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A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

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Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Ok, I watched the video, and it’s not at all as you describe. Some guy walks closely by the bodyguard, and the bodyguard responds by shoving them through a display stand of products and onto the ground. The bodyguard was clearly the instigator of violence. Maybe the guy said nasty stuff to the bodyguard, but I saw no contact or physical threat. It’s only bad bodyguards and bouncers that get into fights. Good ones dee…

At the 0:10s mark of the video, the ex-stabber makes a move on the mayor and gets in the bodyguard's face, trading words. The SFChronicle reporter noted that critical detail you've overlooked.

Seeing the threat depends on one's bias. The mob that hates police and/or the mayor (he's jewish, billionaire, etc) can't see it, because all violence is supposedly the system's fault. Verbal threats are only real if the system does it.

For me, I lived next to the Tenderloin for two years & was threatened at knife-point by a nearby homeless. I think the risk warrants the shove. Maybe if the bodyguard hadn't shoved, the mayor would be fine. Or maybe the mob would have been much, much happier that day.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#232
post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I can see it in court now. Our AI monitoring system did indeed know about the threat to the building where 800 people died on Sunday. It says: " Agent: Voice to text detected: I have everything ready - all the XXX chemicals are ready in the van and I'm going to park in the 900 S Crap St now" Agent: Thread Level HIGH. Agent: Looking up local codes. Agent: Mayor signed SB-1238 in 2026 - no surveillance devices may be u…

The interesting thing is how I was making a very contained point pertaining to cameras, and how cameras, which we were talking about in this thread, seeing a verbal confrontation, could not and should not make a call, because a verbal confrontation is not a legal event. You then took this into a totally different case involving ... what? hypothetical recording of a conversation between two hypothetical terrorists? To…

You received a straw man and decided to engage it. You fell for the trap, and have already been put into a losing position. How are you supposed to recover from engaging this straw man.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps, depending on specific intent, credibility, and the nature of harm threatened. But since this is about surveillance, I hope that detection of verbal threats is not a goal of government surveillance because it's difficult to imagine how that could be accomplished without significant loss of privacy or other liberties.

I can see it in court now. Our AI monitoring system did indeed know about the threat to the building where 800 people died on Sunday. It says: " Agent: Voice to text detected: I have everything ready - all the XXX chemicals are ready in the van and I'm going to park in the 900 S Crap St now" Agent: Thread Level HIGH. Agent: Looking up local codes. Agent: Mayor signed SB-1238 in 2026 - no surveillance devices may be u…

alternatively, it turns out the voice to text ended up picking up on dialog from a movie the suspect was watching, and he opens the door to a SWAT team thinking that's his pizza being delivered.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#234
post #73

America needs to realize that this is absolutely not the land of the free anymore. The government and big business are in cahoots to screw you out of every cent they can and to make sure you're not about to commit some unspeakable act of terror, like hold up the wrong protest sign. Edit: case in point by https://www.techradar.com/pro/quote-of-the-day-by-oracle-co-...

Or maybe it is the land of the free, and its the ones acting the most unfree (and resigning to their agency and sense of empowerment) and pretending to strongly proclaim everyone else isn't free that are ruining it for others?

For example, you have a right to bear arms.

Peaceful protests, with guns, are a historically great way to remind those in power that the power comes with duty and obligation to protect the people. If that power is abused, there is always the legal right to bear arms and personally as a class of citizens jail and hold citizen justice. It is not just the state, local and federal elected officials, who hold all right to initiate legal process.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In my hope that violent criminals serve longer sentences than nonviolent criminals , perhaps there is a correlation between time-served and recidivism..? Living in a workingclass neighborhood, many of my most-favorite neighbors are felons of the nonviolent variety – nobody wants back in to their old prisonplanet – just keep looking forwards.

Yeah, the longer you're in, the less employable you are, and are more likely to reoffend. Our prison systems do fuckall for rehabilitation because in general, the public sentiment is "lock them up and throw away the key, I hope they get raped, prison isn't supposed to be fun". Our prison systems are basically set up amplify crime. It's good for the for profit owners, and conservatives eat up the dehumanization of it…

Very few US prisons are for profit.

Like I said in my other comment, some are more likely to reoffend because their prison time, but other were already more likely to reoffend, especially multiple felons who commit an extremely high percent of all crimes.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Honest question, do we know why crime isn’t being prosecuted anymore? I’ve noticed where I live this definitely seems to be the case and has a two fold effect, police aren’t even bothering to enforce laws because when they do the city/county refuses to prosecute and then criminals are getting wise to this and escalating their crimes. Previously where I live there would be violent crimes but generally in the early hou…

There's a lot here to unpack - and it's incredibly nuanced. Crime in most countries is on the decline, there have been "blips" or "spikes", but the reality is that crime is decreasing. When people talk about communities not being policed, there's also multiple things at play - partly it's perception, which is subjective, and not very reliable (back in my dayyyyyy), and partly it's about focus. As for prosecution - mo…

Crime statistics are on the decline. It's harder to tell whether actual crime is on the decline.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#238

I don't like needless surveillance either but we have people (and kids!) getting shot all over the city, and juries and judges that won't do anything without video or photographic evidence of the crime. I am literally willing to trade some of my liberty for safety in this case. When crime is under control, let's discuss getting rid of them (which I know is farfetched).

Guns and weapons have existed for much longer than mass video surveillance.

There is no reason why we cannot prosecute people for shooting, stabbing or robbing people because there isn't a 4K60FPS stream for the incident. We need investigators to start doing their job again..

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#239
post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I do not live in one of the cities that have issues with a large homeless population, so the experience is a bit lost on me That's the key experience you're missing. If you've never lived in a high-homeless/drug abuse area, you don't really understand how thoroughly draining it is on every aspect of civic life.

I recognize that I'm missing that part of the context, but it still surprises me that the answer to that is relatively global surveillance. In the current state of things, homelessness is perfectly public and observable, right? And so at any point now, the proposed "enforcement" could take place without the need for cameras? I think that part is unclear to me as well, the problem that exists that this solves.

Well, there are two ways to reduce homelessness: enforce vagrancy laws directly or wait for homeless people to commit a second crime and arrest them for that.

Some American cities have the state capacity necessary to do the former option, but the rest are stuck with the latter. And the latter only works if you can get evidence for low-level crimes when they happen.

Re: A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

#240
post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The countryside. Near-zero public surveillance, near-zero violent crime, and conservative sheriffs and juries who work to keep it that way.

This is only true if you conform to social conservatism. Conservatives embrace authority and condone using it to enforce conformity. They only want less government when it comes to their own taxes & guns.

Everything has a tradeoff
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