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I would like to argue for the surveillance state, or at least government cameras recording all public actions. Consider what it means to be in public. If you a

I would like to argue for the surveillance state, or at least government cameras recording all public actions. Consider what it means to be in public. If you are in public you are giving up your implicit right to privacy relating to being viewed or overheard (and depending on jurisdiction, recorded without permission). I would argue that it is perfectly reasonable for the government to have as many cameras as they want in public spaces, with a few caveats: * The data from the cameras should be publicly available. Probably not in real time (or with the option for the temporary disabling of real time by law enforcement until after whatever they disabled it for has ended (with obvious common sense restrictions, like maximum 48 hour delay)). * This would require changes to laws, and society, about how illegal certain types of information is (information should not be inherently illegal) because anyone would be able to put anything on the public cameras, and to prevent cover-ups the data must always be there, even if horrendous and despicable (see: child rape, which is then child porn). * The government has to respect the privacy of private property. Obviously businesses (with public areas) may prefer the government to invade their privacy for the protection they get. But people should be able to request movement (or removal of areas being recorded) of camera's view. People will have to accept that being in public means potentially being recorded, and laws must adjust to fit that. There isn't a way around it if we like being able to take pictures, and recording ourselves. Other people will become recorded. Allowing the government to do it is a logical legal extension. Consider what this enables, and what we already have which mimics it, by accepting this we acknowledge the reality, and don't deny what can already happen. And then consider what this enables that we already don't have. In the end public cameras are just another piece of automation: * Following people's movements, and interactions, in public areas. We can already do this by tailing people. However currently it requires quite a lot of man power to do it (governments or corporations). With cameras anyone can do it, with some facial recognition software it becomes completely automated. You or I can see where any CEO goes, who they talk to, etc. Of course it can also be done to stalk people more easily (not that it's currently hard). * Recording people's conversations in public areas. We can do this with a directional microphone, or a well placed bug. * Every violent crime committed in public is easy to solve. This is reason we are installing them in the first place. We can't do this currently. But with this we can make it so it applies to police officers as well. * Real-time world analysis. The start of Ubiquitous computing[1]. We don't have this at all for now. We can tell where there is heavy traffic. Follow a protest. See the weather at an exact location. I'm sure some startups could do great things. So the next time you call your congressman, or discuss issues like this. Consider offering the compromise of making the recording public. It can also allow you to bring up the issues of illegal information (for example illegal primes are a good example of why it's ridiculous) or that there is no expectation of privacy in public. Besides it would give us a good excuse to have punk hairstyles (http://cvdazzle.com/ http://cvdazzle.com/). [1]http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubiquitous_computing

