Say Anything Blog

Just because it’s constitutional doesn’t make it a good idea.  There’s a huge potential for abuse with these cameras.  Just the other day I read about a traffic cop using airport security cameras to ogle women. 

Do you want your employer to know you patronize stripper bars?  Someone with access to the video could try to blackmail you with those images. 

Look at the red light cameras that are supposed to improve traffic safety at intersections.  Instead they are put at intersections with no history of traffic accidents and then the timing of the lights are monkied with so they can turn the system into a new source of revenue.

Instead of forcing the innocent citizens of the world to live as if they were convicts in prison perhaps we could, I don’t know, kill the terrorists and all who finance and train them. I know that is not nearly as fun as making people stand in lines, pay for 5 forms of ID, and get a number stamped on their foreheads, but hey, call me crazy, I have always thought the terrorists should be the ones punished. Not everybody else who are just living their lives. As for the wonderful surveilence camera system in London, they have not proved that any of these people arrested are guilty. Hell, from stills released so far they have not shown any of these guys actually carrying any explosives, only that they,or someone who looks like them, were in tube stations in the hours before the blasts. We know who is preaching this crap, we know who is financing this crap, and we know who is training jihadis for this crap. Lets us go get them, not make grannys and toddlers strip down in order to get on the bus.

Just the other day I read about a traffic cop using airport security cameras to ogle women.

What stops police officers from ogling women from their cruisers?  Beautiful women, in public, get looked at.  Pointing surveillance cameras at beautiful women instead of monitoring for crime, however, is a type of misbehavior that should be dealed with by the officer’s superior.  I just don’t see where that’s a good argument against the cameras themselves.

Instead of forcing the innocent citizens of the world to live as if they were convicts in prison perhaps we could, I don’t know, kill the terrorists and all who finance and train them.

Well sure, I’m for this too.  But in the mean time...why not use surveillance cameras to keep us safe from more attacks and other types of crime?

I know that is not nearly as fun as making people stand in lines, pay for 5 forms of ID, and get a number stamped on their foreheads, but hey, call me crazy, I have always thought the terrorists should be the ones punished. Not everybody else who are just living their lives.

No offense...but that’s a bit hysterical.  We’re not talking about five forms of id and forehead tattoos here.  We’re talking about surveillance cameras in public spaces.  Its not that unreasonable of a proposition.

As for the wonderful surveilence camera system in London, they have not proved that any of these people arrested are guilty.

No, but they have helped London law enforcement apprehend suspects.  If these suspects are convicted, will it exonerate the use of these cameras for you?

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

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I’ve got to disagree with you here Rob.  I don’t like the feeling of being watched as if I was a convict in a prison as 2Hotel9 puts it and I don’t like the fact that the police have eyes and increasingly ears everywhere.  We’re fast on the road to an easily enforced police state with these cameras.  The next thing you’ll be telling me is that it is okay for the police to install x-ray style cameras that examine the bone structure of the face (already being done in some places) and software to inspect and catelogue the gait of people (also already being done in some places). 

Technically legal or not doesn’t matter, it’s not living in freedom. We’re setting up a system ripe for government abuse and history can guarantee that the rooster of government abuse will come home to crow loudly using these legal tools as its ammo.

You want a world police state, fine, YOU do that. Don’t think we are going to just let you do it to us. Government can not make you safe, you give power to a group of tiny minded,frightened little people and you will be the one they come after. Think you will get a position of power and privilege when it is done, think again. Don’t you think people in Germany supported the measures the Nazis took, all the while saying that nothing bad would ever happen to them. Don’t you remember the great people’s revolution. What was done in the name of safety and security in USSR. Cycles, repetitive cycles. And why? Because people refuse to learn from history.

I don’t like being watched myself, however the cameras would probably catch millions of people per day and not focus just on you.

So if it focuses on everybody instead of “just on you”, you’re okay with it?

Frankly if it helps track down terrorists and it doesn’t track me for no reason, I’m all for it.

Impossible insurance. Governments don’t work that way. It will track you for no reason. We’re right around the corner from databases that for the information to go into. We’re also right around the corner from technological advances to make it possible to watch and focus on everybody within view.

You may be okay with a government that knows where you are, what you are doing, and who you are with, but I’m not.

I don’t like being watched myself, however the cameras would probably catch millions of people per day and not focus just on you. Frankly if it helps track down terrorists and it doesn’t track me for no reason, I’m all for it.

Gotta agree with likwidshoe on this one.  Whether you have something to hide or not (and most of us don’t) isn’t the issue.  The issue is government intrusion--and I don’t care what the reason.

I realize they’re ‘public’ cameras and therefore may not be an ironclad 4th Ammendment issue, but they certainly violate the spirit of it.  As an aside, I’ve not been a proponent of the traffic cameras, either.  Even passively ‘watching’ me gives me a very uncomfortable feeling.

Where I go, and what I do, and who I do it with is all my business, not the goverment’s, until and unless I break the law.  And you don’t get to flood the public square with cameras in order to make it easier to ‘catch’ me on the off chance that I will break the law.

