[Police Tracking] Who knew it was this advanced?

I don't have a problem with much of what is talked about in that video. I wish there was a camera on every street corner. I doesn't bother me that data is collected. However, I do think the Gov't should be transparent about what data IS being collected.

If a crime is commintted on my street, I would like the police to be able to look at data captured on a camera to solve the crime. Maybe crimes such as burglaries or even kidnappings could be reduced or quickly solved with the help of this captured data.

Of course the problems occur when the data is being used in ways that is was never meant to be used for. But I think there are many positive ways that data collection can be used.

 

This is why you should be scared. If you are willing to sacrifice your freedom for a margin of safety so be it but I'm not. You see so much abuse in power that all it does is teach you more power doesn't solve anything, it just gives those who have it more excuses to ask for even more.

 

There is always a good reason to do a bad thing

Rocket River

 

I'd hit it.

Off topic, Texas has been a two plate state for decades while most others are a single plates.

 

After living in places that use much more surveillance like England and Monaco (which is probably 100% covered by cameras), a lot of this fear mongering by is over-the-top imo. But, I do sympathize with the argument that things could be worse in the US bc many (not all) law enforcement are just crazy here.

 

They mean well.

The Patriot act means well.

 

I think this is a good example of how Americans feel about living in a surveillance society. In my experience, the people who rail against surveillance tend to be military veterans, anarchist/philosophers/metal heads, conspiracy theorists, people who work in IT/computers, and generally older people who are none of those. On the other hand, most of the younger people I know - especially those currently in college and high school - don't care about privacy, surveillance, and so on to the extent the former group does. Most people my age have their first or second kid on the way so they value safety and don't give a damn about the political ramifications. I think people are traveling to other places more too so they don't mind living in a 'police state' like the UK.

Understand as time goes on, more effective control and understanding of our species means more implementation of technologies and surveillance in our lives. Take speeding for instance. Some a$$hole was driving at 80+ mph in his sports car last night in my residential neighborhood. There were no cops around, however speed cameras could have penalized him. Why pay a human being to do a poor job and give him pension/retirement when technology could be 100% successful, 24/7, and cheaper?

 

Does your car have a front license plate? If not, you could face a $200 fine
http://www.dallasnews.com/investiga...e-plate-if-not-you-could-face-a-200-fine..ece

31 August 2013 11:49 PM

If your vehicle doesn’t have a front license plate, or a rear one for that matter, as of Sunday, you’re looking at a $200 fine. Yep, starting today. (See? Real news you can use right here in this column!)

Which leads to another amazing discovery I made while solving the mystery of the front license plate. (More news coming!) For the past two years, until today, Sept. 1, any motorist in the state of Texas who was stopped for not having a front or rear Texas license plate could not be fined. That’s right. Not be fined.

Legislators in 2011 accidentally removed the punishment portion of the license plate law. (Uh-oh.) The law was on the books, but the fine was inadvertently deleted. (Embarrassing.) That made traffic cops much less likely to make stops for a missing front plate. They could write tickets with no fine. (Where’s the fun in that?)

In Texas, a law enforcement officer is allowed to stop any vehicle if a front or rear license plate is missing. It’s the same as an officer making a stop when a driver runs a stop sign, makes an improper lane change or, everybody’s favorite, drives too slow.

Now, with the punishment tacked back on to the law, the fine for a missing front or rear plate is specifically set at no more than $200.

 

Most of us have already given up many of our freedoms for a margin of safety. In most cases, we do so gladly.

 

Ride a motorcycle, use a burner phone, go back in time and never join facebook, twitter, clutchfans.

 

We're not talking about your bedroom here, we're talking about the street in front of your house.

What might you be doing there that could possibly be caught on tape and be used against you by the government?

 

buying weed obviously

 

This seems like it belongs here the direction the debate here is going.

from boing boing

I miss having bad guys like the Soviet Union and the Stasi that actually did what people like this guy advocates. It kept scary people like this from opening their mouth, or at least made sure they were consigned to opening their mouths at places like meetings of the John Birch Society.

[rquoter]

Judge Posner: it should be illegal to make phones the government can't search

Cory Doctorow on why privacy is about more than concealing crime—and why backdoors are inevitably available to everyone, not just people you trust.

