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Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

neuburger.substack.com

61–70 of 83 posts

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#61
post #16

Here in Sweden, the use of license plate scanners has become the norm for basically all parking houses, bridge tolls and road tolls. Even if you don't install the app or become a "member" of whatever system they are using, the license plate scanners is still used to detect when you enter or leave, and in some cases they automatically look up your home address to send you the bill with zero interaction with the driver…

In the US a lot of the bridge tolls are automated, or became automated during the pandemic. With no going back.

You either have to create and account and register your vehicles by license plate, or you get a toll in the mail that must be paid either by mail or online.

I got behind on a few of these and got fined, I think maybe 5x the price tacked on.

I would love to just pay in cash each time I use an infrequenlty-crossed bridge.

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#62
post #38

You can find installed Flock cameras around the world with this site: https://deflock.me/

This is missing the Lowes and Home Depot security cameras.

It shows the Lowes & HD cameras near me. The map depends upon volunteers to enter data IIRC.

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#63
post #61
post #16

Here in Sweden, the use of license plate scanners has become the norm for basically all parking houses, bridge tolls and road tolls. Even if you don't install the app or become a "member" of whatever system they are using, the license plate scanners is still used to detect when you enter or leave, and in some cases they automatically look up your home address to send you the bill with zero interaction with the driver…

In the US a lot of the bridge tolls are automated, or became automated during the pandemic. With no going back. You either have to create and account and register your vehicles by license plate, or you get a toll in the mail that must be paid either by mail or online. I got behind on a few of these and got fined, I think maybe 5x the price tacked on. I would love to just pay in cash each time I use an infrequenlty-cr…

Toll collection in most states used to be a mostly graft operation. They'd make insane salaries for what they did and the jobs would be handed out based on political connections. Basically welfare for the deadbead family members of the politically useful. In my state they had a union and it took forever to get rid of them. When they did get rid of them the tolls basically halved for no change in revenue because that's how much cash was going missing.

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hockey is a game, governing is not.

If the local governing body is too small to handle the requirements of governance, what then? Laws can be broken just because there are too few clerks?

Have less laws then.

You literally can't be a high touch, high jackboot, administrative state unless you have enough wealth to skim off it to run your enforcing operation.

There's a reason that places with less wealth to dip into are either more hands off or go full speed trap town to pay for it all.

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hockey is a game, governing is not.

If the local governing body is too small to handle the requirements of governance, what then? Laws can be broken just because there are too few clerks?

If they can’t afford to provide the service, then they can’t afford to provide the service. In this case, they simply can’t afford to video anything that would require redaction for FOIA requests. Stanwood joining with Camano Island or Marrysville, it’s still a rural area that can’t afford it.

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#66
post #16

Here in Sweden, the use of license plate scanners has become the norm for basically all parking houses, bridge tolls and road tolls. Even if you don't install the app or become a "member" of whatever system they are using, the license plate scanners is still used to detect when you enter or leave, and in some cases they automatically look up your home address to send you the bill with zero interaction with the driver…

doesn't sweden just.. list everyone's full name, address, job, birthday, age and stuff on a public website?

i always found this so weird, it's like a stalker's paradise

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#67
post #16

Here in Sweden, the use of license plate scanners has become the norm for basically all parking houses, bridge tolls and road tolls. Even if you don't install the app or become a "member" of whatever system they are using, the license plate scanners is still used to detect when you enter or leave, and in some cases they automatically look up your home address to send you the bill with zero interaction with the driver…

This made it interesting for me driving through Europe with my Canadian-plated vehicle.

Plenty of boom gates did not open

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#68
post #16

Here in Sweden, the use of license plate scanners has become the norm for basically all parking houses, bridge tolls and road tolls. Even if you don't install the app or become a "member" of whatever system they are using, the license plate scanners is still used to detect when you enter or leave, and in some cases they automatically look up your home address to send you the bill with zero interaction with the driver…

How long before face readers are everywhere and sending bills to your home when you use a public toilet as a fee or cross the street wrong as a fine. Meanwhile every movement is logged forever. I've heard China already has this, and most people see it as dystopian and bad and ripe for abuse. But in countries like Sweden, trust in government is high, and convenience is convenience, so it becomes a norm that no one questions. This, imho, is not a good thing.

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#69
post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Again I can speak only for Illinois (and 'chaps is more authoritative than I am) but for the most part you're not going to be axiomatically deriving what you can do with FOIA; most permutations of what can be done have already been attempted, and there's really rich case law. It's super easy to FOIA things! Lots of relatively normie people use FOIA. So FOIA lawyers have seen some shit. Generally I'd predict that it's…

The real one is people coming up with minor, but recognized, reasons to request footage from different cameras. Most everything is covered, as you mentioned. But there's a huge difference between things like Obama's birth cert(canned reply after paying the fee), and the entire US populations worth of people requesting a single 5min segment from a camera... But everybody wants a different camera, date, and time. I sus…

Public streams with no retention is how TXDOT handled this.

That seems like the incentive structure of the law working as intended.

Re: Cities panic over having to release mass surveillance recordings

#70
post #16

Here in Sweden, the use of license plate scanners has become the norm for basically all parking houses, bridge tolls and road tolls. Even if you don't install the app or become a "member" of whatever system they are using, the license plate scanners is still used to detect when you enter or leave, and in some cases they automatically look up your home address to send you the bill with zero interaction with the driver…

Same is true in Iceland. It’s just the established norm. Much less costly vs installing gates and barriers and payment terminals and easier to add paid parking to non traditional locations where constricting entry/exit to barrier’ed lanes would be a challenge or impossible. Shifting the payment experience to the user’s smartphone. It’s still a bit foreign to visitors from places where this isn’t the norm but for Icel…

A month or two after a visit to Iceland (my favorite country by far by the way), I received a ticket in the mail for speeding. It included a picture of the car I rented and a closeup of the driver's face- a face that did not belong to me (presumably another renter).

Luckily, a quick phone call and a copy of my drivers license cleared things up, but systems like these inevitably lead to "guilty until proven innocent" scenarios instead of "innocent until proven guilty".

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