It looks like at least one of the people responsible for the Boston bombings was caught on video by a camera on a business across the street. Good thing, but it was just dumb luck that this happened.
What is wrong with installing high definition video surveillance everywhere in cities? Everyone says it is invasion of privacy but what are they really afraid of? Do they fear that some bored civil servant will call their wife and say, "I just saw your husband having lunch with a blonde". Or call your boss and say, "I saw Croft take ten minutes too long for lunch". No, they would have better things to do. Like get the plate number of the car that hit and ran after smashing into my parked car, get the face of the guy who grabbed the little girl off the street, or ran out of the school after killing twenty kids, or deposited a bomb at the marathon.
I think we would be gaining more than we would be giving up.
We've been in Mazatlan almost two weeks.
1 hour ago
Agree wholeheartedly If one has nothing to hide, then one should have nothing to fear.
ReplyDeleteWe've never been able to figure out why anybody would be against closed circuit video cameras in public. Yet, people are. You probably won't hear from them here!
ReplyDeleteYou've got my approval. Hmmm, it must be because we're from a pinko, left-wing socialist country.
ReplyDeleteAs some of you know, out here where we live we have cameras along the highways, on city streets and just about everywhere else. It has helped to calm the problems here in Monterrey quite a bit. We love cameras, I have nothing to hide and nothing to fear. Bring 'em on.
ReplyDeleteI am not intending to make a judgment but I have wondered about all this camera stuff. I have nothing to fear because I do try to behave myself. But I recall a book called 1984 - everyone was outraged that everyone would be watched. Slowly we have come to accept these things. But way back when......
ReplyDelete"Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither". Ben Franklin
or was it........
Benjamin Franklin's famous quote, "Those who would give up Essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."
I wasn't there so I do not know.
"All truths pass through three states: First, it is ridiculed, Second, it is violently opposed, and Third, it is accepted as being self-evident" - Arthur Schopenhauer
I guess we would have to discuss what "Essential Liberty" and "Temporary Safety" really means. It is not one of our "liberties" to break laws. By this I do not mean they should use video data to mail out jay walking tickets, that would be an abuse. I do not even think that these videos should be monitored, just recorded and kept for a certain length of time (days? weeks? months?). That way, they could be pulled and examined if something bad happened.
DeleteKeeping the pot stirred Croft?
ReplyDeleteI take it you do not agree 100%, Bill?
DeleteIn these times of acts of violence I agree with you Croft. My comment was in jest to a fellow pot-stirrer. :^)
DeleteCroft
DeleteTo clarify: I don't see fixed cameras in public arenas as suspicious as other surveillance - for example, drones. When I go into a store I assume there are cameras to protect against shoplifters. I don't feel that fixed video cameras in public areas violate privacy since there is no real "privacy" in public areas (or at least no presumption of privacy). In the case of drones there is potential for abuse and an invasion of privacy where they could be used to conduct surveillance of private property or private areas.
Bill
And, not to oversimplify it, but public streets are not private property. Just as government facilities are monitored with fixed cameras, so they would monitor the public streets and public facilities.
DeleteIt is like taxes, once the government is able to levy a tax it becomes "blood out of a turnip" to get it repealed. Indiscriminate recording of our everyday passage is too ripe for abuse by the petty individuals who gravitate to jobs that afford a smidgen of power over others. Human nature is what it is, there is no way to avoid those kind of people from abusing your plan of action to cut down on these nutballs who would do us harm. We live in a messy world, your argument that if you have nothing to hide makes it alright to record my every movement is as Orwellian as it gets. I live in the country, an eight foot hedge across the front yard, I've nothing to hide but I like my privacy.
ReplyDeleteSo far, the comments have been interesting. Mexicans and Canadians have no problem with it and Americans (if we include Bill) are opposed. It will be interesting to see where this goes.
ReplyDeleteOK, Bill turns out to be with us Canadians and Mexicans.
DeleteRights, rights, right. Americans have their liberty at the cost of everyone else. They have all the rights in the world and keep asking for more yet their country is just as messed up as Canada and Mexico. Stop trying to resolve the worlds problems and fix their own first like; a porous border for lack of military presence, drug abuse, child kidnapping, 16,000 murders a year (I don't care what the per capita is), overwhelming debt that will eventually collapse the global economy. I'll stop there, their plate is full.
ReplyDeleteThis not an attack on any individual, it is a general statement.