony (e.g. cases of alleged rape etc). But the keys would have to be produced only through a valid subpoena and court putting together their BLS signatures to group-sign something etc. Each minute and each camera would be encrypted with its own key. I wanted full accountability and transparency: whoever is accessing the video would have to access limited amounts, and there would be a log of the reasons why. We called up IBM and they had some interesting AI stuff that would work at the edges to detect potentially dangerous activity (knives, mobs etc.) and flag it for the operators of the system. Such a flag would be a valid reason to decrypt a few cameras for a few timeslots. The people with access would decrypt only what was needed, and the investigation itself would be logged -- why was this or that minute or camera decrypted. To decrypt too much would require greater authorization. What I wanted to avoid is a panopticon where all the feeds are piped to some center. Sadly, the current social media companies have created such a panopticon with our willing participation, and we don't understand that better, far more accountable and auditable systems can exist, where we don't have to rely on centralized actors. If you're curious, we can do a lot more than security cameras, this is just one possible application. Here we use it to earn credits for watching podcasts, live or recorded: https://app.freetalklive.com https://app.freetalklive.com And we are also using it for students to be taught by teachers remotely, and know whether they are attending or not http://teaching.app http://teaching.app Here is our overall ethos and approach: https://qbix.com/blog/2017/12/18/power-to-the-people/ https://qbix.com/blog/2017/12/18/power-to-the-people/ PS: What I described here would be a potential solution to Apple's Client Side Scanning. What they're missing is accountability and transparency on the side of the people decrypting the footage: essentially a system of warrants, logs, same as doctors use to explain why they ordered this or that test. And furthermore they are missing the decentralization element: you just have to "trust Apple" because they won't give you their backend software. We do. That's why open source is superior. So you can run it yourself, and there is no concept of trusting a large centralized corporation. It's just software that runs on hardware you bought and own. No one is extracting rents, gathering your data, except your own community and by whatever agreement that is set up locally etc.
beaner 5y ago
"“When you call the police on a Black or Brown person, there’s a good chance you are putting their life in danger. I don’t think that is a thing one should do lightly.” Statistically this is False. It's driving a lot of current policy pushes and the people who repeat it most are the ones who pay the most lip service to fighting dis/mis-information, but it's not actually true.
- jjwiseman 5y ago
  Could a mod try googling "beaner" and look at what the top results are?
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
  +1. The police in the U.S. only kill about 1000 people a year, out of 330,000,000. That's 0.000303%. To put it in perspective, there are about 50,000 suicides, 35,000 car crash deaths, and 30,000 people die from just falling down.
  - angio 5y ago
    A thousand deaths per year is still an astronomical number considering police kills less than 5 people per year in the UK.
    - NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
      I think this viewpoint, commonly cited, is wrong. 1000/330m vs 5/60m (England and Wales) 36x (adjusting for population) a really small number is still a really small number. While all else equal I'd like to see the number reduced, there is much lower-hanging fruit elsewhere.
- post_break 5y ago
  I'm sorry what? I don't know how you come to that conclusion. Time and time again we see someone get called on a welfare check only to be shot to death. People are weaponizing the police because they are not trained to deescalate and their rules are engagement are basically comply or die.
tinyhouse 5y ago
Cameras everywhere is great. It makes the streets safer. Next big thing is cameras in cars which will make the roads safer. Just the other day I listened to a podcast on a murder case and one of the key evidence was residential cameras that captured the vehicle of the killer at 3am. Now for those Facebook/Nextdoor groups. I rally dislike them. Too many crazy people that report weird stuff (and racist too).
- raspyberr 5y ago
  But cameras don't reduce crime rate.
  - tinyhouse 5y ago
    I don't know the numbers so cannot argue. But, even if they don't deter people (which I doubt), they sure help solving some serious crimes (I can provide plenty of examples). That means they help putting criminals behind bars - making the streets safer. Cameras today can even be used as self defense. People are less likely to hit someone in public if they are being filmed. Look how phone cameras changed the way police do things for example. Why? because they know they are being filmed and cannot get away like they used to. I rest my case.
    - micah94 5y ago
      > ...changed the way police do things Not sure if you're being sarcastic there. Filming police brutality is like a national pass time. Cameras haven't changed anything. Having more examples of police beating the crap out of people is the only "change" I've seen.
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    Only the police can do that, but now we have evidence that we wouldn't have otherwise.
chriscjcj 5y ago
> Part of what is discomforting about surveillance technology > is its easy imbrication with the potential excesses of > police action. In my opinion, if there were adequate police action, prosecution and punishment for the crimes being committed, the surveillance technology would be unnecessary and likely would be far less prevalent.
deleted 5y ago
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QuarterReptile 5y ago
If you're rich and/or highly mobile, you retreat to avoid this as much as you can. For everyone else, you try to maintain order where you are. Let's say (not so hypothetically) that I'm tired of the drug dealer across the street, between the trash in the street, the bags of used needles, the random scrapes of my car by beaters flying through, and on and on. I could, have, and do report this all to the police, but they will always deescalate things to minimize workload, or in some other way that is clearly not focused on maintaining law and order. I thought it was compelling the time that one of their clients showed up on my porch, beating on the door yelling with a hole in his face from a gunshot wound, but the police didn't do anything with that, either (other than, for once, actually showing up.) So I'm very sure that my most effective means of improving the situation is to put cameras on their affairs from my house and get all the other adjacent neighbors to do likewise. The dealers have felt the heat, and now their clients are normally more respectful and quiet, presumably at the prompting of the dealers. If they want anonymity when being disruptive or acting illegally, they should go find somewhere where they can blend in.
- ReactiveJelly 5y ago
  I just wish it was easier to control the data. The majority of consumers will never be tech-savvy. So a bunch of security cameras really means a bunch of security cameras whose software is 100% controlled by some central authority. I'd feel safer if it was controlled by the actual home-owner.
  - danuker 5y ago
    With the GDPR in the EU, the chilling effects of complying with the regulation affect the homeowners, as opposed to a large company or government department. Just look at fines, and it should become clear who the law was written for: https://danuker.go.ro/gdpranoia.html#fines https://danuker.go.ro/gdpranoia.html#fines
  - ajmurmann 5y ago
    This! Even as someone who is pretty tech savvy accomplishing this is hard enough that it's been a deterrent. You can get cheap setups that keep very limited data recorded locally, or easier at some central cloud provider. Local storage with cloud backup to S3 or similar that you control becomes so much more complicated and expensive.
