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A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

nytimes.com

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Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#71

Post by dumb-saint »

confounded wrote: post #11

Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…

I find it extremely creepy to visit the UK because of all the cameras, sometimes actively pointed at me. It is one thing to not expect privacy in the public space, in the sense that others can see you. It is another to be actively targeted by a gigantic network of cameras connected to who knows what -- in an age where automatic face recognition is becoming trivial.

I would like to ask people who make the "you have no expectation of privacy in the public space" claim if they wouldn't mind if I hired a guy to follow them everywhere they go and then report to me.

In the end, I am aware that this is a losing battle, and that people who feel as strongly as me about not being constantly under surveillance will have to move out of big cities. Big cities are becoming highly controlled environment, where one doesn't feel like a sovereign human being anymore. In a sense they are an externalisation of corporate culture.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#72

Post by Qantourisc »

nradov wrote: post #38
Qantourisc wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The best prevention is preventing criminal behaviour. By taking care of mental health, community, opportunity and support.

The vast majority of violent criminals are not mentally ill.

I meant mental health, I didn't mean mentally ill. Mental health even includes being unhappy.

Not sure if violent acts are entirely random, I have not enough expertise on that. Currently I assume most acts of violence are not entirely random; and if they are, they are a mental/medical/neurological illness. And it might be perfectly normal to be dispositioned to be like this, but it would still be a problem.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#73

Post by Qantourisc »

Qantourisc wrote: post #37
PhasmaFelis wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems awfully nitpicky. Cameras cannot physically stop a crime in progress, but neither can any other remotely reasonable public safety measure.

The best prevention is preventing criminal behaviour. By taking care of mental health, community, opportunity and support.

Edit/Comment: best in this case does not mean cost-effective or easy ;)

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#74

Post by throwaway1892 »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #45
confounded wrote: post #11

Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…

Probably mainly smoke and mirrors. I've lost count of the number of UK stories where some terrorist or criminal was known to authorities, or already on a watch list. They never manage to catch or prevent despite all these huge surveillance programmes. Then the news almost inevitably follows up that they've found out there were public exchanges of messages on Twitter 2 days before the incident or some such. It would b…

> ... the number of UK stories where some terrorist or criminal was known to authorities, or already on a watch list

It was the case of most of the terrorists who've attacked France those last years.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#75

Post by Fnoord »

anexprogrammer wrote: post #45
confounded wrote: post #11

Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…

Probably mainly smoke and mirrors. I've lost count of the number of UK stories where some terrorist or criminal was known to authorities, or already on a watch list. They never manage to catch or prevent despite all these huge surveillance programmes. Then the news almost inevitably follows up that they've found out there were public exchanges of messages on Twitter 2 days before the incident or some such. It would b…

> Probably mainly smoke and mirrors.

That is because CCTV does not directly decrease crime. Instead, it tries to increase the chance the alleged criminal gets seen, profiled, and caught later on which means the alleged criminal won't be able to commit crime for a while due to jail time.

Mass surveillance and CCTV are notoriously bad at avoiding crime or terrorism from happening on the short term though, and as long as there is incentive to either, they'll remain happening.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#76

Post by kwhitefoot »

nkurz wrote: post #19
lisper wrote: post #5

The difficulty of enforcing the law is actually a useful part of our overall system because it provides a check-and-balance against the overeager enforcement of bad laws. Imagine a world where ubiquitous automated cameras sent you a ticket every time you jaywalked, or if your car automatically reported you every time you exceeded the speed limit. Yes, it becomes annoying when criminals get away with things they reall…

Imagine a world where ubiquitous automated cameras sent you a ticket every time you jaywalked, or if your car automatically reported you every time you exceeded the speed limit. I'm probably being naive, but I think having rules that are universally enforced would be much better than our current approach of selective enforcement. I'd expect that as soon as those with power to change the law are negatively affected by…

> I'm probably being naive,

You certainly are.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#77

Post by kwhitefoot »

taneq wrote: post #49
lisper wrote: post #5

The difficulty of enforcing the law is actually a useful part of our overall system because it provides a check-and-balance against the overeager enforcement of bad laws. Imagine a world where ubiquitous automated cameras sent you a ticket every time you jaywalked, or if your car automatically reported you every time you exceeded the speed limit. Yes, it becomes annoying when criminals get away with things they reall…

True, as things currently stand, but this is a misfeature of the system rather than an advantage. The combination of unreasonable nuisance laws with the lack of enforcement means the nuisance caused by the laws is largely mitigated, but it still leaves them open to abuse through selective enforcement. If "laws that everybody breaks" were ubiquitously enforced then their true detriment would be brought to light and th…

> then their true detriment would be brought to light and they'd have to be properly fixed.

