Posted on 03/22/2006 6:39:18 AM PST by af_vet_rr
New Yorkers, get ready for your closeup.
The NYPD is installing 505 surveillance cameras around the city - and pushing to safeguard lower Manhattan with a "ring of steel" that could track hundreds of thousands of people and cars a day, authorities revealed yesterday.
..
The NYPD also has applied for $81.5 million in federal aid to install surveillance cameras, computerized license plate readers and vehicle barriers around lower Manhattan, Kelly said.
..
But don't expect the NYPD to install its cameras without battling the New York Civil Liberties Union. The watchdog group's associate legal director, Chris Dunn, questioned the plan.
"Commissioner Kelly may be ready to launch us all into a surveillance society, but we believe cameras are not a cure-all for crime and terrorism," Dunn said. "It is far from clear that cameras deter crime."
(Excerpt) Read more at nydailynews.com ...
OK, so you're saying that employing policeman to walk the beat is the equivalent of forced labor camps? I can see this conversation is going nowhere.
"...I suppose you're against DNA evidence as well, as `intrusive'?..."
If a police officer approaches me in a crowded shopping mall and asks me for a DNA sample, you're darn right I'm opposed to it as being intrusive! That's essentially what government cameras are doing, they're peering into our lives and monitoring our comings and goings even though we've done nothing wrong. It is a broadbrush approach. I'll also stake the value of my home that any bureaucrat pushing for cameras will stridently advocate facial recognition software next year. It's a no-brainer.
Do you feel any apprehension at all knowing that your identity would be known and that you were FReeping from the Starbucks hotspot on the corner of Nassau Place & Liberty Street on Wednesday, March 22 @ 11:20 a.m. while wearing a beige dress and red scarf? Why should your life or mine be an open book to someone who happened to pass a civil service exam?
~ Blue Jays ~
Yet the vast majority of them will also tell you that the Bush wiretapping issue isn't a problem - because they're only looking for terrorists. Can't have it both ways...
If they're not mugging folks on Main St, or running red lights, what are they worried about?
George Orwell's book 1984 was not so much a warning, as a training manual.
Doubleplus ungood.
Freedom through Surveillance.
If you aren't hiding anything then you shouldn't mind a cavity search comrade
If you don't have anything forbidden by the party then you shouldn't mind if we take a look in you house
My opinion is that one could also learn about traffic jams and mass demonstrations by listening to the radio, watching TV, or accessing sites like FoxNews.com for updates. That should provide more than enough information to make a decision about one's evening commute home on trains, buses, and ferries. This prevents us from having to contend with statist abuse of the camera network, which would be a bundle.
~ Blue Jays ~
The downtown and financial districts of all big cities are blanketed with cameras already.
I can't imagine a square block in business areas in Manhattan that isn't already covered with cameras.
Boy, I would sure vote for you for dictator.
Statists with a desire for utter and complete control of our population, give me a chub.
Go, baby.
Comrade, if you have nothing to hide, if you're not doing anything wrong, why do you mind being followed by our cameras?
Another alternative to thousands of cops and hundreds of cameras would be for the people of NYC to persuade their keepers to let them have defensive weapons, or better yet, just acquire them anyway in open defiance of self-defense tool bans.
You and I are definitely in agreement per my post# 26 earlier in the thread. What I find comical is how the statists won't describe how they are individually safer with the presence of government cameras. Even if that is taken out of the equation, public safety is hardly even impacted.
If both one of us and a murderous criminal or wild-eyed jihadist turns the corner and we approach one other, having five hundred or even a thousand cameras won't make a bit of difference. The criminal will still tighten his sweaty grip around his knife while the brainwashed terrorist will still inch his finger closer to the detonator on his bomb vest. The situation is still grave indeed and nobody would be using those fancy cameras to make an immediate positive change.
~ Blue Jays ~
Me either. Some people are just paranoid about government cameras. Frankly I don't think we should waste time on this trivial issue, when we're living in a city where our 2nd Amendment rights are already aggressively infringed by the government. When they abuse the cameras, I'll worry about it, but for now I'd rather worry about much bigger abuses that are already happening.
We also scrambled fighters jets right after the first tower was hit. Didn't stop the second tower from getting. Does that mean we should scrap fighter jets too? No single security measure is going to be effective against every danger, but a comprehensive array of security measures is quite helpful. Cameras are unlikely to stop a terrorist act in progress, but can be quite helpful in identifying a perpetrator and his associates, which may well prevent a future attack.
We're in absolute agreement and you are 100% correct about how this will unfold negatively for our descendants. It will be cameras for now and satellites for later. Hey, how about some directional microphones while we're at it?
~ Blue Jays ~
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.