mchusma 5y ago
The term "surveillance state" can't apply if it isn't the state (with it's monopoly on violence).
- humanistbot 5y ago
  Except police departments do have agreements with Amazon Ring and others. There is even a UI option for police to ask Ring customers to share their recordings. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/ring-changed-how-police-request-door-camera-footage-what-it-means-and-doesnt-mean https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/ring-changed-how-polic...
padseeker 5y ago
The thing about a surveillance state is the idea is that someone is on the other end of the camera watching, i.e. the state. The overwhelming amount of video being generated is being recorded, but it's usually not being actively watched until after something happens. It's not quite a surveillance state as much as it is just evidence being gathered that might eventually be utilized after criminal activity has occurred. There's very little AI watching and analyzing what is happening on the surveillance.
mc32 5y ago
I suppose we could call this the democratization of policing (and not so much a police state, though debatable depending on interrelationship and politization). In some ways, but not all ways, it harkens back to a time when the smallness of towns and the percentage of people in towns meant that over 90% of people lived under “democratic” surveillance. One major difference is that today you cannot skip town to start a new life with a clean, if unknown slate. Your history will follow you and we’re not allowing for people to turn a leaf as easily as before. At the same time it means serious offenders will have a harder time getting away with violent crime.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "I suppose we could call this the democratization of policing (and not so much a police state, though debatable depending on interrelationship and politization)." Not even close in my opinion. All the authority, discretion, power, and immunity is retained by the police. They're simply using citizen's hardware/info, possibly to the detriment of that same citizen (depends on how far they expand the use).
  - NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
    Yes, but I would say "...retained by tech giants like Amazon and Google, and to a lesser degree the police..."
- woodruffw 5y ago
  I think this is more the distribution of surveillance capacity rather than policing itself -- the police have retained the monopoly on violence, and seem relatively content to push the burden of investigative work onto private citizens (with all of the petty erosion of privacy that results).
  - mc32 5y ago
    There are pros and cons. If the population at large didn’t commit crime (in a perfect world) we wouldn’t need policing. Given that’s just fantasy, policing is for now necessary. Distributed citizen policing devolved this back into the citizenry. Is that good, or is it bad? It has both. On the one hand everyone will have biases for and against things. On the other hand, those under threat have better recourse (against stalkers, casing a home, burglaries, etc.)
dboreham 5y ago
If you've been the victim of street-visible theft, the cameras are more welcome.
- harles 5y ago
  Or, unfortunately, just an insult as the police will still usually do nothing.
- raspyberr 5y ago
  Yeah.... no. You'd think that giving the police video evidence of a theft would do something. It doesn't. On top of the fact that CCTV doesn't reduce crime rate really makes you question if we should be having this many cameras everywhere.
  - ethagknight 5y ago
    >>“The fact that CCTV doesn’t reduce crime” CCTV absolutely reduces crime in areas where petty crimes are actually enforced. The evidence provided by the camera is critical.
  - d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
    There's also the curiosity factor. I think 20% of my packages say they've been delivered one day before they actually are. It's always this unnerving waiting period to see if it will be delivered tomorrow or if it got stolen. Should I just make Amazon send another every time? Should I be prepared to pay twice sometimes as a sort of privileged tax? Should I curb my consumerism out of fear? Really it should be the brick and mortar stores who capitalize on this. Start advertising in certain areas that have high package theft and cut into ecommerce market share.
JohnWhigham 5y ago
Also the mobile application Citizen, which is fucking cancer. It alerts to any little thing that happens and trains you to be in a constant state of paranoia. You thought the local news was bad enough? Now you have that shit in your pocket. And they fucking now hire rent-a-cops. In a normal country, this shit would be shut down immediately. But given that our federal government has quasi-failed its populace, not surprised it's allowed to flourish.
- snarf21 5y ago
  The should rename the app Bigotry because all it does is amplify your existing hatred.
  - symlinkk 5y ago
    All it does is show you the reality of what’s happening around you. Why would that cause you to feel hatred or bigotry?
    - havkd 5y ago
      Being exposed to reality makes me feel hatred and bigotry.
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  > In a normal country, this shit would be shut down immediately. But given that our federal government has quasi-failed its populace, not surprised it's allowed to flourish. Are you claiming a successful government would limit the ability of people to access public information?
  - curryst 5y ago
    I presume the rent-a-cop portion was more concerning. One of the security companies they're working with has a pitch line that says if someone is outside your building screaming, they can come make them stop. It's one thing to offer defense services that follow you, but it's concerning to think that your neighbor or ex or stalker could soon call Nextdoor to send goons to your house.
Gravityloss 5y ago
I was getting something from my trunk the other winter. I parked on the street. I saw some light flashes but thought they were just some cars passing by or something. Turns out it was the Tesla parked behind me that was automatically flashing lights at me. There was nobody in that car. I wonder if it's even legal here to install a camera in a public place like that?
- trutannus 5y ago
  > I wonder if it's even legal here to install a camera in a public place like that? Depends on where you are, if you're on private property, and how your nation defines 'reasonable expectation of privacy' if they define such a thing at all. In a lot of North America, as long as you're in public and the camera is in public, it is entirely legal.
slackfan 5y ago
"Police suggest entire population in the Elm Terrace area do as follows: Everyone in every house in every street open a front or rear door or look from the windows. The fugitive cannot escape if everyone in the next minute looks from his house. Ready! " Of course! Why hadn't they done it before! Why, in all the years, hadn't this game been tried! Everyone up, everyone out! He couldn't be missed! The only man running alone in the night city, the only man proving his legs! "At the count of ten now! One! Two!" He felt the city rise... - Ray Badbury, Farenheight 451
shadowgovt 5y ago
David Brin's "The Transparent Society" is an interesting read for a couple of reasons. One is how many things have not come to pass... Given that it was printed in 1998, we've had over twenty years to see predictions not come to fruition. But another is his prediction of this precisely: that in a world where cameras, data recording, and analysis is cheap and easy, the big question is who will control their use: governments, individuals, non-government groups, or some mixture of the three. The one thing we can basically guarantee won't happen is a return to the pre-surveillance days... Like the car, these technologies cause society to re-organize around them such that those who don't have access to them (or try the Luddite approach of refraining from using them) have less power and eventually become marginalized. So the question becomes: "What is the best way forward," not "How do we get back?"
