6 ms·

Sounds like great technology

by rcpt 2y ago

soulofmischief 2y ago
The government of NYC has a long history of abusing the rights of its people and engaging in overreaching and unwarranted surveillance. They have not shown that they can be trusted with even traffic cameras. They scan license plates all through the city and use this technology to create a chilling effect which allows their authoritarian regime to remain unchallenged.
- bobthepanda 2y ago
  These cameras in particular would not be any good for that. They're usually mounted super high up and very low resolution, at 0.5FPS, and they are in such high traffic locations that bumper to bumper traffic would just obscure the plates of the cars in front and behind. You can see the data feeds here, actually. https://webcams.nyctmc.org/map https://webcams.nyctmc.org/map. You can hardly make out anything.
- mikeweiss 2y ago
  License plates are constantly scanned everywhere in the United States by public and private entities. What is the chilling effect you're referring to?
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    Yes, and it's actually pretty rampant in my own current city, it's been a huge sore point for years with activists. The chilling effect is that resistance becomes that much harder as the authoritarian ratchet tightens. When the movements of people can be tracked en masse via some panopticon, it is very easy to prevent them from organizing into any real threat against the incumbent. Here's an example from just last month in my city: https://www.wbrz.com/news/license-plate-readers-popping-up-at-mall-of-louisiana/ https://www.wbrz.com/news/license-plate-readers-popping-up-a... Crime, etc. are always the reason given. But my city has repeatedly shown they cannot be trusted with these kinds of powers. Here's more information from the ACLU on this exact topic: https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/chilling-effects-license-plate-location-tracking https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/chilling-effects... > Knowing or suspecting that we're being watched can stop us from engaging in certain kinds of behavior, even when it's perfectly lawful. For example, it might affect our decision to go to a certain barber (what would my other barber say?), meet up with a friend (what would my mom say?), eat at a restaurant (what would my trainer say?), or take the scenic route (is it suspicious that I'm not using my normal route?) Keep in mind that just a few decades ago we had the Red Scare. We harassed and ruined the lives of people over thoughtcrime, for simply supporting the notion of alternate economies or just accepting those who did. Imagine the scope of that if we'd had the surveillance network that we do today. And there is no indication that we won't have a similar event in the near future. Lastly, I know your question is in good faith and thank you for asking for clarification. That said, it's important to consider that manufactured normality isn't a valid reason to not question authority. It's quite easy for Corpgov to do anything at scale long enough that new generations are born into it and wholly accept it without question. All expressions of governmental authority must be constantly challenged and defended, and any possibility of chilling effects should be investigated thoroughly, time and again. This is our duty as The People, the fourth branch of the government. This is the critical check and balance which keeps things from becoming irrecoverably fucked.
    - AtlasBarfed 2y ago
      People need to understand the danger of the current surveillance infrastructure. Turnkey totalitarianism. Totalitarian control is turnkey in America if the "wrong guy" gets in. It's funny because the voters aren't demanding limits, and yet each election cycle is life or death not just because of the he escalating propaganda... I think voters know that we are close to total oppression, on a subconscious fear level. Whether in the next four or forty years, someone will do it.
    - try_the_bass 2y ago
      None of this is evidence of the "chilling effect" you claimed and were just asked about, though? You realize you're just moving the goalposts, right?
      - soulofmischief 2y ago
        I'm sorry, which part of my post did you have trouble with? I can try to break it down for you further until you understand. What do you perceive to be the moved goalposts here?
        try_the_bass 2y ago
        I guess I was expecting some concrete examples of this chilling effect you spoke of? Your comment only refers to things in the hypothetical, before diverging off into other related topics. Do you have any actual examples of "resistance" that have been stifled by this "chilling effect"? I understand your hypotheticals and the point you're making, but we can conjure hypotheticals for any situation or context, all without any specific relationship to truth.
