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This isn't about CCTV vs Drones. This is about forensic and surveillance technology advancement vs civil liberties, the expectation and right to privacy, and t

This isn't about CCTV vs Drones. This is about forensic and surveillance technology advancement vs civil liberties, the expectation and right to privacy, and the abuse of new powers. > ..tool for when crime happens but what do we do when it's guaranteed to be abused? Law enforcement would love to be able to record all phone calls and keep comprehensive videos of every event. Going backwards, people have argued for having people fingerprinted by default vs only when being processed during a criminal investigation. In each case, it is the acceptance that while the tools are valuable, we draw the line saying that : "Yes, the marginal utility of having 1 drone flying or 1 or a 100, vs their impact and chance for abuse is something we are uncomfortable with." The question I suspect that is worth looking at, which I don't have data for, is the value of increased CCTV/Monitoring technology in solving crimes. I'd rather offer a Stradivarius to someone who can get the most out of it, vs someone who can occasional hit the right notes from it.

Kequc 14y ago
This is the part I don't understand is that in almost any way you look at it CCTV are a benefit to the masses. An example of one benefit to having CCTV spread out over downtown is that you can relieve some police presence and spread them out to places that aren't. Another benefit would be that crimes committed in downtown would be recorded forcing criminals to wear masks rather than relying on the shock of the incident to make the victim forget details about the perpetrators features. If you have criminals walking around wearing masks then they can be quite easy to spot. Another benefit would be in the case of this bombing. When I first heard of the bombing I was pretty interested, I wanted to know who put the bombs there, when and then who they were and what their problem was. I figured well they'll pull up CCTV and we'll all know what happened. Instead police are being relied on to manage all of it in the moment. It isn't a violation of freedom to be filmed in public, that's completely legal. People just start getting up in arms about it when it's a service offered by the american government for some reason. Any private individual is allowed to film for who knows what reason.
- deepvibrations 14y ago
  So the world you want to live in is covered in CCTV and people being monitored everywhere? Sounds like a 'trust nobody' world, 1984 style... Don't you think it's about time we set about looking at why people commit these crimes and tackling these problems at the roots? Why not try and PREVENT these things from happening rather than acting after people have committed crimes by locking them up, which often only serves to create a life-long criminal rather than helping in any way.
  - iy56 14y ago
    The approaches are not mutually exclusive.
  - Kequc 14y ago
    One way you could prevent more bomb attacks from happening is by catching the people responsible for this one. Besides that, I am not advocating CCTV everywhere, but downtown, or Subways, places that see extremely high throughput cannot be policed effectively by the police on their own. If you would say that maybe it's a good thing police cannot police everything, then how can you say police are necessary in the first place? They are supposed to be there to police, the cameras do the same thing better. Somewhere else in this thread people were talking about drones. But that can happen right now, through private surveillance firms that would then sell information to the government. But then you're just lining some CEOs pocketbook instead of having a surplus. How is that a benefit?
- zorpner 14y ago
  It isn't a violation of freedom to be filmed in public, that's completely legal. "legal" is hardly the same thing as "[not] a violation of freedom"; in fact they're often orthogonal.
  - Kequc 14y ago
    Things are going to be stressful then as google glass gets popular. ;)

Kequc 14y ago

This is the part I don't understand is that in almost any way you look at it CCTV are a benefit to the masses. An example of one benefit to having CCTV spread out over downtown is that you can relieve some police presence and spread them out to places that aren't. Another benefit would be that crimes committed in downtown would be recorded forcing criminals to wear masks rather than relying on the shock of the incident to make the victim forget details about the perpetrators features. If you have criminals walking around wearing masks then they can be quite easy to spot. Another benefit would be in the case of this bombing. When I first heard of the bombing I was pretty interested, I wanted to know who put the bombs there, when and then who they were and what their problem was. I figured well they'll pull up CCTV and we'll all know what happened. Instead police are being relied on to manage all of it in the moment. It isn't a violation of freedom to be filmed in public, that's completely legal. People just start getting up in arms about it when it's a service offered by the american government for some reason. Any private individual is allowed to film for who knows what reason.

deepvibrations 14y ago
So the world you want to live in is covered in CCTV and people being monitored everywhere? Sounds like a 'trust nobody' world, 1984 style... Don't you think it's about time we set about looking at why people commit these crimes and tackling these problems at the roots? Why not try and PREVENT these things from happening rather than acting after people have committed crimes by locking them up, which often only serves to create a life-long criminal rather than helping in any way.
- iy56 14y ago
  The approaches are not mutually exclusive.
- Kequc 14y ago
  One way you could prevent more bomb attacks from happening is by catching the people responsible for this one. Besides that, I am not advocating CCTV everywhere, but downtown, or Subways, places that see extremely high throughput cannot be policed effectively by the police on their own. If you would say that maybe it's a good thing police cannot police everything, then how can you say police are necessary in the first place? They are supposed to be there to police, the cameras do the same thing better. Somewhere else in this thread people were talking about drones. But that can happen right now, through private surveillance firms that would then sell information to the government. But then you're just lining some CEOs pocketbook instead of having a surplus. How is that a benefit?
zorpner 14y ago
It isn't a violation of freedom to be filmed in public, that's completely legal. "legal" is hardly the same thing as "[not] a violation of freedom"; in fact they're often orthogonal.
- Kequc 14y ago
  Things are going to be stressful then as google glass gets popular. ;)