newman314 13y ago
What a stupendously BAD idea and a huge waste of resources. You seriously need to rethink this. What you are going to end up with is "normal" people being monitored/recorded etc. and the privileged being able to opt-out. Much like what has already been done with information such as home addresses etc. I'd much rather the money used for something useful like science.
- SolarNet 13y ago
  Oh don't get me wrong, I'd prefer we don't do this. I'm just saying if we do do it, we might as well make the data public.
- TeMPOraL 13y ago
  > I'd much rather the money used for something useful like science. Think how absolutely amazing and useful would such a thing be for science. With such data we could learn a lot about behaviour of people, groups, traffic, resource usage, etc. and use it to optimize the society even further. That there are bad sides doesn't mean that there aren't any good ones.
reginaldjcooper 13y ago
My opinion is that your points are all incorrect. \* It will not be publicly available other than behind a paywall a la PACER. \* No laws will change. The government and corporations are already protected from the consequences of acquiring illegal data so they (congress, lobbyists) will continue to not care if a non-corporate entity can access data safely or not. \* The government has already decided that you are well within your rights to photograph whatever you want from public land, they will angle the cameras however they like. Although I am sure wealthy people will be able to get cameras facing away from their neighborhoods somehow. Being in public does mean potentially being recorded. But that law was legalized before everyone had a camera and could easily aggregate it all. We should be fighting for laws against persistent, widespread recording or aggregation of photos and video done by private or government entities. \* You cannot tail everyone, everywhere with such low expenses without ubiquitous recording. Why not criminalize that? Otherwise any CEO can see where you or I go, who we talk to, etc. It will not be available for ordinary people to view CEOs or congresspeople. \* Recording people's conversations is illegal for private entities, but "voice stress analysis" is legal. Recording conversations in service to the NSA and DHS is probably illegal but they most likely have a secret court warrant that allows it but is unchallengeable. \* If you think every violent crime will be solved by recording everything, and that it is worth the collateral damage, I have got some news for you. If you're serious about recording conversations they're going to be able to solve many new conspiracy to commit "crimes," like if someone jokes about eating a child's heart in public. \* "Follow a protest" is exactly what they would like to do; by having computers everywhere they can skip having police get an identity and just add the protestors to a no-fly list directly, or look up their crimes from the email database and arrest the leaders at their leisure. No more embarrassing pepper spray incidents. Yes Google will be able to tell you the traffic or weather, startups will not be able to unless they are well-funded and well-connected. Making the recording public just allows abusive spouses to easily find their victim again as well as enabling all the shit the government would like to do. I want neither the government nor private entities to be allowed video data from hundreds of points around any given city.

newman314 13y ago

What a stupendously BAD idea and a huge waste of resources. You seriously need to rethink this. What you are going to end up with is "normal" people being monitored/recorded etc. and the privileged being able to opt-out. Much like what has already been done with information such as home addresses etc. I'd much rather the money used for something useful like science.

SolarNet 13y ago
Oh don't get me wrong, I'd prefer we don't do this. I'm just saying if we do do it, we might as well make the data public.
TeMPOraL 13y ago
> I'd much rather the money used for something useful like science. Think how absolutely amazing and useful would such a thing be for science. With such data we could learn a lot about behaviour of people, groups, traffic, resource usage, etc. and use it to optimize the society even further. That there are bad sides doesn't mean that there aren't any good ones.

reginaldjcooper 13y ago

My opinion is that your points are all incorrect. \* It will not be publicly available other than behind a paywall a la PACER. \* No laws will change. The government and corporations are already protected from the consequences of acquiring illegal data so they (congress, lobbyists) will continue to not care if a non-corporate entity can access data safely or not. \* The government has already decided that you are well within your rights to photograph whatever you want from public land, they will angle the cameras however they like. Although I am sure wealthy people will be able to get cameras facing away from their neighborhoods somehow. Being in public does mean potentially being recorded. But that law was legalized before everyone had a camera and could easily aggregate it all. We should be fighting for laws against persistent, widespread recording or aggregation of photos and video done by private or government entities. \* You cannot tail everyone, everywhere with such low expenses without ubiquitous recording. Why not criminalize that? Otherwise any CEO can see where you or I go, who we talk to, etc. It will not be available for ordinary people to view CEOs or congresspeople. \* Recording people's conversations is illegal for private entities, but "voice stress analysis" is legal. Recording conversations in service to the NSA and DHS is probably illegal but they most likely have a secret court warrant that allows it but is unchallengeable. \* If you think every violent crime will be solved by recording everything, and that it is worth the collateral damage, I have got some news for you. If you're serious about recording conversations they're going to be able to solve many new conspiracy to commit "crimes," like if someone jokes about eating a child's heart in public. \* "Follow a protest" is exactly what they would like to do; by having computers everywhere they can skip having police get an identity and just add the protestors to a no-fly list directly, or look up their crimes from the email database and arrest the leaders at their leisure. No more embarrassing pepper spray incidents. Yes Google will be able to tell you the traffic or weather, startups will not be able to unless they are well-funded and well-connected. Making the recording public just allows abusive spouses to easily find their victim again as well as enabling all the shit the government would like to do. I want neither the government nor private entities to be allowed video data from hundreds of points around any given city.