- AndrewDucker 5y ago
  You can read the, now 25 year old, article which started this off here: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/fftransparent/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/fftransparent/
antiterra 5y ago
I'm really not sure where to begin on this mess of an article. I'm concerned about home security footage being easily available to authorities, but this throws the baby out with the bathwater by making a socioeconomic claim that only applies to a particular kind of urban neighborhood. On its face, this article suggests a 'surveillance state,' brought about by people surveilling their own property. The assumption here is that porch cameras are merely a way to attempt to stick it to thieves/pranksters who are simply the collateral damage of capitalism. However, porch cameras also function as communication devices, personal safety devices and informational devices about non-suspect behavior relevant to a resident. The underlying argument seems to be that the pursuit of 'safety' in the face of economic disparity and racial injustice is inherently discriminatory. Unfortunately, by hinging on porch cameras, it doesn't make much of a case. Is it possible to want to work towards a kind of universal justice but also not want a homeless shelter next to a kindergarten or the home where you are raising young children? Is it selfish to want to extend that to the elderly, or to single mothers, to yourself? And yes, there are elderly people, single mothers and even children in shelters, but some shelters consist largely of people struggling with powerful addiction and/or mental illness. On the other hand, there may not be a categorically better placement of the shelter, and we might even suggest that proximity to such facilities is the cost of dense urban living. To me, that's definitely worth writing and debating about, but this unfocused article built on controversial assumptions doesn't add much.
- giantg2 5y ago
  "On its face, this article suggests a 'surveillance state,' brought about by people surveilling their own property." The main issue is that the cameras capture other people's properties too, or (less problematically) public spaces. If it truly were only the owner's property, then this wouldn't be an issue.
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    That's a far easier problem to solve than dismantling the "surveillance state"
  - betwixthewires 5y ago
mathgladiator 5y ago
Based on this, I just decided to order a complete camera system for my house. As I age, I believe that the public should be 100% recorded. The public is common ground.
specialist 5y ago
Morality is how you behave when no one is watching. Since I'm a nerd, I've assumed that someone is watching and recording all the time. Since at least the early 90s. I guess I'm not very moral. These porch cameras make me think of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for some reason. A well armed society is a polite society. I now wonder how Zoomers, the generation born into the panopticon, may have adapted. Will they be more moral, more careful, more circumspect? Or less? Or some mix? I'm encouraged by, and take as evidence, the rise of consent culture. Which is definitive moral progress.
arrozconcosas 5y ago
Why is it so acceptable for packages to be stolen? Imagine in the old days you went to a mall, bought something, and on the walk to the car someone ran by and grabbed your shopping bag and ran. This happens 100x more often today and there are seemingly zero consequences for it.
- giantg2 5y ago
  Legally, one is a theft while the other is likely a robbery. Robbery is generally treated more seriously. As for frequency, people are more likely to take something if they don't have to confront a person. There are also a lot more packages available to steal today since more people order online now.
- beaner 5y ago
  We care less because for the most part everyone is much better off than we used to be. Material wealth is easier to acquire and with less physical effort.
- qvrjuec 5y ago
  Probably because Amazon replaces most of them.
- germinalphrase 5y ago
  I’m simply surprised that there hasn’t been minimal cooperation from package carriers to develop a one time key system for porch lockboxes. The boxes wouldn’t even need to be robust. Package carrier walks up. Scans the package, taps the scanner to the box, drop the package in the box, and off we go. Sell them at Home Depot. People would buy.
  - darig 5y ago
    I'm simply surprised that you don't realize UPS employees are a teamsters union who work under excruciating quotas. Fiddling with grandma's broken lock box is not an option. And off we go.
  - alphabettsy 5y ago
raverbashing 5y ago
While privacy is important it can't be expected into places in plain view like porches. Yes usage of video data should be limited, etc. In the end this is like the dashcam cameras that helped cut on the amount of fake insurance claims and "he said/she said" accidents where one of the parts is clearly at fault.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
m-i-l 5y ago
In the UK this recently led to a £100,000 fine: "A judge has ruled that security cameras and a Ring doorbell installed in a house in Oxfordshire 'unjustifiably invaded' the privacy of a neighbour ... the devices ... broke data laws and contributed to harassment."[0] [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58911296 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58911296
- anonymousDan 5y ago
  Yes I saw that, amazing ruling. I wonder will it have much affect on behaviour (e.g. reduced sales of Ring)
  - lotsofpulp 5y ago
    I am shocked about this: >Judge Melissa Clarke found that audio data collected by cameras on a shed, in a driveway and on the Ring doorbell was processed unlawfully. She noted that at the time it was not possible to turn off the audio recording facility - that happened in an update in 2020. I would have assumed all camera makers implemented a software toggle to disable audio recording. It seems like a basic function to avoid violating laws against recording audio when you are not party to the conversation. It is Amazon though, so I guess I should not be surprised.
- upofadown 5y ago
  >In the judgement it was found that the Ring doorbell captured images of the claimant's house and garden, while the shed camera covered almost the whole of her garden and her parking space. ...and... >She said that she found the audio data that could capture conversations "even more problematic and detrimental than video data". So it wasn't just a doorbell aimed at the street. It was the totality of the video and audio surveillance of an area that the neighbour could reasonably expect to be somewhat private.
zozin 5y ago
“It’s my pretty firm belief,” says Gilliard, “that the police should not be called unless someone’s life is in danger.” That can seem, to some, like a noble if naive thought. Yet Gilliard offers a retort. “The likelihood that it was a Brown or Black person who egged my car, based on where I live, is pretty high,” he says. “When you call the police on a Black or Brown person, there’s a good chance you are putting their life in danger. I don’t think that is a thing one should do lightly.” The mental gymnastics of well-intentioned paternalism is humorous to see in practice. If it’s rational not to call the cops in this situation because the risk of negative externalities is far too great, then two conclusions are possible: (1) black/brown people are rational actors and they know the chance of getting caught/punished is very low, thus are incentivized to continue breaking the law, thus creating a vicious cycle where more law breaking begets more leniency, which begets more law breaking or (2) black/brown people are not rational, and need the benevolence of others to make sure they do not end up in jail. Either way you slice it, it becomes clear that even well intentioned individuals are mostly acting out of self interest. It’s in the interests of Gilliard to not call the cops because losing a $50 package that will be reimbursed anyway is less important than projecting the image that he deeply cares about black and brown people.