        soulofmischief 2y ago
        Well, it's not a hypothetical to say that surveillance leads to reduced non-conventional civic participation and reduces the ability for citizens to safely engage in protest. We can look at contemporary research of highly surveilled institutions: https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Student-Activity-Monitoring-Software-Research-Insights-and-Recommendations.pdf https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Student-Activity-... > Of students who indicate that their school uses monitoring software, many report a chilling effect on their behavior and self-expression online — six in ten students agree with the statement, “I do not share my true thoughts or ideas because I know what I do online is being monitored,” and 80 percent report being “more careful about what I search online when I know what I do online is being monitored.” We can review recent past high-profile, surveillance-oriented regimes like Nazi Germany, or the McCarthy-era Red Scare and Cold War. There is a multitude of personal accounts from that era, where anyone of note had to be extremely careful about what was said, to whom and where. Over and over throughout history, good things, like giving shelter to persecuted refugees or slaves, has been considered illegal. Citizens were told to snitch on one another. If drones were available then, you'd have seen them in every single nook and cranny. Politicians today wear nice, pressed suits and often conduct themselves pleasantly. But only a fool would buy into their brand of symbolic mind control. The reality is that many governments today are as evil as ever due to the scale and population today. And the ones that aren't, are in danger of becoming authoritarian. Authoritarian and populist movements have been sweeping through the West. Any technology we implement today represents codified procedure, whether codified in law or not. And that codified procedure will absolutely be used to enforce an arbitrary morality as defined by the incumbent party. We've seen this for a century with cannabis and the global war on drugs. We see this now with abortion, where citizens in Texas are encouraged to snitch on women who seek abortions. So looking forward, we can avoid hypotheticals while pointing to clear patterns in history, for those who need empirical evidence. We can also just establish self-consistent, ethical political frameworks which disqualify such unwarranted mass surveillance, simply on the grounds that regimes can change while codified procedure can be repurposed, and that mass surveillance erodes trust, without even needing to point to past atrocities and compromised governments. Happy to discuss further if this doesn't satisfy you. I can also draw from my own life experiences living under surveillance and child abuse, and the extreme chilling effect it caused, if you want anecdotal data.
  - LinuxBender 2y ago
    I've been curious about this. Are there leaked LPR databases that can be integrated with NVR's like Zoneminder, Shinobi, Blue Iris, Frigate and such? I know that some of them can read license plates but that's not entirely useful without an actual database of plates behind it. i.e. DMV, associated NCIC data, etc... As many times DMV's in many states have leaked data I would assume this must be a thing.
- _2d30 2y ago
  [flagged]
  - PittleyDunkin 2y ago
    > The authoritarian regime of the locally elected government? These are not in any way contradictory concepts. New york city is one of the most highly surveilled cities on the planet and has the highest police budget of any metro area in the world. The current mayor is a former cop who gets way too excited about working with the IDF and is super excited about using drones to spy on people even more invasively. Another recent former mayor campaigned on police harassing people on the street for literally no reason. They recently shot someone for fare skipping rather than simply removing fares, even though it's a massive loss to the city to staff the subway just to recoup a small percentage of lost revenue. Look you can disagree with it being authoritarian, but maybe it'd be worth pointing out how people voted against clearly authoritarian policies. It seems to my eye that people just want a police-based society over a liberal one.
    - soulofmischief 2y ago
      And let's not forget stop-and-frisk! These guys are criminals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit...
