For years, police around the country have used cameras to catch speeding drivers. In Boston, police have installed a system that detects the discharge of firearms in parts of the city. And at the city’s Real Time Crime Center, police officers and civilians use camera feeds to monitor criminal activity on city streets.
Now, in and around Boston, the federal government is financing the installation of security cameras under bridges, on thoroughfares, and around bustling shopping districts as part of an antiterrorism campaign.
Here's hoping they can stop the false flags of Lite-Brite advertising...
Now, I wonder something. Aside from revenue brought in by red light cameras, have these surveillance cameras done a damn thing towards reducing crime in Boston - or any other - neighborhoods? Is there any sort of correlation between the installation of these cameras and any tangible reduction in crime? Or are we permitting greater and greater intrusions into our liberties for no benefit whatsoever?
What irked me was this:
“We’re building a system that creates a net of surveillance over everyone in the Boston metropolitan region,’’ said Carol Rose, executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts. “It’s a net of surveillance that allows local police and federal agents to monitor and record our every movement without any oversight of how the information will be used now or in the long run.’’
Welcome to my world, Carol. Where the hell is the ACLU in MA when the local government runs roughshod over my Second Amendment rights? Y'all get all bent out of shape over affronts - real or perceived - to our First Amendment rights - which is great - but when it comes to the next amendment on the list y'all are curiously silent. You might want to think about changing your name to the ASCLU - American (Some) Civil Liberties Union... Your concern for our privacy is noted, yet rings strangely hollow as I submit my fingerprints so I can exercise my rights...
As for the cameras, all I can ask is, my fellow frogs, does this water seem a littler warmer to you today?
That is all.
4 comments:
They don't really work. One good article here:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2008/jun/26/politics.ukcrime
Colin
Jay,
Q: How does the ACLU count to 10?
A: 1,3,4,5 . . . 9,10
W.V. --> recha
The ACLU's stance on 2a rights makes me want to 'recha'
- Brad
Traffic light cameras and security cameras are two different animals. Different locations, different views, different rationale, different everything.
For one thing most, if not all of the security cameras can pan, tilt, zoom, and other neat camera stuff. Unfortunately they are not a preventative measure, their best use is investigative although they have been used to locate the exact spot where someone is who needs help when the person can't give the location.
Traffic light cameras are pure revenue generators and the data shows that accident and injury rates go UP when they are installed. Oh, they are also completely automated and can not be panned, tilted, zoomed, etc. as can surveillance cameras.
I don't particularly like either, but the truth is that anyone can film anything in public view. If we bar public officials from doing that, then they in turn can bar us from doing that. On balance we are better off if everyone can do that.
"If we bar public officials from doing that, then they in turn can bar us from doing that."
Yeah, except for that pesky First Amendment thing...
I mean, the Constitution hasn't meant much to the folks in power for many decades now, but at least IN THEORY we the people are supposed to have the power, and they the government are supposed to have the restraints...
There is no right to privacy, certainly; the prohibition is against "unreasonable search and seizure" such as it may be. Would surveillance equipment fall under that category? I don't know - I'm not certain even what statutes might apply.
I know that folks have gotten themselves into hot water for videotaping police officers; the wiretapping law has been bent all to hell and back again and then some.
Choir, meet preacher, I know...
Post a Comment