- d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  Yes, if you try to think about the problem logically you're always going to come to one of those sobering conclusions--"we must treat someone differently because of the color of their skin and factors outside of their control". If I was a marginalized group I would be pissed off that you're patronizing me and you don't think I'm capable of meeting your standards. It's the complete opposite of what we've been fighting for for the last 50 years.
sabujp 5y ago
Don't forget about the anxiety stricken netizens of nextdoor
- d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  People in neighborhoods have always had anxiety about protecting their homes. This is nothing new. It's just that now you can hear their thoughts through lurking instead of talking to them in person.
CapitalistCartr 5y ago
On NextDoor, in my neighborhood, complaints of nighttime activity are normally accompanied by camera pictures. Lots of this. It seems to be the new normal.
motohagiography 5y ago
I like how I agree with the author about pernicious creep of surveillance, but for opposite reasons, where if he provided the same arguments against it to something else, I would be dismissive of them. It's as though the reason he's against the surveillance is because it strengthens neighbourhoods and the identity around them, presumably with his implied ideal being an atomized specimen of a group identity, who must amplify narrative to survive. Surveillance turns people into helpless targets for predators when the consequences of being caught defending yourselves are greater than giving predators what they are after, which rewards them, and they come back. Eventually what surveillance mainly does is empower a tiny minority of truly terrible people who for them the cameras are never on, or they don't care, and these are the most malicious and nasty people around.
WarOnPrivacy 5y ago
In my last neighborhood (HOA,golfcourse), cops were called on me twice. Once was for the social crime of walking with my teenage son and once for the more serious crime of walking with long hair. It would seem the last thing emotionally fragile homeowners need is better surveillance ability.
betwixthewires 5y ago
I thought this article was going to be about actual private technology making our streets into surveillance states. Turns out it's just about how you shouldn't call the cops on brown people for stealing your stuff. What a load of horse shit.
Jiro 5y ago
This amounts to "having cameras to catch thieves is bad because it catches too many black thieves". Thievery is a crime for good reason.
- droopyEyelids 5y ago
  While I found the way you stated it objectionable, the real catch-22 here is that while disadvantaged groups are more likely to commit crimes, _they're also way more likely to be the victims of crimes_ This is a hard fact to approach with justice in mind, and troubles a lot of the US discourse on crime and policing. Yes, if non-white-collar crime is policed effectively, it disproportionately affects people from underprivileged backgrounds. However it also disproportionately benefits those in the same sociological group. The real win would be successful rehabilitation and less lethal policing, in my opinion.
- hackflip 5y ago
  When you realize progressives are far more racist than conservatives.
lamontcg 5y ago
Seems like blaming the symptom and not the cause, along with proposing an individual-morality-centric solution. It is similar to blaming the climate crisis on lack of individual effort. The left is also never going to get people to be that enlightened about the security of their personal property. Focusing the average person's reasonable amount of personal property over private property / capital is always going to be a losing proposition for the left. Focusing on reducing inequality, providing more universal services (health care, child care, college) and reforming the cops to not be racist are the kinds of things that the left can actually sell the majority of the population. The bulk of the population though does want cops to show up with guns when people have broken into their house or their neighbors house. They don't want to be potentially raped/murdered and they don't want their shit stolen. The vast majority of people fall under this category, which is why even in my very progressive-leaning zip code in Seattle most of the houses are growing ring cameras these days. It might be a nice leftist ideal to not care about your own belongings because you're better off than everyone else, but put to a vote in the population that is always going to get voted down. Theft as a solution to homelessness is a policy that the average citizen is going to reject. Its like the left in this country only cares about being individually virtuous and doesn't care about getting anything done politically. Sometimes I wonder if they only swapped out religion in their life with leftist social politics but they still need to get that fix of being better than everyone else.
- rkk3 5y ago
  I thought the Harvard Professor's take was pretty out of touch > “It’s my pretty firm belief,” says Gilliard, “that the police should not be called unless someone’s life is in danger.” Sure it'd be extreme to call the police for someone egging your car, but what if they stole his car.
  - 908B64B197 5y ago
    I don't think it's extreme. Vandalism creates a slippery slope where criminals now know that the neighborhood "doesn't care". Unless it's a prank by local teenagers of course.
throwawaysea 5y ago
I really don’t see the problem. People have a right to not be violated. Surveillance technology helps with that. If citizens want to voluntarily share their footage with police and companies help make that convenient, then what’s wrong with that? Just like we give police access to electricity and computers and cars, we should be willing to give them access to the latest in surveillance and facial recognition technologies. We can place controls on it to prevent mass surveillance without cause, but I have little sympathy for those who commit property crimes, burglaries, assaults, whatever. They deserve to be identified, located, arrested, and sentenced. Taxpayers deserve those actions to be performed as efficiently, cheaply, and effectively as possible. I am not really sure why “community division” matters above basic public safety.
sershe 5y ago
I don't understand why this article is trying to portray good things as dystopia. As someone who grew up ~poor surrounded by ~poor people, having achieved some financial security, one of my top priorities in life is to not live surrounded by poor people anymore. If technology helps that, great. I feel like the opposite perspective can only come from lack of personal experience and therefore misplaced compassion. Classism is fine. Classism being connected with racism-punching-down is a peculiarly American development (the classic examples of racism+classism throughout history in Europe/etc. are generally against minorities perceived as "unfairly" succeeding).
iamthemonster 5y ago
The language in this article is heavily biased towards considering a camera on your porch to be "surveillance"; a loaded term that implies an invasion of privacy. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your bathroom, at your kitchen table, in a public toilet etc. You don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy when standing on someone's porch. The home owner or a neighbour are not invading your privacy by seeing you standing at the porch. And particularly if you are standing on that porch for the purpose of stealing a package. The question of whether to report to the police is a separate issue, but really if you don't want to get reported to the police, don't steal packages. I don't think we are solving any problems by pointing the finger of blame at the person whose package was stolen.

