While many Americans find themselves obsessed with watching reality TV, they increasingly—and unknowingly—may be caught on the government’s hidden cameras. Police departments across the country are using or considering closed-circuit surveillance cameras to watch over public spaces—including at protests and rallies. Some cameras, like those that monitor the front doors of a court building, are not much more invasive than the… return to article
-
subscribe to print magazine
-
email this article to a friend
-
Reader Comments (15)Page 1 of 1 pagesThe average person on the street benefits from these cameras - when your business is burglarized, the cameras are reviewed to find the crooks. Do you really think the police have the time and manpower to watch these tapes all the time? Ryan, maybe you should lay off the hooka for awhile if you’re becoming so paranoid…
Posted by ROCKTIME on Mar 16, 2003 at 7:05 PM YA go watch the movie minortiy report rock and then explain to me how great a society like that would be to live in
Posted by BS on Mar 17, 2003 at 4:13 AM Hey BS - nice name, slick. Minority Report is a good SCIENCE FICTION movie. If you believe that, you should also set the hooka aside.
I don’t like invasions of my privacy, but look at this from several points of view. Insurance companies, business owners, and security guards are all pressed to provide assurances to customers of one kind or another. The camera is just one example of the tools they use to improve their effectiveness… The power of these cameras may be abused, but provide a valid alternative. Consider the money and risks associated with no reliable cameras as a comparison.
Posted by ROCKTIME on Mar 18, 2003 at 4:45 PM It seems that the use of cameras is not the question so much as how the information captured may be abused to degenerate citizen’s rights. Liberties are nice to think about, but the founding fathers probably never guessed that the rabble would eventually become so liberated as to assemble by the millions to try to thwart imperialistic efforts overseas. If there had been massive protests against mass-murders of Native Americans in the 1800’s the establishment would probably have used whatever spies and technology they had to shut them up. The only thing that’s changed is that some of the rabble now realizes that they have lost certain freedoms, or rather that they never had them. When events prompt them to think it might be nice to exercise these nominal freedoms, they are discouraged by intimidation and use of force (unwarranted use of pepper spray, billy clubs, unlawful arrests) they rant at being lied to for 227 years. It seems clear that the current monopolistic direction will lead the U.S. into increased abuses of power aided by increasingly affective mind control and fear of non-Constitutionally protected arrests. A certain population will rebel, unrest will become violent, and the technologies that are being tested now will allow the gentry to rule with increasingly remote control. Sci-fi movies like Terminator and Minority Report are simply based on the embellishments of studied predictions. In an age where nuclear warhead armed Aegis destroyer ships can be deployed “indefinitely” with “optional” human crews we should not take the government’s desire to tag, monitor, and silence its “inconvenient” citizens lightly.
Posted by Jerome Millay on Mar 18, 2003 at 6:35 PM I try never to forget that even for the powerful and their patsies, this is all a surreal and confusing game. Perhaps if societies actually listened to its smartest (Einstein) and its most compassionate (Dalai Lama) and its most caring (Princess Diana) and its most diplomatic (Senator George Mitchell) and its friendliest (Mr. Rogers), we would be working toward a human-age utopia in which all new factories recycled 100% of waste and gave off cleaner air and water than they took in (happening in Switzerland), and societies returned to the pre-patriarchal value of sanctity for family and region (which is now global) and promoted meaningful use of our human lifetimes. Instead I see decline into total self-absorption where people become irrelevant or undesirable to each other and only contained and purified Earth-spaces remain livable.
I don’t underestimate the insidiousness of both visible and hidden surveillance technologies. I can only hope that some form of human behavior evolves to render these systems “irrevelant” in a post-“nookyular” world.
Posted by Jerome Millay on Mar 18, 2003 at 6:36 PM The upsetting part of this story is the absoluteness of technology and the irrelevance of humanity. It seems that the tendency to place technology as our God is demeaning to us all, not to mention the loss of privacy. Those not upset by loss of privacy are not really aware of the authoritarian rule and long arm of Big Brother.
Posted by zee on Mar 18, 2003 at 7:40 PM Oops… Yes, you are right dagy. Thanks for the correction.
Next time I’ll use the more simplistic “water bong” in my slanderous messages.
Posted by ROCKTIME on Mar 30, 2003 at 11:25 PM Yeah, Rocktime, Minority Report is fiction. Now. But Wag The Dog used to be fiction, too. They’re already working on developing the first stages of the tech at DARPA. (That’s the government’s Defense Advanced Research Projects Association if you’re unfamilar with it.)
It’s called the Information Awareness Office, and though they’ve taken down their cool illuminati/supervillain logo from the site, you can still check the mission statement, and if you can comprehend what they’re talking about with circumlocution like:“Human network analysis and behavior model building engines”
and
“Event prediction and capability development model building engines”And they’ve already overridden Congress’s attempt to keep them from using the program on innocent US citizens.
Check the website at http://www.darpa.mil/iao/
Posted by Adam Monroe on Apr 9, 2003 at 12:13 AM Whoa…big brother is way too strange for me…on the other hand…is there any evidence it has cut down on any crime?
Posted by Lynn on Apr 9, 2003 at 3:44 PM i like the story where the guy used the so called recycled popcorn and the people look at him like he was crazy.
Posted by chelsey on Jun 19, 2003 at 4:13 AM A restaurants grand opening for breakfast. Menue: oatmeal, cream of wheat, toast, cold cereal, juice and coffee.
Posted by Laverne Newell on Sep 16, 2003 at 1:19 AM a lounge with no heat. A customer tells the owner, who is the manager, too, that it is cold and could he turn on some heat. Everyone is sitting with their coats on. The owner, manager, explains that when it is cold outside it is cold inside. As soon as it warms outside it will warm up inside. also, when there are more customers in here, it will warm up, too. another reason is that the door to the outside is close to where they are sitting, and when people come in throught the door, it lets the cold air in.
Posted by Laverne Newell on Sep 16, 2003 at 1:23 AM Page 1 of 1 pages -
register a new account »Posting Security
Posted by dagy on Mar 30, 2003 at 12:45 PM 
Also by Ryan Singel
- Candid Camera
Smile, the cops are watching
Popular Discussions
- The 9/11 Faith Movement
Many Americans believe 9/11 was a conspiracy by the U.S. government
1979 posts since Jul 11 06 - What’s the 411 on 9/11?
891 posts since Dec 21 05 - Democrats: It’s the War
659 posts since Nov 1 05 - Was the Presidential Election Stolen?
462 posts since Jun 19 06 - A Fundamental History Lesson
The rise of National Socialism proved politics and religion don't mix
427 posts since Oct 10 05
© 2003 In These Times | Reprint Policy | Privacy Policy | Powered by Expression Engine | RSS Feeds
