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A walking tour of surveillance infrastructure in Seattle (2020)

coveillance.org

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

#41
post #33

I still feel so conflicted on things like the Flock cameras. On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes. Especially things related to vehicle theft, they could likely track down your stolen vehicle very quickly especially if they have a wide network of cameras. However, my concern is always about the possibility for misuse. Ev…

A lot of European countries manage it just fine. There can be reasonable rules and regulations put in place, but America usually waits until the worst harms have already occurred before regulating. It has already been heavily abused by the government/ICE. Hopefully we still have a functioning electoral system to make the necessary changes.

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

#42

Lots of po-mo art-school language on this site about “encoding ways of seeing” and “gazes.” The content itself is somewhat interesting but imo plain language would be more accessible.

It's a very strange mix of overexplaining basic concepts and in-depth details. I suspect AI.

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

#43
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language Two people arguing in public, words only, is close to a legal non-event in the US. So I would hope so?

Until one of them communicates a threat, then it is a criminal matter.

I don't think you're advocating to have our personal conversations continuously monitored whenever outside, but in the context of this thread, that's what it sounds like.

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

#44
post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> tolerating vicious verbal attacks disguised by somewhat subdued body language Two people arguing in public, words only, is close to a legal non-event in the US. So I would hope so?

Until one of them communicates a threat, then it is a criminal matter.

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.

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

#45

Saying that patterns are dangerous because they can reinforce stereotypes sounds a lot like you are saying the stereotypes are true.

Also the gorilla example from many years ago makes it seem like the author just superficially follows this stuff from the media. It was a single instance of misclassification in a widely deployed photo categorization model, not some reproducible trend with the models.

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

#47
post #33

I still feel so conflicted on things like the Flock cameras. On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes. Especially things related to vehicle theft, they could likely track down your stolen vehicle very quickly especially if they have a wide network of cameras. However, my concern is always about the possibility for misuse. Ev…

On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes. Do they? There are millions of these cameras all around the country, yet when pressed about their value, Flock and cops can only point to one or two crimes prevented/solved at a time. And they're usually things like "caught a burglar after the fact," or "stopped someone from dumpster…

I share the parent's internal conflict, but this is an interesting critique that I hadn't considered: The cameras don't actually work. Do we have any data on that? Seems like I hear about stolen cars (and their drivers) getting picked up fairly frequently due to these cameras. Is it marketing or is it true?

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

#48

I wonder what they mean by this? > The camera can have different ways of seeing encoded in it, including kinds of gazes that enforce social agreements about what kinds of behavior and people are considered “normal” The phrase "kinds of gazes" strikes me as the sort of thing that's only going to make sense to people trained in a very particular and idiosyncratic flavor of ethical critique. What a normal person sees he…

[flagged]

Usually, I'd say this sort of comment is not really contributing much to the conversation, but in this case I agree with the sentiment. With a lot of these posts about the surveillance tech that's becoming increasingly prominent everywhere in the public, there are a lot of commenters here that seem to be of the opinion that "this is fine, as long as you have nothing to hide, there's nothing lost" - or worse in this case, that perhaps that there's something to be gained by taking the "bizarre and dangerous" off the street. Admittedly, 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, but I am surprised to see, especially on this forum, people embrace any form of surveillance state. We evidently have learned nothing by both the performative and actual surveillance adds since the Patriot Act. Perhaps the general populous is in fact on board with this and those of us who aren't are the minority.

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

#49
post #33

I still feel so conflicted on things like the Flock cameras. On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes. Especially things related to vehicle theft, they could likely track down your stolen vehicle very quickly especially if they have a wide network of cameras. However, my concern is always about the possibility for misuse. Ev…

On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes. Do they? There are millions of these cameras all around the country, yet when pressed about their value, Flock and cops can only point to one or two crimes prevented/solved at a time. And they're usually things like "caught a burglar after the fact," or "stopped someone from dumpster…

> Get back to me when they find Samantha Guthrie.

Nancy?

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

#50
post #33

I still feel so conflicted on things like the Flock cameras. On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes. Especially things related to vehicle theft, they could likely track down your stolen vehicle very quickly especially if they have a wide network of cameras. However, my concern is always about the possibility for misuse. Ev…

On one hand I understand that they have the capability of incredibly enhancing the ability for police departments to solve more crimes. Do they? There are millions of these cameras all around the country, yet when pressed about their value, Flock and cops can only point to one or two crimes prevented/solved at a time. And they're usually things like "caught a burglar after the fact," or "stopped someone from dumpster…

I've already watched many dozens of bodycam videos on YouTube where the Flock cameras we used to help track down suspects of crime, so I feel like this may just be a case of you being ignorant on the topic. You can argue on the other merits of such a system, but I think you're being a bit silly making an argument that these don't help solve crime.
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