127 points by laurex 5y ago

With the decline in police funding, and a hesitancy for police to engage, citizens may have to find ways to protect and defend themselves.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
roywiggins 5y ago
What decline in police funding? There may be a decline in city budgets generally but police are not proportionally affected: "law enforcement spending as a share of general expenditures rose slightly to 13.7% from 13.6%, according to data compiled by Bloomberg CityLab" https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-city-budget-police-funding/ https://www.bloomberg.com/graphics/2021-city-budget-police-f...
- squidlogic 5y ago
  According to that article it sounds like yes, the average went up slightly, but that covers up the real story: some places have decreased funding and some have increased funding.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
post_break 5y ago
I mean ignoring everything you said right up to the end statement, that's always been the case since the police are under no obligation to protect you.
alphabettsy 5y ago
What decline in police funding?

EGreg 5y ago

At Qbix, we have a technology we can use to build pretty much anything for communities. So we set about to build NeighborCloud, a service that will take RTMP / RTSP camera feeds from regular security cameras, encrypt them on the fly and feed them into a control center that is owned and run by the neighborhood on their local computers (not a globally centralized service). We had been approached by a client (a friend of mine) who wanted to make a security center for neighborhoods, that we could sell. And for a long time, I had the idea that video encrypted as close to the camera as possible could be very useful in solving crimes where otherwise you'd only have personal testimony (e.g. cases of alleged rape etc). But the keys would have to be produced only through a valid subpoena and court putting together their BLS signatures to group-sign something etc. Each minute and each camera would be encrypted with its own key. I wanted full accountability and transparency: whoever is accessing the video would have to access limited amounts, and there would be a log of the reasons why. We called up IBM and they had some interesting AI stuff that would work at the edges to detect potentially dangerous activity (knives, mobs etc.) and flag it for the operators of the system. Such a flag would be a valid reason to decrypt a few cameras for a few timeslots. The people with access would decrypt only what was needed, and the investigation itself would be logged -- why was this or that minute or camera decrypted. To decrypt too much would require greater authorization. What I wanted to avoid is a panopticon where all the feeds are piped to some center. Sadly, the current social media companies have created such a panopticon with our willing participation, and we don't understand that better, far more accountable and auditable systems can exist, where we don't have to rely on centralized actors. If you're curious, we can do a lot more than security cameras, this is just one possible application. Here we use it to earn credits for watching podcasts, live or recorded: https://app.freetalklive.com https://app.freetalklive.com And we are also using it for students to be taught by teachers remotely, and know whether they are attending or not http://teaching.app http://teaching.app Here is our overall ethos and approach: https://qbix.com/blog/2017/12/18/power-to-the-people/ https://qbix.com/blog/2017/12/18/power-to-the-people/ PS: What I described here would be a potential solution to Apple's Client Side Scanning. What they're missing is accountability and transparency on the side of the people decrypting the footage: essentially a system of warrants, logs, same as doctors use to explain why they ordered this or that test. And furthermore they are missing the decentralization element: you just have to "trust Apple" because they won't give you their backend software. We do. That's why open source is superior. So you can run it yourself, and there is no concept of trusting a large centralized corporation. It's just software that runs on hardware you bought and own. No one is extracting rents, gathering your data, except your own community and by whatever agreement that is set up locally etc.

beaner 5y ago

"“When you call the police on a Black or Brown person, there’s a good chance you are putting their life in danger. I don’t think that is a thing one should do lightly.” Statistically this is False. It's driving a lot of current policy pushes and the people who repeat it most are the ones who pay the most lip service to fighting dis/mis-information, but it's not actually true.

jjwiseman 5y ago
Could a mod try googling "beaner" and look at what the top results are?
NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
+1. The police in the U.S. only kill about 1000 people a year, out of 330,000,000. That's 0.000303%. To put it in perspective, there are about 50,000 suicides, 35,000 car crash deaths, and 30,000 people die from just falling down.
- angio 5y ago
  A thousand deaths per year is still an astronomical number considering police kills less than 5 people per year in the UK.
  - NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
    I think this viewpoint, commonly cited, is wrong. 1000/330m vs 5/60m (England and Wales) 36x (adjusting for population) a really small number is still a really small number. While all else equal I'd like to see the number reduced, there is much lower-hanging fruit elsewhere.
post_break 5y ago
I'm sorry what? I don't know how you come to that conclusion. Time and time again we see someone get called on a welfare check only to be shot to death. People are weaponizing the police because they are not trained to deescalate and their rules are engagement are basically comply or die.

tinyhouse 5y ago

Cameras everywhere is great. It makes the streets safer. Next big thing is cameras in cars which will make the roads safer. Just the other day I listened to a podcast on a murder case and one of the key evidence was residential cameras that captured the vehicle of the killer at 3am. Now for those Facebook/Nextdoor groups. I rally dislike them. Too many crazy people that report weird stuff (and racist too).

raspyberr 5y ago
But cameras don't reduce crime rate.
- tinyhouse 5y ago
  I don't know the numbers so cannot argue. But, even if they don't deter people (which I doubt), they sure help solving some serious crimes (I can provide plenty of examples). That means they help putting criminals behind bars - making the streets safer. Cameras today can even be used as self defense. People are less likely to hit someone in public if they are being filmed. Look how phone cameras changed the way police do things for example. Why? because they know they are being filmed and cannot get away like they used to. I rest my case.
  - micah94 5y ago
    > ...changed the way police do things Not sure if you're being sarcastic there. Filming police brutality is like a national pass time. Cameras haven't changed anything. Having more examples of police beating the crap out of people is the only "change" I've seen.
- maccolgan 5y ago
  Only the police can do that, but now we have evidence that we wouldn't have otherwise.

chriscjcj 5y ago

> Part of what is discomforting about surveillance technology > is its easy imbrication with the potential excesses of > police action. In my opinion, if there were adequate police action, prosecution and punishment for the crimes being committed, the surveillance technology would be unnecessary and likely would be far less prevalent.

deleted 5y ago

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QuarterReptile 5y ago

If you're rich and/or highly mobile, you retreat to avoid this as much as you can. For everyone else, you try to maintain order where you are. Let's say (not so hypothetically) that I'm tired of the drug dealer across the street, between the trash in the street, the bags of used needles, the random scrapes of my car by beaters flying through, and on and on. I could, have, and do report this all to the police, but they will always deescalate things to minimize workload, or in some other way that is clearly not focused on maintaining law and order. I thought it was compelling the time that one of their clients showed up on my porch, beating on the door yelling with a hole in his face from a gunshot wound, but the police didn't do anything with that, either (other than, for once, actually showing up.) So I'm very sure that my most effective means of improving the situation is to put cameras on their affairs from my house and get all the other adjacent neighbors to do likewise. The dealers have felt the heat, and now their clients are normally more respectful and quiet, presumably at the prompting of the dealers. If they want anonymity when being disruptive or acting illegally, they should go find somewhere where they can blend in.

