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Originally posted by Khyron:
In the UK, one has video cameras in most city centres and to be honest, I don't mind them at all, I consider them to be beneficial. I think most people who complain about them being an invasion of privacy and a sign of living in a police state are a bit too paranoid and/or have an overinflated sense of self-importance. So what if "the government" is theoretically able to tell that at 13h45 you walked into the HMV store and 15 minutes later you went to HSBC? It's a public space, anybody could record this information, it's just that in almost all cases, nobody, including the bad ol' government, cares.

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This isn't my signature. I have to type this every time I make a post.

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Originally posted by Khyron:
In the UK, one has video cameras in most city centres and to be honest, I don't mind them at all, I consider them to be beneficial. I think most people who complain about them being an invasion of privacy and a sign of living in a police state are a bit too paranoid and/or have an overinflated sense of self-importance.

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Originally posted by SergeantX:
What you're defending here is essentially warrantless surveillance. You could make the same arguments in defense of routine random searches of our homes, or our vehicles, or our persons - and many have - but the question is: "Is that really the kind of world we want to live in?"

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Originally posted by citizen:
If it's impossible to break the law, there's no freedom. Freedom to only do what authority wants, isn't freedom. Punishing people for crimes they were going to commit but haven't actually committed yet is much the same thing. Minority Report was fascist.

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If it's impossible to break the law, there's no freedom. Freedom to only do what authority wants, isn't freedom.

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Punishing people for crimes they were going to commit but haven't actually committed yet is much the same thing. Minority Report was fascist.

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Since I have little faith in most of my fellow human beings in terms of personal constitution, I prefer to break the law lone wolf style.

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Originally posted by Righteous9:
[...]but for many of us posting, its just not true that we take these other issues lightly.

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this administration has chosen to do what it wants. It has ignored checks on wiretapping U.S. citizens already.

Of greater concern is that congress has done nothing about it, and in-fact, just recently, while in the majority, democrats have given the President more power to spy on Americans, in the name of safety.

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Originally posted by SignyM:

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Since I have little faith in most of my fellow human beings in terms of personal constitution, I prefer to break the law lone wolf style.

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Fair enough. Sometimes it takes a little of both.

But for all intents and purposes, the most effective individual lawbreaking is

1) One which is done for impersonal reasons (Think of the student standing in front of the tank in Tianamen Square. Or fo the "ecoterrorist" The Fox)

2) And is done in front of cameras, or otherwise makes it into the news.

FWIW I think the greatest threat to freedom is media censorship, especially the internet.

Key Internet Censorship Law Struck Down Yet Again
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2008/07/key-internet-censorship-law-struc
k-down-yet-again

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Give to the Electronic Frontier Foundation
www.eff.org

Black Box Voting
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/]


The internet is the only thing that has changed anything recently. The Strisand Effect, some call it. Censorship of the internet is the end of freedom in the US.... the final nail in the coffin.


That's right. Use the cameras. No reason we can't use it right back if it's there. Just don't be surprised when AT^&T has immunity for deleting videos on your phone seconds after they're made.

It's in your contract dummy..... Didn't you read the fine print?

Don't worry about it too much though. There's only 3 cell phone companies left and all of them say that they'll record 100% of your phone conversations and archive them in the name of National Security.

Don't worry about it though.... your recordings will never be looked at, or edited like an episode of The Hills......

As long as you're not doing anything that is illegal/immoral 50 years from now, 100% of the time, because a camera is on you 24/7, you're cool man. Why sweat it? You're a paranoid idiot....



"A government is a body of people, usually notably ungoverned." http://www.myspace.com/6ixstringjack

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Originally posted by Khyron:
I emphasize: The big difference between what you describe and CCTV in public spaces is that the latter is surveillance in a public space. What one does in a public space is information that's readily available to anybody who's there and willing to pay attention. The authorities could also put a whole lot of police officers (in uniform or not in uniform) on the streets to do the same job as the cameras, only that would cost a lot more and if they're uniformed, it'd come across as too intimidating.

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Originally posted by Khyron:
I emphasize: The big difference between what you describe and CCTV in public spaces is that the latter is surveillance in a public space. What one does in a public space is information that's readily available to anybody who's there and willing to pay attention.

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I find it funny how people object to CCTV in city centres because it's an "invasion of privacy" and will "undoubtedly eventually lead to a 1984-like society", but actual, real erosions of personal privacy and civil liberties (and there've been many in the last few years) for the most part get far less attention, probably because they're not as visible as cameras mounted on poles.

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Originally Posted by Signym:
Some would say that freedom resides in being able to mold the law through public pressure. The FF for example did not envision a society that was lawless or lawbreaking, but a society (as opposed to a bunch of individual doing their own thing) which was self-governing.

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Originally posted by SergeantX:

There are plenty of other issues that need discussion. The visibility of the cameras definitely gives the issue more press than less titillating fare. But, as I said, my concern is the shift in our approach toward law enforcement that this issue highlights.

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Originally posted by citizen:
I remember a recent report on some technology that can read brain waves at a distance, and how individual emotions can be diserned through brain activity. The further suggestion was that this technology could be a logical extension of cctv, finding people preparing to commit a crime.

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Originally posted by rue:
Uhhmm - they sometimes still can't tell if a person is having a seizure or not, even with a full head of silver electrodes directly attached to the scalp.

Not that such a technology is impossible, just that I can't see it happening in my lifetime (I hope).

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