    - _2d30 2y ago
      Your post is composed of outright lies and, charitably, ignorant analysis. It reads more like propaganda than an actual argument. > They recently shot someone for fare skipping rather than simply removing fares, even though it's a massive loss to the city to staff the subway just to recoup a small percentage of lost revenue. This is an outright lie as you likely know. They shot a man who charged at them with a knife. Don't believe me? Watch the body camera footage. What's more, no major metro area in the entire world has fareless transit. Fares a key part of funding the operations of the public good and so is not something you "simply" do. NYC MTA prices are already extremely low (compare them against any other comparable Euro system) and have the option for low-income residents to pay half fares. > has the highest police budget of any metro area in the world. Simply taking a total budget and comparing it to other another total budget is at best a poor choice and at worst looks like more of a propaganda choice. Budgets would need to be scaled by population as well as local costs to make them remotely comparable. But what's more, to the extent that it's even true, it's quite marginal. The NYPD budget '25 is proposed at $5.75B[1] whereas, for example, the London MOPAC/MPS budget is 4.36B GBP[2] which converts to $5.5B. This was just the first major metro I checked! What's more a _perhaps_ more reasonable way to look at this would be police officers per capita. Here we can see that NY is comparable to many other major metro areas [3] and significantly below some (eg Paris and Madrid). But most importantly, the presence of police officers is not remotely authoritarianism. The enforcement of laws is not authoritarianism. The manner of restrictions, the immunity of the police and authorities above laws, the form of trial system, etc are what make up authoritarian systems and it is quite obvious that none of these characteristics remotely define NYC and it's a comedy to suggest so. [1] https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2024/03/056-NYPD.pdf https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2... [2] https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/MOPAC%20Draft%20Budget%20Submission%202024-25%20DRAFT%20FINAL.pdf https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/MOPAC%... [3] https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10183480/1/global_cities_officer_benchmarking.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10183480/1/global_citi...
- LEScrusto 2y ago
  [dead]
- wan23 2y ago
  What? A majority of New Yorkers don't own cars, and besides that the city government isn't exactly in a position to do much of anything to you if you challenge its "authoritarian regime".
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    NYC focuses on entry and exit points to track incoming and outgoing traffic, and internal criminal activity such as drug trafficking. Depending on your politics, you might argue that trafficking of certain drugs represents a form of protest against a violation of our Constitutional rights, and therefore the regime of NYC is authoritarian for continuing to oppose sensible governmental reform. Hochul's support of the IDF and the ongoing Palestinian genocide and attempts to silence and ostracize opponents of the genocide clearly marks her as an authoritarian in my book.

Sounds like great technology

by rcpt 2y ago

Sounds like great technology

The government of NYC has a long history of abusing the rights of its people and engaging in overreaching and unwarranted surveillance. They have not shown that they can be trusted with even traffic cameras. They scan license plates all through the city and use this technology to create a chilling effect which allows their authoritarian regime to remain unchallenged.

bobthepanda 2y ago
These cameras in particular would not be any good for that. They're usually mounted super high up and very low resolution, at 0.5FPS, and they are in such high traffic locations that bumper to bumper traffic would just obscure the plates of the cars in front and behind. You can see the data feeds here, actually. https://webcams.nyctmc.org/map https://webcams.nyctmc.org/map. You can hardly make out anything.
mikeweiss 2y ago
License plates are constantly scanned everywhere in the United States by public and private entities. What is the chilling effect you're referring to?
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  Yes, and it's actually pretty rampant in my own current city, it's been a huge sore point for years with activists. The chilling effect is that resistance becomes that much harder as the authoritarian ratchet tightens. When the movements of people can be tracked en masse via some panopticon, it is very easy to prevent them from organizing into any real threat against the incumbent. Here's an example from just last month in my city: https://www.wbrz.com/news/license-plate-readers-popping-up-at-mall-of-louisiana/ https://www.wbrz.com/news/license-plate-readers-popping-up-a... Crime, etc. are always the reason given. But my city has repeatedly shown they cannot be trusted with these kinds of powers. Here's more information from the ACLU on this exact topic: https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/chilling-effects-license-plate-location-tracking https://www.aclu.org/news/national-security/chilling-effects... > Knowing or suspecting that we're being watched can stop us from engaging in certain kinds of behavior, even when it's perfectly lawful. For example, it might affect our decision to go to a certain barber (what would my other barber say?), meet up with a friend (what would my mom say?), eat at a restaurant (what would my trainer say?), or take the scenic route (is it suspicious that I'm not using my normal route?) Keep in mind that just a few decades ago we had the Red Scare. We harassed and ruined the lives of people over thoughtcrime, for simply supporting the notion of alternate economies or just accepting those who did. Imagine the scope of that if we'd had the surveillance network that we do today. And there is no indication that we won't have a similar event in the near future. Lastly, I know your question is in good faith and thank you for asking for clarification. That said, it's important to consider that manufactured normality isn't a valid reason to not question authority. It's quite easy for Corpgov to do anything at scale long enough that new generations are born into it and wholly accept it without question. All expressions of governmental authority must be constantly challenged and defended, and any possibility of chilling effects should be investigated thoroughly, time and again. This is our duty as The People, the fourth branch of the government. This is the critical check and balance which keeps things from becoming irrecoverably fucked.