ReactiveJelly 5y ago
I just wish it was easier to control the data. The majority of consumers will never be tech-savvy. So a bunch of security cameras really means a bunch of security cameras whose software is 100% controlled by some central authority. I'd feel safer if it was controlled by the actual home-owner.
- danuker 5y ago
  With the GDPR in the EU, the chilling effects of complying with the regulation affect the homeowners, as opposed to a large company or government department. Just look at fines, and it should become clear who the law was written for: https://danuker.go.ro/gdpranoia.html#fines https://danuker.go.ro/gdpranoia.html#fines
- ajmurmann 5y ago
  This! Even as someone who is pretty tech savvy accomplishing this is hard enough that it's been a deterrent. You can get cheap setups that keep very limited data recorded locally, or easier at some central cloud provider. Local storage with cloud backup to S3 or similar that you control becomes so much more complicated and expensive.

mchusma 5y ago

The term "surveillance state" can't apply if it isn't the state (with it's monopoly on violence).

humanistbot 5y ago
Except police departments do have agreements with Amazon Ring and others. There is even a UI option for police to ask Ring customers to share their recordings. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/ring-changed-how-police-request-door-camera-footage-what-it-means-and-doesnt-mean https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/06/ring-changed-how-polic...

padseeker 5y ago

The thing about a surveillance state is the idea is that someone is on the other end of the camera watching, i.e. the state. The overwhelming amount of video being generated is being recorded, but it's usually not being actively watched until after something happens. It's not quite a surveillance state as much as it is just evidence being gathered that might eventually be utilized after criminal activity has occurred. There's very little AI watching and analyzing what is happening on the surveillance.

mc32 5y ago

I suppose we could call this the democratization of policing (and not so much a police state, though debatable depending on interrelationship and politization). In some ways, but not all ways, it harkens back to a time when the smallness of towns and the percentage of people in towns meant that over 90% of people lived under “democratic” surveillance. One major difference is that today you cannot skip town to start a new life with a clean, if unknown slate. Your history will follow you and we’re not allowing for people to turn a leaf as easily as before. At the same time it means serious offenders will have a harder time getting away with violent crime.

giantg2 5y ago
"I suppose we could call this the democratization of policing (and not so much a police state, though debatable depending on interrelationship and politization)." Not even close in my opinion. All the authority, discretion, power, and immunity is retained by the police. They're simply using citizen's hardware/info, possibly to the detriment of that same citizen (depends on how far they expand the use).
- NoImmatureAdHom 5y ago
  Yes, but I would say "...retained by tech giants like Amazon and Google, and to a lesser degree the police..."
woodruffw 5y ago
I think this is more the distribution of surveillance capacity rather than policing itself -- the police have retained the monopoly on violence, and seem relatively content to push the burden of investigative work onto private citizens (with all of the petty erosion of privacy that results).
- mc32 5y ago
  There are pros and cons. If the population at large didn’t commit crime (in a perfect world) we wouldn’t need policing. Given that’s just fantasy, policing is for now necessary. Distributed citizen policing devolved this back into the citizenry. Is that good, or is it bad? It has both. On the one hand everyone will have biases for and against things. On the other hand, those under threat have better recourse (against stalkers, casing a home, burglaries, etc.)

dboreham 5y ago

If you've been the victim of street-visible theft, the cameras are more welcome.

harles 5y ago
Or, unfortunately, just an insult as the police will still usually do nothing.
raspyberr 5y ago
Yeah.... no. You'd think that giving the police video evidence of a theft would do something. It doesn't. On top of the fact that CCTV doesn't reduce crime rate really makes you question if we should be having this many cameras everywhere.
- ethagknight 5y ago
  >>“The fact that CCTV doesn’t reduce crime” CCTV absolutely reduces crime in areas where petty crimes are actually enforced. The evidence provided by the camera is critical.
- d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
  There's also the curiosity factor. I think 20% of my packages say they've been delivered one day before they actually are. It's always this unnerving waiting period to see if it will be delivered tomorrow or if it got stolen. Should I just make Amazon send another every time? Should I be prepared to pay twice sometimes as a sort of privileged tax? Should I curb my consumerism out of fear? Really it should be the brick and mortar stores who capitalize on this. Start advertising in certain areas that have high package theft and cut into ecommerce market share.

JohnWhigham 5y ago

Also the mobile application Citizen, which is fucking cancer. It alerts to any little thing that happens and trains you to be in a constant state of paranoia. You thought the local news was bad enough? Now you have that shit in your pocket. And they fucking now hire rent-a-cops. In a normal country, this shit would be shut down immediately. But given that our federal government has quasi-failed its populace, not surprised it's allowed to flourish.

snarf21 5y ago
The should rename the app Bigotry because all it does is amplify your existing hatred.
- symlinkk 5y ago
  All it does is show you the reality of what’s happening around you. Why would that cause you to feel hatred or bigotry?
  - havkd 5y ago
    Being exposed to reality makes me feel hatred and bigotry.
lotsofpulp 5y ago
> In a normal country, this shit would be shut down immediately. But given that our federal government has quasi-failed its populace, not surprised it's allowed to flourish. Are you claiming a successful government would limit the ability of people to access public information?
- curryst 5y ago
  I presume the rent-a-cop portion was more concerning. One of the security companies they're working with has a pitch line that says if someone is outside your building screaming, they can come make them stop. It's one thing to offer defense services that follow you, but it's concerning to think that your neighbor or ex or stalker could soon call Nextdoor to send goons to your house.

Gravityloss 5y ago

I was getting something from my trunk the other winter. I parked on the street. I saw some light flashes but thought they were just some cars passing by or something. Turns out it was the Tesla parked behind me that was automatically flashing lights at me. There was nobody in that car. I wonder if it's even legal here to install a camera in a public place like that?

trutannus 5y ago
> I wonder if it's even legal here to install a camera in a public place like that? Depends on where you are, if you're on private property, and how your nation defines 'reasonable expectation of privacy' if they define such a thing at all. In a lot of North America, as long as you're in public and the camera is in public, it is entirely legal.

slackfan 5y ago

"Police suggest entire population in the Elm Terrace area do as follows: Everyone in every house in every street open a front or rear door or look from the windows. The fugitive cannot escape if everyone in the next minute looks from his house. Ready! " Of course! Why hadn't they done it before! Why, in all the years, hadn't this game been tried! Everyone up, everyone out! He couldn't be missed! The only man running alone in the night city, the only man proving his legs! "At the count of ten now! One! Two!" He felt the city rise... - Ray Badbury, Farenheight 451

shadowgovt 5y ago

David Brin's "The Transparent Society" is an interesting read for a couple of reasons. One is how many things have not come to pass... Given that it was printed in 1998, we've had over twenty years to see predictions not come to fruition. But another is his prediction of this precisely: that in a world where cameras, data recording, and analysis is cheap and easy, the big question is who will control their use: governments, individuals, non-government groups, or some mixture of the three. The one thing we can basically guarantee won't happen is a return to the pre-surveillance days... Like the car, these technologies cause society to re-organize around them such that those who don't have access to them (or try the Luddite approach of refraining from using them) have less power and eventually become marginalized. So the question becomes: "What is the best way forward," not "How do we get back?"