Speaking at a Georgetown law cybercrime conference, 7th circuit judge Richard Posner made a series of conscience-shocking, technologically illiterate statements about privacy that baffle and infuriate, starting with: "if the NSA wants to vacuum all the trillions of bits of information that are crawling through the electronic worldwide networks, I think that’s fine."

Posner went on to say that privacy is "mainly about trying to improve your social and business opportunities by concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with you."

On the idea of default full-disk encryption, he added "I’m shocked at the thought that a company would be permitted to manufacture an electronic product that the government would not be able to search."

It's amazing that Posner -- who sometimes can evince nuanced views -- can't figure out that privacy is more than hiding your closet-skeletons. Privacy isn't just vital for developing unfinished ideas with people you trust, allowing your work to be reviewed by trusted circles before you commit it to posterity -- it's also especially vital for the most vulnerable people among us, people whose health, race, sexual orientation, and other traits make them subject to discrimination and prejudice.

People like Posner, who believe that they have nothing to hide (he's almost certainly wrong here, but let's assume he's right), have won a lottery through no virtue of their own. But he -- and you, and I -- have people we love who didn't win the lotto, through no fault of their own. When they speak out for privacy, they magnify their vulnerability. It's the duty of lotto-winners to speak up for everyone else.

Posner also conflates secrecy with privacy, another nonsense. Your parents did something un-secret to make you, but I'm willing to bet that Posner doesn't want his own non-secret, baby-making activity to be recorded and viewed by strangers.

Just as grave as his philosophical errors are Posner's technological errors. It's been nearly 20 years since Bernstein v US, when judges were given a crash-course in crypto. Even if you support the idea that the government should be able to search anything it wants to if a judge like Posner (or even a rubber-stamping FISA court judge, meeting in secret, without any chance to hear from anyone except government lawyers) gives them permission, there's no way to make a back door that only good guys can walk through.

That means that a mobile device that the government can search is also a mobile device that criminals -- identity thieves, voyeurs, corporate spies -- and invasive corporations, and foreign spy-agencies can all search. Your bank's safe has a door that can withstand a SWAT-team's battering ram, which means that it can also withstand the most determined burglar. Making a law that requires weak-spots in the safe-door to let the cops get in will make the safe unsuited for keeping out robbers. Posner should understand this. If he doesn't, his clerks should be educating him.

“I think privacy is actually overvalued,” Judge Richard Posner, of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said during a conference about privacy and cybercrime in Washington, D.C., Thursday.

“Much of what passes for the name of privacy is really just trying to conceal the disreputable parts of your conduct,” Posner added. “Privacy is mainly about trying to improve your social and business opportunities by concealing the sorts of bad activities that would cause other people not to want to deal with you.”

Congress should limit the NSA’s use of the data it collects—for example, not giving information about minor crimes to law enforcement agencies—but it shouldn’t limit what information the NSA sweeps up and searches, Posner said. “If the NSA wants to vacuum all the trillions of bits of information that are crawling through the electronic worldwide networks, I think that’s fine,” he said.

In the name of national security, U.S. lawmakers should give the NSA “carte blanche,” Posner added. “Privacy interests should really have very little weight when you’re talking about national security,” he said. “The world is in an extremely turbulent state—very dangerous.”

Posner criticized mobile OS companies for enabling end-to-end encryption in their newest software. “I’m shocked at the thought that a company would be permitted to manufacture an electronic product that the government would not be able to search,” he said.

[/rquoter]

 

This and this.

9-11 essentially settled the debate.

We now live in a country where people gladly give up many freedoms simply for the elusive idea of safety. You see it everywhere. The Patriot Act, the weakening of Miranda Rights, the complete shut down of Boston and now with "I can't breathe" and all the other deaths. People see a situation like Brown or other cases and say "well I wouldn't resist or steal or sell stolen items.

That attitude is being exploited by those in a position of power.

 

Yea man, what happened to our right to resist arrest and sell stolen goods?! How dare the government take those away.

 

We have a right to face our accuser, according to the constitution. This is something the camera doesn't allow. Plus, these "red light" cameras and such are civil infractions, which are useless.

 

I got penalized for it in the late 00's. I forget if it was $40 or $80. Non-moving violation. Classic car so it ticked me off. I asked why it was required and the guy didn't know.

 

The right to resist arrest and sell stolen cigarettes without being killed on tape?