Watching You For Your SAFETY, RIGHT!?

[rhgunguy]

That's easily fixed - outlaw wearing any hat/scarf/bandanna/balaclava that covers or obscures the face in any way. If people freeze and catch pneumonia during the winter months, to hell with them! The politicians and police need control!!

Right, because criminals wouldn't break the law.

 

[azredhawk44]

These cameras won't be watched 24/7 (if at all). They will be recording to a computer somewhere, over-writing the same file over and over again with about 1 week or 1 month of current footage.

They will only be perused if a crime is reported by someone else later on.

I see it as a gross waste of money. 2 million dollars will put another 40 cops on the street for a year. 81 million dollars does that for 40 years.

Will those cameras last 40 years?

 

[Handy]

Wild,

I think you really aren't considering this from a technological standpoint. There is enough storage and processing power now available to not only watch but track the movements of individuals. And since it is a public entity, that ability to keep tabs on individuals, even as an afterthought, is truly terrifying.


You'll start to see probable cause searches based on the strength and timing of nothing more than associations or buildings visited. And you'll see abuses as access to the system is used to reveal personal details that don't belong in the public eye, despite the discretion the parties might have used.


While it may be a strange way to put it, but people are free because they can choose to do wrong, and don't. Ubiquitous law enforcement effectively removes choice.

 

[carbiner]

Wow.......

The liberals/gov in L.A. are watching free people with camares in the streets now, thats creepy

Kalifornia, you folks are being over run by illegal aliens, gun bans, taxation, and now public surveillance, and with your own money.

And some of you say, oh well, as long as your not doing something wrong.

What does the "WRONG THINGS" list read like

 

[xrageofangelsx]

Nice tag, Handy.

 

[carbiner]

Handy, are you for LESS government, or MORE?

 

[GoSlash27]

I like how all the people here who have no qualms about Bush imprisoning citizens without due process and intercepting phone calls without a warrant are all up in arms about the cameras.
Why can't you folks see that it's *all* wrong?

 

[azurefly]

Im dying to see the argument on how PUBLIC cameras infringe on anyones "rights"...

Would you argue against a cop standing on a street corner watching?

You dont like cameras? Vote em out

How do people who love freedom, who are vastly outnumbered by the idiot sheeple in NYC, "vote em out" there? It's a lost cause. Even though freedom-lovers are right, and the sheeple are idiots and are wrong, the idiots and their police-statist keepers get their way -- more and more power to watch and control the people.

Would I argue against a cop on EVERY street corner, so that there was not a chance I could ever go anywhere in public without being observed and tracked by the police? You're goddamned right I would!

What you seem to be forgetting is that ours is NOT supposed to be a nation in which we come and go and the pleasure of our government; and ours is NOT supposed to be a nation in which we live under constant supervision, analysis, tracking, and surveillance by our government.

-azurefly

 

[azurefly]

As a photographer, I hear about and read an endless string of stories about photographers being harassed, badgered and sometimes physically attacked for doing nothing more than making photographs in public places. The majority of such incidents involve police officers, security "officers" with no police powers, and rent-a-cops, also with no police powers. This is all justified under the pretext of "fighting terrorism."

I find it disturbing that the right of ordinary citizens to photograph in public places is under attack, while at the same time the government is instituting nonstop surveillence of citizens in public places.

I'm still not convicned that nonstop government surveillence of citizens in public places is not a violation of the individual's right to be free from unreasonable search.

If that's okay, then why is it not okay for the government to listen to your phone conversations and read your e-mail? If you have nothing to hide, why do you care??

Where does it stop??

Steelheart, good post!

Why don't you folks who are cheerleaders for government surveillance go drive across the Verrazano Narrows Bridge in NYC, and observe the signs that tell you it is illegal to take photographs on/of the bridge?

Explain to us where the government derives its power to outlaw the taking of photographs in public, and then tells us that it may photograph us in public at any time and place because there's nothing illegal about taking photos of people and things in public.

-azurefly

 

[MicroBalrog]

Would you argue against a cop standing on a street corner watching?

Legally one could vote to send a cop fllowing every citizen in public everywhere he went. Long as it is in public, it's technically legal, you know.

 

[azurefly]

Yes, and anathema to the idea of American liberty and freedom from oppression!

It is OPPRESSION to be under the thumb of a government at all times, and that is what many of you seem to be ignoring.

-azurefly