AndrewDucker 5y ago
You can read the, now 25 year old, article which started this off here: https://www.wired.com/1996/12/fftransparent/ https://www.wired.com/1996/12/fftransparent/

antiterra 5y ago

I'm really not sure where to begin on this mess of an article. I'm concerned about home security footage being easily available to authorities, but this throws the baby out with the bathwater by making a socioeconomic claim that only applies to a particular kind of urban neighborhood. On its face, this article suggests a 'surveillance state,' brought about by people surveilling their own property. The assumption here is that porch cameras are merely a way to attempt to stick it to thieves/pranksters who are simply the collateral damage of capitalism. However, porch cameras also function as communication devices, personal safety devices and informational devices about non-suspect behavior relevant to a resident. The underlying argument seems to be that the pursuit of 'safety' in the face of economic disparity and racial injustice is inherently discriminatory. Unfortunately, by hinging on porch cameras, it doesn't make much of a case. Is it possible to want to work towards a kind of universal justice but also not want a homeless shelter next to a kindergarten or the home where you are raising young children? Is it selfish to want to extend that to the elderly, or to single mothers, to yourself? And yes, there are elderly people, single mothers and even children in shelters, but some shelters consist largely of people struggling with powerful addiction and/or mental illness. On the other hand, there may not be a categorically better placement of the shelter, and we might even suggest that proximity to such facilities is the cost of dense urban living. To me, that's definitely worth writing and debating about, but this unfocused article built on controversial assumptions doesn't add much.

giantg2 5y ago
"On its face, this article suggests a 'surveillance state,' brought about by people surveilling their own property." The main issue is that the cameras capture other people's properties too, or (less problematically) public spaces. If it truly were only the owner's property, then this wouldn't be an issue.
- maccolgan 5y ago
  That's a far easier problem to solve than dismantling the "surveillance state"
- betwixthewires 5y ago

mathgladiator 5y ago

Based on this, I just decided to order a complete camera system for my house. As I age, I believe that the public should be 100% recorded. The public is common ground.

specialist 5y ago

Morality is how you behave when no one is watching. Since I'm a nerd, I've assumed that someone is watching and recording all the time. Since at least the early 90s. I guess I'm not very moral. These porch cameras make me think of The Moon is a Harsh Mistress for some reason. A well armed society is a polite society. I now wonder how Zoomers, the generation born into the panopticon, may have adapted. Will they be more moral, more careful, more circumspect? Or less? Or some mix? I'm encouraged by, and take as evidence, the rise of consent culture. Which is definitive moral progress.

arrozconcosas 5y ago

Why is it so acceptable for packages to be stolen? Imagine in the old days you went to a mall, bought something, and on the walk to the car someone ran by and grabbed your shopping bag and ran. This happens 100x more often today and there are seemingly zero consequences for it.

giantg2 5y ago
Legally, one is a theft while the other is likely a robbery. Robbery is generally treated more seriously. As for frequency, people are more likely to take something if they don't have to confront a person. There are also a lot more packages available to steal today since more people order online now.
beaner 5y ago
We care less because for the most part everyone is much better off than we used to be. Material wealth is easier to acquire and with less physical effort.
qvrjuec 5y ago
Probably because Amazon replaces most of them.
germinalphrase 5y ago
I’m simply surprised that there hasn’t been minimal cooperation from package carriers to develop a one time key system for porch lockboxes. The boxes wouldn’t even need to be robust. Package carrier walks up. Scans the package, taps the scanner to the box, drop the package in the box, and off we go. Sell them at Home Depot. People would buy.
- darig 5y ago
  I'm simply surprised that you don't realize UPS employees are a teamsters union who work under excruciating quotas. Fiddling with grandma's broken lock box is not an option. And off we go.
- alphabettsy 5y ago

raverbashing 5y ago

While privacy is important it can't be expected into places in plain view like porches. Yes usage of video data should be limited, etc. In the end this is like the dashcam cameras that helped cut on the amount of fake insurance claims and "he said/she said" accidents where one of the parts is clearly at fault.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

m-i-l 5y ago

In the UK this recently led to a £100,000 fine: "A judge has ruled that security cameras and a Ring doorbell installed in a house in Oxfordshire 'unjustifiably invaded' the privacy of a neighbour ... the devices ... broke data laws and contributed to harassment."[0] [0] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58911296 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-58911296

anonymousDan 5y ago
Yes I saw that, amazing ruling. I wonder will it have much affect on behaviour (e.g. reduced sales of Ring)
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  I am shocked about this: >Judge Melissa Clarke found that audio data collected by cameras on a shed, in a driveway and on the Ring doorbell was processed unlawfully. She noted that at the time it was not possible to turn off the audio recording facility - that happened in an update in 2020. I would have assumed all camera makers implemented a software toggle to disable audio recording. It seems like a basic function to avoid violating laws against recording audio when you are not party to the conversation. It is Amazon though, so I guess I should not be surprised.
upofadown 5y ago
>In the judgement it was found that the Ring doorbell captured images of the claimant's house and garden, while the shed camera covered almost the whole of her garden and her parking space. ...and... >She said that she found the audio data that could capture conversations "even more problematic and detrimental than video data". So it wasn't just a doorbell aimed at the street. It was the totality of the video and audio surveillance of an area that the neighbour could reasonably expect to be somewhat private.

zozin 5y ago

“It’s my pretty firm belief,” says Gilliard, “that the police should not be called unless someone’s life is in danger.” That can seem, to some, like a noble if naive thought. Yet Gilliard offers a retort. “The likelihood that it was a Brown or Black person who egged my car, based on where I live, is pretty high,” he says. “When you call the police on a Black or Brown person, there’s a good chance you are putting their life in danger. I don’t think that is a thing one should do lightly.” The mental gymnastics of well-intentioned paternalism is humorous to see in practice. If it’s rational not to call the cops in this situation because the risk of negative externalities is far too great, then two conclusions are possible: (1) black/brown people are rational actors and they know the chance of getting caught/punished is very low, thus are incentivized to continue breaking the law, thus creating a vicious cycle where more law breaking begets more leniency, which begets more law breaking or (2) black/brown people are not rational, and need the benevolence of others to make sure they do not end up in jail. Either way you slice it, it becomes clear that even well intentioned individuals are mostly acting out of self interest. It’s in the interests of Gilliard to not call the cops because losing a $50 package that will be reimbursed anyway is less important than projecting the image that he deeply cares about black and brown people.