Regards…

I know we can’t be guaranteed that we won’t be watched but a camera that gets millions of people per day won’t just follow you around unless you have something to hide.

Yes it will.  We are right around the corner from technological advances that will permit the camera to follow and focus on everybody.  There won’t necessarily be a human on the other end watching you, but the information will go into a database for the government to access at will.  And besides, no camera will be burdened with “millions of people per day”.

So if it focuses on everybody instead of “just on you”, you’re okay with it?

Of course I am, but I didn’t say that. I wrote the general you and you knew that. I know we can’t be guaranteed that we won’t be watched but a camera that gets millions of people per day won’t just follow you around unless you have something to hide.

Well I guess I don’t get much say anyways as my city already has public cameras.

support your local camera smashing vandal. The technology exists to easily store and catalog indefinite amounts of hours in a database. They’re already doing it per evidence of satelite footage being used in criminal trials, etc. I’ve got nothing to hide, but I’m certainly not cool with it.

You guys are talking about government intrusion...while you’re out in freakin’ public.

These are cameras on public streets.  Period.  You don’t have an expectation to privacy when you’re walking about in public.  Period.

I guess I just don’t understand why you’re all so paranoid.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

it’s not paranoia at all...it’s anger toward the state of mind that puts the camera there in the first place.

I don’t know? Because we are American citizens, not terrorists?

What...American citizens don’t get mugged?  Raped?  Murdered?

Hit-and-runs don’t happen in America?

These cameras could help with all these things, all the while not violating anybody’s privacy rights.

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Rob said, I guess I just don’t understand why you’re all so paranoid.

“Paranoid”?  I just don’t like the government watching every damn aspect of my life, thank you. They’re in my wallet, jonesing to get into my health care, they know my life’s work history, they know my education, they know my address and every damn place I’ve ever lived, and they know some things I’d rather not discuss here.

I’m married to an abusive government and I want a divorce. And just because I’m out in a “public space”, doesn’t give them the right to film me.  If one of my ex-girlfriends was doing that, we would call it stalking.

I see what likwidshoe is getting too. He thinks that if we install these cameras then it will lead to other things like creating a database of everyone.

Lets say this scenario does happen, it’s still millions of databases. The databases is a good thing to. If we get another terror attack we can view the database of Abu Gabarjana and see what types of activities he did and then we can compare those to people on terrorist watch lists. ]

I’m still not seeing a valid reason.

Except that they wouldn’t be watching every aspect of your life. Just the bits lived on the public street…where the rest of the public is free to watch anyway.

The “watching every aspect” of my life goes beyond the cameras.  The cameras are just an extension.

What prohibits it? Where does the constitution prohibit this?

Nothing. They have the legal right because there is no Constitutional guarantee to privacy (pay attention libs). I was thinking more of the moral and ethical right and should have been more clear in that regard.

If your ex-girlfriend were standing on a street corner filming and you happened to walk buy it would be considered stalking?

No. But if she set up cameras at every street corner and road for the specific purpose of watching me I would.

“Paranoid”? I just don’t like the government watching every damn aspect of my life, thank you.

Except that they wouldn’t be watching every aspect of your life.  Just the bits lived on the public street...where the rest of the public is free to watch anyway.

And just because I’m out in a “public space”, doesn’t give them the right to film me.

What prohibits it?  Where does the constitution prohibit this?

If one of my ex-girlfriends was doing that, we would call it stalking.

If your ex-girlfriend were standing on a street corner filming and you happened to walk buy it would be considered stalking?

The war against illegal plunder has been fought since the beginning of the world. But how is… legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime. Then abolish this law without delay … If such a law is not abolished immediately it will spread, multiply and develop into a system.

Frédéric Bastiat, The Law

Rob’s recently listened-to songs:

Lets say this scenario does happen, it’s still millions of databases.

How do you figure?  We are moving towards consolidating databases.  Everyone will have a profile (I think you are using “database” instead of profile) accessible by one database eventually.

I’m still not seeing a valid reason.

Perhaps you will one day in the future when someone gives you the run down about how you spend your days. Where you go, who you’re with, what kind of transportation you use, what you are carrying in your pockets, etc.  But if you don’t value your privacy, you’ll never see a “valid reason” because you have discounted the reason.

How would you feel if every square mile of public land were monitered by a camera? Parks, national forests, everywhere. Want to go camping? camera. Hanging out by the river? camera. Definitely not cool micro or macro scale. It’s also to do with lost scope of what and where the FREE WORLD is...like, the earth we live on that isn’t some piece of sanctioned property under a flagpole. It’s quite literally for the health of humanity that you be able to walk around with a certain sense of FREEDOM about you. It’s not fair to people living near these camera’d areas to have to travel farther to obtain that sense of freedom of movement.

Try and set up your own camera in public and let it whirrrr, see how long it lasts...set one up on a corner next to your mayor or police chief’s house, see how long they’re cool with it. Tell them you’re doing it for their own safety..."just in case”.

Good point. They have the right to surveil me, I have the right to surveil them. Let’s see how fast they smash those cameras.

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