U.S. Develops Urban Surveillance System

Associated Press ^ | Jul 01, 2003 | MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN

[optimistically_conservative]

You are all over the map on the systems and analogies you present.

The traffic camera is not a matching system. There are two types of traffic camera systems, triggered systems and monitored ones. Triggered systems can be based on speed of objects and/or status of traffic light with directional sensors.

A triggered system that "snapshots" a vehicle which has violated the conditions codified in the software is different than one that snapshots every vehicle and compares it to a database of "suspect" vehicles (stolen, outstanding traffic violations, unregistered, uninsured, etc.). As far as I know the latter system does not exist. I have less problems with the former where there is a demonstrated cause (violation) proir to a record being made.

I don't need or want unified law enforcement opinion, but I do want their concerns aired and addressed.

I demand that there be reasonable and probable cause for law enforcement to take an interest in me and my loved ones. I have seen the repressive effect of "secret" police and covert surveillance on people. It has always impressed me how people recently liberated from authoritarian regimes more jealously guard their anonimity and privacy than those living in socialized democracies. One reason I believe this is true is that the recently liberated realize from experience how quickly, even erroneously, one life can be removed and its impact on the rest of that society.

Oh, and I do think there are more important things than an individual's life or health. You'll find that many people who serve the larger community feel the same way. These are especially the people willing to sacrifice their own lives or health to defend the ideas written on a piece of parchment. So no, I don't personally care how many people die or suffer broken necks if the answer is sacrificing our liberty.

[Robert_Paulson2]

"Test it in combat and then use it at home."

---

The collective unconsciousness of governmental bureaucracism has this as it's tyrannical, underlying view of self-preservation.

"if it saves even one child... the loss of liberties for the sake of safety is worth it..." see it here on freerepublic.

puke.

[kkindt]

You wrote:
reasonable and probable cause for law enforcement to take an interest in me and my loved ones
My response:
Reasonable cause - you and I are sinners that need watching and it helps you and I to behave ourselves to have the government that has power to punish us watching us.
Probable cause to take an interest in us? - I thought it was probable cause to arrest us - not probable cause to take an interest in us. According to the logic of this statement there ought to be no police officers parked along the road with a radar gun pointing at us. Are you against radar guns also?

Your lack of concern for the thousands of innocent children killed each year by speeders and red light runners is remarkable. You are not willing to allow our government to use cameras to curtain red light running and speeders and thus save the lives of innocent children? And what liberty are you sacrificing by allowing them to take your photo when you are approaching a red light or entering a football stadium where they are trying to catch terrorists who will blow up you and your children??

We live in a world where some liberty needs to be curtailed to protect the innocent - I would agree with you that we need to watch the government's use of this technology and put an end to abuses of its use but you go way to the wrong side of the scale when you say video cameras capturing us in public are to be forbidden.

[optimistically_conservative]

Reasonable cause - you and I are sinners that need watching and it helps you and I to behave ourselves to have the government that has power to punish us watching us.

Please provide any constitutional or legal foundation for this view. If you can't, please stop empowering the government simply based on your moral prejudice of my sinfulness.

I thought it was probable cause to arrest us - not probable cause to take an interest in us.

Wrong. Please read what I posted above on probable cause. The law concerning searches and seizures, especially pertaining to wiretap laws, require probable cause and are conditions prior to arrest. They are specific restrictions on the governments ability to take an interest in me without justification - and I dare you to go before a judge arguing my preconceived sinfulness as satisfactory.

According to the logic of this statement there ought to be no police officers parked along the road with a radar gun pointing at us. Are you against radar guns also?

No my logic does not argue against radar guns which are used to measure speed of vehicles, and are triggered by the officer who suspects a vehicle by observation - and then uses the device to measure the speed. I am against photo radar, but for different reasons because it is still a triggered system and actually less of a privacy issue. However, if you want to make the analogy, then I would ask again what are the rules governing the use of database matching cameras to protect me against improper and/or negligent operation, my rights to know I'm being scanned and my rights to foil and/or detect such use? Throughout the states there is a body of law concerning administrative/civil violations of traffic rules where radar/laser devices are used, the qualifications of the officers to use them, the limitations of their use for probable cause to stop a vehicle, subsequent searches and seizures, and my rights to detect, mask, foil and challenge its use. No such rules exist for the systems you advocate and you have not put forward any.

Your lack of concern for the thousands of innocent children killed each year by speeders and red light runners is remarkable.

Hardly. In fact, I'm very serious in being involved in my community to ensure it's safety. That doesn't mean that by not accepting your "big brother" solution I'm somehow negligent or ignorant. There is no requirement for me to accept your method of protection, and I am trying not to be offended by your characterizations of me as a sinner requiring government surveillance (based on what, original sin?) and subjecting myself to a system that assumes I am a terrorist until some government database proves otherwise.

I'm tired of discussing this. You get the last word. I'm not responding again.

[kkindt]

Last word - we are both sinners - conceived that way - all of us are. Proof? Who taught us to tell lies? Comes naturally to all of us. So do all immoral desires come natural. We do not have to be taught how to be law breakers or immoral persons but we do have to be taught how to obey the law. The government has been instituted by God to punish us for breaking His laws. Our government may not know this but it was. So as one who believes this way I don't care what the constitution of the United States says at this point about cameras taking our pictures in public because if it doesn't permit it according to the supreme court then I want the court changed or the constitution changed so it will permit it. I have a right to try to have this view incorporated into the constitution if it isn't there already.