d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
Yes, if you try to think about the problem logically you're always going to come to one of those sobering conclusions--"we must treat someone differently because of the color of their skin and factors outside of their control". If I was a marginalized group I would be pissed off that you're patronizing me and you don't think I'm capable of meeting your standards. It's the complete opposite of what we've been fighting for for the last 50 years.

sabujp 5y ago

Don't forget about the anxiety stricken netizens of nextdoor

d0gsg0w00f 5y ago
People in neighborhoods have always had anxiety about protecting their homes. This is nothing new. It's just that now you can hear their thoughts through lurking instead of talking to them in person.

CapitalistCartr 5y ago

On NextDoor, in my neighborhood, complaints of nighttime activity are normally accompanied by camera pictures. Lots of this. It seems to be the new normal.

motohagiography 5y ago

I like how I agree with the author about pernicious creep of surveillance, but for opposite reasons, where if he provided the same arguments against it to something else, I would be dismissive of them. It's as though the reason he's against the surveillance is because it strengthens neighbourhoods and the identity around them, presumably with his implied ideal being an atomized specimen of a group identity, who must amplify narrative to survive. Surveillance turns people into helpless targets for predators when the consequences of being caught defending yourselves are greater than giving predators what they are after, which rewards them, and they come back. Eventually what surveillance mainly does is empower a tiny minority of truly terrible people who for them the cameras are never on, or they don't care, and these are the most malicious and nasty people around.

WarOnPrivacy 5y ago

In my last neighborhood (HOA,golfcourse), cops were called on me twice. Once was for the social crime of walking with my teenage son and once for the more serious crime of walking with long hair. It would seem the last thing emotionally fragile homeowners need is better surveillance ability.

betwixthewires 5y ago

I thought this article was going to be about actual private technology making our streets into surveillance states. Turns out it's just about how you shouldn't call the cops on brown people for stealing your stuff. What a load of horse shit.

Jiro 5y ago

This amounts to "having cameras to catch thieves is bad because it catches too many black thieves". Thievery is a crime for good reason.

droopyEyelids 5y ago
While I found the way you stated it objectionable, the real catch-22 here is that while disadvantaged groups are more likely to commit crimes, _they're also way more likely to be the victims of crimes_ This is a hard fact to approach with justice in mind, and troubles a lot of the US discourse on crime and policing. Yes, if non-white-collar crime is policed effectively, it disproportionately affects people from underprivileged backgrounds. However it also disproportionately benefits those in the same sociological group. The real win would be successful rehabilitation and less lethal policing, in my opinion.
hackflip 5y ago
When you realize progressives are far more racist than conservatives.

lamontcg 5y ago

Seems like blaming the symptom and not the cause, along with proposing an individual-morality-centric solution. It is similar to blaming the climate crisis on lack of individual effort. The left is also never going to get people to be that enlightened about the security of their personal property. Focusing the average person's reasonable amount of personal property over private property / capital is always going to be a losing proposition for the left. Focusing on reducing inequality, providing more universal services (health care, child care, college) and reforming the cops to not be racist are the kinds of things that the left can actually sell the majority of the population. The bulk of the population though does want cops to show up with guns when people have broken into their house or their neighbors house. They don't want to be potentially raped/murdered and they don't want their shit stolen. The vast majority of people fall under this category, which is why even in my very progressive-leaning zip code in Seattle most of the houses are growing ring cameras these days. It might be a nice leftist ideal to not care about your own belongings because you're better off than everyone else, but put to a vote in the population that is always going to get voted down. Theft as a solution to homelessness is a policy that the average citizen is going to reject. Its like the left in this country only cares about being individually virtuous and doesn't care about getting anything done politically. Sometimes I wonder if they only swapped out religion in their life with leftist social politics but they still need to get that fix of being better than everyone else.

rkk3 5y ago
I thought the Harvard Professor's take was pretty out of touch > “It’s my pretty firm belief,” says Gilliard, “that the police should not be called unless someone’s life is in danger.” Sure it'd be extreme to call the police for someone egging your car, but what if they stole his car.
- 908B64B197 5y ago
  I don't think it's extreme. Vandalism creates a slippery slope where criminals now know that the neighborhood "doesn't care". Unless it's a prank by local teenagers of course.

throwawaysea 5y ago

I really don’t see the problem. People have a right to not be violated. Surveillance technology helps with that. If citizens want to voluntarily share their footage with police and companies help make that convenient, then what’s wrong with that? Just like we give police access to electricity and computers and cars, we should be willing to give them access to the latest in surveillance and facial recognition technologies. We can place controls on it to prevent mass surveillance without cause, but I have little sympathy for those who commit property crimes, burglaries, assaults, whatever. They deserve to be identified, located, arrested, and sentenced. Taxpayers deserve those actions to be performed as efficiently, cheaply, and effectively as possible. I am not really sure why “community division” matters above basic public safety.

sershe 5y ago

I don't understand why this article is trying to portray good things as dystopia. As someone who grew up ~poor surrounded by ~poor people, having achieved some financial security, one of my top priorities in life is to not live surrounded by poor people anymore. If technology helps that, great. I feel like the opposite perspective can only come from lack of personal experience and therefore misplaced compassion. Classism is fine. Classism being connected with racism-punching-down is a peculiarly American development (the classic examples of racism+classism throughout history in Europe/etc. are generally against minorities perceived as "unfairly" succeeding).

iamthemonster 5y ago

The language in this article is heavily biased towards considering a camera on your porch to be "surveillance"; a loaded term that implies an invasion of privacy. You have a reasonable expectation of privacy in your bathroom, at your kitchen table, in a public toilet etc. You don't have any reasonable expectation of privacy when standing on someone's porch. The home owner or a neighbour are not invading your privacy by seeing you standing at the porch. And particularly if you are standing on that porch for the purpose of stealing a package. The question of whether to report to the police is a separate issue, but really if you don't want to get reported to the police, don't steal packages. I don't think we are solving any problems by pointing the finger of blame at the person whose package was stolen.