BigBrother is here - Houston Police Chief want CCTV in private homes

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
Seattle Pi, via Digg

Houston's police chief on Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.

...

"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?" Chief Harold Hurtt told reporters Wednesday at a regular briefing.


see also the Oyster Card thread
 
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Ness Rowlah said:

Two things here - first of all, it sounds like the cameras will only ever be in public areas in practice - foyers, staircases, garages - rather than inside many private homes.

But in response to his comment that if you're not doing anything wrong, there's nothing to worry about.... well, there has to be a symmetry there. If they are allowed to see, we should ALL be allowed to see. Surveillance camera networks should be opened up. Unless there's a very compelling reason for a camera to be off the network, video from it should be publicly available. Anything else puts too much power in too few hands. The all-seeing eye could and should be peered through by everyone.
 

adruu

This Is It
If there is one city in the U.S. that would happily invite Big Brother to protect them it's Houston...the crotch of america...
 

Freakaholic

not just an addiction
About a year ago I read an article in which a writer in downtown NYC mapped all the cameras in an area of downtown and found out that it was impossible to get from his home to work without being on camera. In fact, his regular route took him in front of a large number (i forget how many), including traffic light cameras, ATM cameras, convenince store cameras, etc. He made the point basically that anyone walking downtown in a major city is on numerous cameras anytime.

It the same thing here in Chicago as well. I ride my bike to work everyday, and they just installed a stoplight camera in my neighborhood, with huge strobe lights that flash if a person is running the yellow. This was done unannounced, but it isnt hidden. Freaked me out crossing the street as a massive strobe flashed in my eyes.

But I think this is a step further: INSIDE apartment buildings? Arent these "semi-public" or "private" areas, and not public places? Further, to respond to the "if you are not doing anything wrong..." argument, i think the bigger concern is that with so many cameras in such proximity to people's houses, apartments, and workplaces, that they will start seeing INSIDE our houses. To the point where we really have no privacy.

With the Bush admin. vehemently defending their right to incarcerate without charges or disclosing proof, this is a big concern. Especially since they actively target anti-government, legal, organizations as "terrorists".

I think this could be the slippery slope, only were about half way down already.
 

sufi

lala
‘subject access request’

in UK you can harass intrusive CCTV operators by making data protection requests for any footage that includes you they can charge a maximum of £10 i think & have to cough up within 40 days - in practise they may just delete the 'data' instead, but that's all good innit? :)

is there a US freedom of info equivalent?
 
D

droid

Guest
sufi said:
in UK you can harass intrusive CCTV operators by making data protection requests for any footage that includes you they can charge a maximum of £10 i think & have to cough up within 40 days - in practise they may just delete the 'data' instead, but that's all good innit? :)

Always thought this could be a cool (and cheap) way to make a video. Muck around on a whole load of CCTV cameras and then claim the footage and edit it...
 

D7_bohs

Well-known member
droid said:
Always thought this could be a cool (and cheap) way to make a video. Muck around on a whole load of CCTV cameras and then claim the footage and edit it...
think its been done - and by a Dublin band too; unfortunately it was the Frames ..... (unless they just made it look that way)
 
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droid

Guest
D7_bohs said:
think its been done - and by a Dublin band too; unfortunately it was the Frames ..... (unless they just made it look that way)

Hmmm... I have a link with those lads. Ill check it out...
 

carlos

manos de piedra
adruu said:
If there is one city in the U.S. that would happily invite Big Brother to protect them it's Houston...the crotch of america...

really...? it's not so bad... and nobody is asking for this- the chief suggested it.
 

adruu

This Is It
O.K. I jumped the gun a little bit. I grew up there and visit often so there are alot of things that are interesting about Houston

megachurches...megamalls...
one newspaper for an entire city
crap public transport
the ghetto right at the 45/59 intersection
ship channels,
corrupt cops,
scenes out of blade runner in texas city and the chemical districts,
super corporate museums (the camh is the exception)
NASA, defense contractors, oil companies...all basically government handouts in a republican city

and maybe four decent bars max!!! agora.proletariat.lolas.rudz
 

carlos

manos de piedra
i've never been to a megachurch- are you a baptist?

i live in midtown (right at the 45/59 intersection) and work in montrose so i don't need to hit the megamalls or hang out by the ship channel or texas city. if that's all you ever saw of houston- i can see why you left
 

Ness Rowlah

Norwegian Wood
monbiot on the implants

At first the tags will be more widely used for workers with special security clearance. No one will be forced to wear one; no one will object. Then hospitals - and a few in the US are already doing this - will start scanning their unconscious or incoherent patients to see whether they have a tag. Insurance companies might start to demand that vulnerable people are chipped.

The armed forces will discover that they are more useful than dog tags for identifying injured soldiers or for tracking troops who are lost or have been captured by the enemy. Prisons will soon come to the same conclusion. Then sweatshops in developing countries will begin to catch on. Already the overseers seek to control their workers to the second; determining when they clock on, when they visit the toilet, even the number of hand movements they perform. A chip makes all this easier. The workers will not be forced to have them, any more than they are forced to have sex with their bosses; but if they don't accept the conditions, they don't get the job. After that, it surely won't be long before asylum seekers are confronted with a similar choice: you don't have to accept an implant, but if you refuse, you can't stay in the country.

and The Register on Oyster security
Transport for London's (TfL) 'ID card lite', the Oyster travelcard, is already being illicitly used to snoop on people's movements, according to the Independent on Sunday. The problem stems from the fact that TfL records the journeys made using the card, and gives owners easy internet access to their personal audit trail. But it's perhaps too easy.

TfL itself logs individual journeys in order, it claims, to plan its network better. Yes, one can see how, with slightly higher programming skills than TfL has apparently got, one could produce data of similar utility without logging point to point journeys of individual cards, but TfL claims that it does not associate the journey data with named individuals. TfL does however provide the police with journey data for named individuals on request, and the ability to track named individual's movements is obviously of considerable use to the security services. Oyster cards have already figured in a number of serious crime investigations.
 
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