  - AtlasBarfed 2y ago
    People need to understand the danger of the current surveillance infrastructure. Turnkey totalitarianism. Totalitarian control is turnkey in America if the "wrong guy" gets in. It's funny because the voters aren't demanding limits, and yet each election cycle is life or death not just because of the he escalating propaganda... I think voters know that we are close to total oppression, on a subconscious fear level. Whether in the next four or forty years, someone will do it.
  - try_the_bass 2y ago
    None of this is evidence of the "chilling effect" you claimed and were just asked about, though? You realize you're just moving the goalposts, right?
    - soulofmischief 2y ago
      I'm sorry, which part of my post did you have trouble with? I can try to break it down for you further until you understand. What do you perceive to be the moved goalposts here?
      - try_the_bass 2y ago
        I guess I was expecting some concrete examples of this chilling effect you spoke of? Your comment only refers to things in the hypothetical, before diverging off into other related topics. Do you have any actual examples of "resistance" that have been stifled by this "chilling effect"? I understand your hypotheticals and the point you're making, but we can conjure hypotheticals for any situation or context, all without any specific relationship to truth.
        soulofmischief 2y ago
        Well, it's not a hypothetical to say that surveillance leads to reduced non-conventional civic participation and reduces the ability for citizens to safely engage in protest. We can look at contemporary research of highly surveilled institutions: https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Student-Activity-Monitoring-Software-Research-Insights-and-Recommendations.pdf https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/Student-Activity-... > Of students who indicate that their school uses monitoring software, many report a chilling effect on their behavior and self-expression online — six in ten students agree with the statement, “I do not share my true thoughts or ideas because I know what I do online is being monitored,” and 80 percent report being “more careful about what I search online when I know what I do online is being monitored.” We can review recent past high-profile, surveillance-oriented regimes like Nazi Germany, or the McCarthy-era Red Scare and Cold War. There is a multitude of personal accounts from that era, where anyone of note had to be extremely careful about what was said, to whom and where. Over and over throughout history, good things, like giving shelter to persecuted refugees or slaves, has been considered illegal. Citizens were told to snitch on one another. If drones were available then, you'd have seen them in every single nook and cranny. Politicians today wear nice, pressed suits and often conduct themselves pleasantly. But only a fool would buy into their brand of symbolic mind control. The reality is that many governments today are as evil as ever due to the scale and population today. And the ones that aren't, are in danger of becoming authoritarian. Authoritarian and populist movements have been sweeping through the West. Any technology we implement today represents codified procedure, whether codified in law or not. And that codified procedure will absolutely be used to enforce an arbitrary morality as defined by the incumbent party. We've seen this for a century with cannabis and the global war on drugs. We see this now with abortion, where citizens in Texas are encouraged to snitch on women who seek abortions. So looking forward, we can avoid hypotheticals while pointing to clear patterns in history, for those who need empirical evidence. We can also just establish self-consistent, ethical political frameworks which disqualify such unwarranted mass surveillance, simply on the grounds that regimes can change while codified procedure can be repurposed, and that mass surveillance erodes trust, without even needing to point to past atrocities and compromised governments. Happy to discuss further if this doesn't satisfy you. I can also draw from my own life experiences living under surveillance and child abuse, and the extreme chilling effect it caused, if you want anecdotal data.
