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Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

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Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#81

My first thought was: how is NYC not on this list since it has cameras on every block, and has for decades. And then I saw this: "Atlanta was the only place in the U.S. to crack the top ten, with 15.56 cameras per thousand residents." So they are looking at cameras per 1000 residents. This seems like the wrong way to count. If you point a camera at a block, you see everyone on that block whether there is one person o…

you're talking about number of people covered, but area covered might be an even better metric.

I think the number of cameras per 1000 capita is actually a good metric, it's easier to calculate and it probably is doing a good job on average.

Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#82
post #9

Top 20 1. Chongqing, China – 2,579,890 cameras for 15,354,067 people = 168.03 cameras per 1,000 people 2. Shenzhen, China – 1,929,600 cameras for 12,128,721 people = 159.09 cameras per 1,000 people 3. Shanghai, China – 2,985,984 cameras for 26,317,104 people = 113.46 cameras per 1,000 people 4. Tianjin, China – 1,244,160 cameras for 13,396,402 people = 92.87 cameras per 1,000 people 5. Ji’nan, China – 540,463 cameras…

This is really interesting! I've lived in 3 cities in this list: London, Beijing, and Chicago.

I can definitely say that I felt the safest in Beijing, at all time. It's a weird feeling being able to just randomly walk for hours in the streets at 4am alone, even if you're a girl, and feel completely safe.

London felt quite safe too, probably the safest city I've lived in in Europe.

Chicago on the other hand, I would never take walks in the evening, got into weird situations many times even during the day. It was quite the scary city for a European! Someone even got shot in my street when I was living there.

Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> There are vey few surveillance videos of that incident publicly available. Indeed. That's what I wrote. I think it's a good thing.

Why would you want to be less informed? Such information shouldn't be sensationalized or exploited for profit, but nor should it be suppressed. If you choose to kept in the dark - which is not the same thing as choosing not to look - then you are inviting deception and exploitation.

[deleted]

Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, it also conflates private/publicly owned cameras. As someone who lives in London, I think we get unfairly portrayed as a surveillance state, because really the vast majority of cameras are inside shops and businesses, not on the street, and not connected to any central databank. I personally don't find cameras like these troubling. Once you get out of central London, most streets don't have cameras on them.

Central London was a surveillance state more than 20 years ago.

Since 1984, one might say.

Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are plenty of surveillance (and other) videos of the London Bridge attack. The question is rather why would they publicise videos of people being stabbed to death or run over in HD gory details?

Because people want to know what happened and how. Otherwise liberty, accountability, and self-determination go out the window.

We are fully informed of what happened and how, including through detailed accounts, not least because, under UK law, a public inquest took place.

But, as said, I don't see the point of publicising videos of people being slaughtered.

Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#86
I'm curious if they are counting the cameras in cars. Each Tesla has 3+ cameras that actively record when in Sentry Mode. A Costco parking lot in Silicon Valley will have a dozen parked at any given time. That's another 36+ cameras. I can easily imagine a police investigation requesting footage from owners who may have had active recording during a crime.

The number of cameras will increase dramatically in this additional dimension, particularly as other manufacturers start adding surveillance to their vehicles.

Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#87
post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's just a town, like Roswell, but instead of EBEs and UFOs it has g-men and drones. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantico,_Virginia "There are no significant highways passing through Quantico. All road vehicles must pass through MCB Quantico in order to reach the town. Therefore, all vehicle drivers must present a valid driver’s license to the military security officer stationed at the gate, and may be required to…

> all vehicle drivers must present a valid driver’s license to the military security officer stationed at the gate, and may be required to state their destination and reason for visiting. So, not just a town, then.

It is a normal town, just a town surrounded by federal facilities. They don't forbid entrance and, iirc, they don't ask for ID from people not driving a cars.

Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And that's kind of weird. I could see Washington having heavy surveillance, for security. But Atlanta and San Diego? What's up with that?

ATL is the fraud capital of the USA and they're really only counting the tiny part of true Atlanta. San Diego has NBSD and several large shipyards in a small area.

As a San Diego Native and Resident, the cameras are part of a city wide project to put "Smart StreetLights" all around the City. They don't monitor anything specific but are used to gather evidence for crimes. San Diego does not actively monitor the videos from the camera.

https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/watchdog/story/201...

Honestly, I am not against this but it does strike me a solution looking for a problem.

Re: Six U.S. Cities Make the List of Most Surveilled Places in the World

#89

I'm curious if they are counting the cameras in cars. Each Tesla has 3+ cameras that actively record when in Sentry Mode. A Costco parking lot in Silicon Valley will have a dozen parked at any given time. That's another 36+ cameras. I can easily imagine a police investigation requesting footage from owners who may have had active recording during a crime. The number of cameras will increase dramatically in this addit…

Seems if they had a warrant they could ask Tesla to provide video from any car in that area at that time.
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