I wish that were so. But even if it were there will be immense misery before it happens. In Victorian England one could be transported to Australia for trivial offences; eventually juries refused to convict and the law was changed. A lot of people suffered immense hardship and many died because of strict enforcement of the rules before they were fixed.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#78

Post by ciaranm »

dumb-saint wrote: post #71
confounded wrote: post #11

Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…

I find it extremely creepy to visit the UK because of all the cameras, sometimes actively pointed at me. It is one thing to not expect privacy in the public space, in the sense that others can see you. It is another to be actively targeted by a gigantic network of cameras connected to who knows what -- in an age where automatic face recognition is becoming trivial. I would like to ask people who make the "you have no…

I agree with the parent r.e. safety concerns though. It's a cheap, easy way to provide a relatively sure record of truth for public spaces. It helps prosecute people who enact violent or other crimes, and reduces the number of those in the first place.

Do you disagree with that, or value being invisible in public higher?

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#79

Post by barsonme »

ryandrake wrote: post #35
barsonme wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What about something like speeding? Let's say we get rid of speeding laws since they're not 100% enforced. Should we have unregulated driving? Move towards a law that simply says "no driving unsafely"? IMO those are both poor ideas—they're either unsafe or vague and subjective. I don't see a way around having well-defined speeding laws, yet there are plenty of situations where it's silly to ticket an individual who's…

I'm fine with no speeding laws. It's not the speeding part that hurts people and causes damage, it's the crashing part. We, as a culture, love to make these second order laws that outlaw not the harmful action but the risky "derivative" of the harmful action. Because some people might crash when they speed, we outlaw speeding. Because some people might hijack planes, we confiscate nail cutters and toothpaste. Because…

I'd be totally down to remove speed limits in some places (I drive cross-state every weekend, so I'd love it :-) but, in my opinion, speed limits can be useful in certain areas.

Off the top of my head:

- Residential areas (like actual suburbs or cities) would benefit from speed limits. I'm a bit of a libertarian, but I'd prefer we have intentionally slow things down in highly populated areas, particularly where there's dumb little kids running about and chasing balls into the road.

- Parts of unincorporated county where I live have no shoulder, so crashing takes you into somebody's house. (Actually, a local house at the end of a road that comes to a "T" had to install a concrete barrier after a couple cars plowed through their front door.) I can't speak to the math behind it, but IMO it'd be reasonable to limit cars to a speed that prevents them from skipping the little ditch and ending up in my living room.

- School zones. (See first bullet.)

- Hilly areas and curvy roads (or just roads with limited sight distance).

- "Kill zones" (you know, places where elk and deer play chicken with cars).

- Frequently icy/wet/slick areas. (A friend of mine managed to slide his truck off the side of a hill he'd lived near his entire life somehow after forgetting it usually ices over.)

IMO a lot of it has to do with preventing new or infrequent drivers (to the area) from driving too fast for conditions. Sometimes having a "chilling effect" (of sorts) can be a good thing.

Re: A World of Surveillance Doesn’t Always Help to Catch a Thief

#80

Post by kriro »

morgante wrote: post #43
confounded wrote: post #11

Growing up in the UK and living in the US has given me the odd distinction of being strongly against online surveillance of private space, and strongly in favor of regulated visual surveillance of public space. CCTV surveillance can protect the people I care about (especially women at night) from horrible violent crimes I'm actually scared of. It's surveillance of public space, so the privacy compromise seems kind of…

I definitely share your views. If I'm in public, I by definition should not expect privacy.

I disagree with this sentiment. To give an example that is a bit more emotional, I would strongly object to some stranger taking pictures of a young child playing in a public park.
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