Posted on 02/13/2002 6:15:46 AM PST by goldylight
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington police are building what will be the nation's biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor shopping areas, streets, monuments and other public places in the U.S. capital, a move that worries civil liberties groups, The Wall Street Journal said on Wednesday.
The system would eventually include hundreds of cameras, linking existing devices in Metro mass transit stations, public schools and traffic intersections to new digital cameras mounted to watch over neighborhoods and shopping districts, the Journal said.
"In the context of Sept. 11, we have no choice but to accept greater use of this technology," Stephen Gaffigan, the head of the police department project, told the Journal.
He said city officials had studied the British surveillance system, which has more than 2 million cameras throughout the country, and were "intrigued by that model."
One of the first uses of police surveillance cameras in Washington was April 2000, when authorities set up a network to monitor protests during a meeting of the International Monetary Fund and World Bank, the newspaper said.
On Tuesday morning, in response to the latest terror alert issued by the Justice Department, police activated a $7 million command center that was first used on Sept. 11. The command center, which has dozens of video stations for monitoring cameras, will remain in use until federal officials end the alert, the Journal reported.
Cameras installed by the police have been programmed to scan public areas automatically, and officers can take over manual control if they want to examine something more closely.
The system currently does not permit an automated match between a face in the crowd and a computerized photo of a suspect, the Journal said. Gaffigan said officials were looking at the technology but had not decided whether to use it.
Eventually, images will be viewable on computers already installed in most of the city's 1,000 squad cars, the Journal said.
The Journal said the plans for Washington went far beyond what was in use in other U.S. cities, a development that worries civil liberties advocates.
Barry Steinhardt, associate director of the American Civil Liberties Union in New York, noted there were few legal restrictions of video surveillance of public streets. But he said that by setting up a "central point of surveillance," it becomes likely that "the cameras will be more frequently used and more frequently abused."
"You are building in a surveillance infrastructure, and how it's used now is not likely how it's going to be used two years from now or five years from now," he told the Journal.
"Necessity is the plea of every infringement of human freedom. It is the arguement of tyrants, it is the creed of slaves." ~~~William Pitt, House of Lords, 1783
"The people never give up their liberties but under some delusion." ~~~Edmund Burke
"The welfare of the people has always been the alibi of tyrants, and it provides the further advantage of giving the servants of tyranny a good conscience." ~~~Albert Camus
"Good intentions will always be pleaded for every assumption of authority. It is hardly too strong to say that the Constitution was made to guard the people against the dangers of good intentions. There are men in all ages who mean to govern well, but they mean to govern. They promise to be good masters, but they mean to be masters." ~~~Daniel Webster
"If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot, stomping on a human face, forever." ~~~George Orwell
"In 1960 when I came out of prison as an ex-convict, I had more freedom under parole supervision than there's available to the average citizen in America right now." ~~~Merle Haggerd
"They that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Ben Franklin
"Only those completely distrustful of all government would be opposed to what we are doing with surveillance cameras." ~~~Howard Safir, 1999, NYC Police Commissioner, former head of US Marshals.
Perhaps the real issue is that I don't want to have my every move while out in public monitored. Whether each tape is scrutinized (by man or machine) is not relevant. Indeed, one of the points in 1984 was the randon nature of monitoring. That I don't want to be watched and or tracked like an animal is not silly.
LOL...you are so funny...I for one like your satire.
Stay Safe !
We are rapidly becoming a nation where taking a stance for something one believes in is considered politcally incorrect...resurrecting prayer in school, Right to own weapons, being a vocal advocate against abortion, etc.
The corruption that breeds in bureacracy could foster a misuse of these cameras for polical gain or policy objective. Gun control...Lets see who visits the gunshop, that way we'll know who is buying ammo. Christianity becoming a radical nuisance?...lets monitor the chrurchs, "gee we shut down that church, yet I notice the same people gathering over in that recreation building, better check it out". Abortion protesters? "Get face shots of each one so we can put them in the database".
The power of our form of government rests in the hands of THE PEOPLE, not the elite office holders and appointees who dictate policy that others agree to. This camera business is a way to control people. When the people can be controlled, those in charge take larger idiological liberties for themselves for what they consider their own best interest, not the people's interest.
All, IMHO, of course.
Thanks for posting this information. I want to stay informed.
Stay Safe and be careful !
Question for the proponents: "Are you willing to bet your life on the correctness of identification from these pictures?" (You really are, of course.)
Well said!
Aren't you over doing it on the sarcasm just a little bit?
The original intent of the Founders was to have a very limited federal government, confined to a very few enumerated powers, and allow the states wide discretion to determine the rest of the extent of government. That way, the local people can tailor the government to their needs and wishes.
This is sometimes called "Laboratories of Democracy". Under this type of decentralized control, also known as a constitutional republic, libertarians would be free under the 9th and 10th Amendments to establish their own libertarian style state government within the Union.
However, libertarians hold no delusions that the US is currently a constitutional republic. Because of this, we'll never attempt to establish a libertarian state within the US because we know the federal authority no longer respects constitutional restraints. We know the fed would deem any libertarian style government a threat to its (unlawful) authority, and it would destroy it by force.
Libertarians have discussed establishing their own government, but not anywhere within the US.
Happy now?
Perhaps you missed it. A notably significant feature of all third world domains is a lack of Freedom and the presence of omnipotent authoritarian rule.
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