- LinuxBender 2y ago
  I've been curious about this. Are there leaked LPR databases that can be integrated with NVR's like Zoneminder, Shinobi, Blue Iris, Frigate and such? I know that some of them can read license plates but that's not entirely useful without an actual database of plates behind it. i.e. DMV, associated NCIC data, etc... As many times DMV's in many states have leaked data I would assume this must be a thing.
_2d30 2y ago
[flagged]
- PittleyDunkin 2y ago
  > The authoritarian regime of the locally elected government? These are not in any way contradictory concepts. New york city is one of the most highly surveilled cities on the planet and has the highest police budget of any metro area in the world. The current mayor is a former cop who gets way too excited about working with the IDF and is super excited about using drones to spy on people even more invasively. Another recent former mayor campaigned on police harassing people on the street for literally no reason. They recently shot someone for fare skipping rather than simply removing fares, even though it's a massive loss to the city to staff the subway just to recoup a small percentage of lost revenue. Look you can disagree with it being authoritarian, but maybe it'd be worth pointing out how people voted against clearly authoritarian policies. It seems to my eye that people just want a police-based society over a liberal one.
  - soulofmischief 2y ago
    And let's not forget stop-and-frisk! These guys are criminals. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_City https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stop-and-frisk_in_New_York_Cit...
  - _2d30 2y ago
    Your post is composed of outright lies and, charitably, ignorant analysis. It reads more like propaganda than an actual argument. > They recently shot someone for fare skipping rather than simply removing fares, even though it's a massive loss to the city to staff the subway just to recoup a small percentage of lost revenue. This is an outright lie as you likely know. They shot a man who charged at them with a knife. Don't believe me? Watch the body camera footage. What's more, no major metro area in the entire world has fareless transit. Fares a key part of funding the operations of the public good and so is not something you "simply" do. NYC MTA prices are already extremely low (compare them against any other comparable Euro system) and have the option for low-income residents to pay half fares. > has the highest police budget of any metro area in the world. Simply taking a total budget and comparing it to other another total budget is at best a poor choice and at worst looks like more of a propaganda choice. Budgets would need to be scaled by population as well as local costs to make them remotely comparable. But what's more, to the extent that it's even true, it's quite marginal. The NYPD budget '25 is proposed at $5.75B[1] whereas, for example, the London MOPAC/MPS budget is 4.36B GBP[2] which converts to $5.5B. This was just the first major metro I checked! What's more a _perhaps_ more reasonable way to look at this would be police officers per capita. Here we can see that NY is comparable to many other major metro areas [3] and significantly below some (eg Paris and Madrid). But most importantly, the presence of police officers is not remotely authoritarianism. The enforcement of laws is not authoritarianism. The manner of restrictions, the immunity of the police and authorities above laws, the form of trial system, etc are what make up authoritarian systems and it is quite obvious that none of these characteristics remotely define NYC and it's a comedy to suggest so. [1] https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2024/03/056-NYPD.pdf https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2... [2] https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/MOPAC%20Draft%20Budget%20Submission%202024-25%20DRAFT%20FINAL.pdf https://www.london.gov.uk/sites/default/files/2023-12/MOPAC%... [3] https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10183480/1/global_cities_officer_benchmarking.pdf https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10183480/1/global_citi...
LEScrusto 2y ago
[dead]
wan23 2y ago
What? A majority of New Yorkers don't own cars, and besides that the city government isn't exactly in a position to do much of anything to you if you challenge its "authoritarian regime".
- soulofmischief 2y ago
  NYC focuses on entry and exit points to track incoming and outgoing traffic, and internal criminal activity such as drug trafficking. Depending on your politics, you might argue that trafficking of certain drugs represents a form of protest against a violation of our Constitutional rights, and therefore the regime of NYC is authoritarian for continuing to oppose sensible governmental reform. Hochul's support of the IDF and the ongoing Palestinian genocide and attempts to silence and ostracize opponents of the genocide clearly marks her as an authoritarian in my book.