How many DUers are being watched?

[screembloodymurder]

From my local paper:

More than 100 new security cameras will be installed throughout the City of Lancaster, PA within the next five months, thanks to donations from a broad coalition of public and private sources.

The new cameras are a big step toward fulfilling the vision articulated earlier this decade by the landmark Lancaster Crime Commission, which advocated security cameras as an effective, relatively low-cost means of combating crime. Law enforcement officials and many city residents love the cameras, though others worry that they infringe on civil liberties.

http://articles.lancasteronline.com/local/4/231678

Do these surveillance cameras bother anyone else?

[DJ13]

1. ........

[SammyWinstonJack]

3. .

:spray:

[screembloodymurder]

5. Meaning .....?

[SammyWinstonJack]

6. I thought the .gif was funny. Sorry.

:shrug:

[Shipwack]

2. They bother me...

But not just because of the privacy issue. All civil liberties issues aside, they are a waste of money because wide spread surveillance Just Doesn't Work... They are finding out it has little to no effect on crime in the UK...

[screembloodymurder]

4. What really bothers me is that a private group of "volunteers" will do the watching.

:hide:

[alfredo]

7. Yes, very much, but then I've had a long love affair with wheat paste.

[JimGinPA]

8. That's My Local Paper Too

And I don't know if the use of those cameras is a good thing or a bad thing. There are logical arguments both ways.

[proud2BlibKansan]

13. Ok try me. What's the logical argument in favor of these cameras?

[pipi_k]

19. One argument in favor of the cameras...

is that even though the crimes themselves might not lessen, there's a better chance that people who commit them will be caught and prosecuted if there is actual evidence on tape.



I'm somewhat of a fence sitter on the whole issue myself...

I would feel both safer and a bit creeped out all at the same time.



Oh, plus there's the fact that the camera adds about 15 to 20 lbs to my onscreen image...I've seen myself on those store cameras...

aughhhhhhhhhh!!!!! :scared:

[screembloodymurder]

24. I'm just outside the camera line (inner-city black neighborhoods).

I'm afraid the ne'er-do-wells will move to easier pickings.

[NYC_SKP]

9. Yes, and I hope there's a crime wave of vandalism against the cameras.

Aren't there better things to do with the money?

[madeline_con]

10. Well, I never been to Lancaster.

But I kinda like the Beatles....

Edited to add: there's no expectation of privacy on a city street. Until they go in restrooms or store dressing rooms, there's no reason to get excited. Being paranoid about being seen in public is agoraphobia.

[screembloodymurder]

12. Perhaps you didn't read about how the red light cameras are being exploited.

I have a real problem with private companies getting involved in law enforcement. I also have a real problem when big money gets to decide how laws will be enforced. Maybe I've watched too many episodes of the Dukes of Hazzard, but big money has enough power.

[DFW]

11. Maybe me, but they had better have some really good telephoto lenses

If they are gonna follow me around from Paris to Bucharest to Zürich to Madrid etc etc
from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, I want one of those cameras!

[Greyhound]

14. Of course not, if you aren't doing anything wrong you have nothing to hide, right?

It sold, of course, as a security/safety measure. Big Brother only watches to ensure your safety. it is a dangerous, post 9/11 world, dontcha know.

What I really want to know is how many people have/are objecting to this?

[MadHound]

15. Another thing I like about living out in the country

There are no cameras, and there won't be for a long, long time.

I can't stand the nearby city. Cameras everywhere, red light security, next thing you know they'll be putting them on the light poles to watch everybody's front, and back yards.

[pipi_k]

20. A little bit of irony...

I live out in the country. Well, in the middle of the woods, really, on a dirt road with the nearest neighbors being about +/-1000 feet down the hill from me

My house is protected by security cameras, all the way around...real time security cameras. That means I can be in the kitchen and see out to the road at the end of the driveway, and all around almost the entire perimeter. And there are motion-activated lights in the driveway.

I feel safer, but I can understand visitors maybe feeling a bit weird about the whole thing. However, Mr Pipi is a retired cop who had to live with threats to his family while he was on the job, so all this is just a continuation of the same caution he's always taken.


As for the city...we only go there when it's necessary. I hate the crowds, the noise, the traffic, and the whole impersonal feeling you don't generally get in the smaller rural towns.

[LeftishBrit]

16. Brits have long experience of this sort of thing, and have learned to watch the watchers!

Many drivers whom I know have tomtoms in their cars, which don't just give directions, but also inform them whenever there's a 'speed camera' on the road.

[Liberal In Texas]

17. The modern Panopticon.

"The Panopticon is a type of prison building designed by English philosopher and social theorist Jeremy Bentham in 1785. The concept of the design is to allow an observer to observe (-opticon) all (pan-) prisoners without the prisoners being able to tell whether they are being watched, thereby conveying what one architect has called the 'sentiment of an invisible omniscience.'

Bentham himself described the Panopticon as 'a new mode of obtaining power of mind over mind, in a quantity hitherto without example.'" -wiki

[lunatica]

18. this was innevitable. But as long as the cameras are in public places

and displayed openly we'll have to learn to live with it. I don't like the idea on principle, but it will keep crime down if the cameras are placed in high crime areas, and if you've ever traveled at night, whether on the subway or the buses you might appreciate the use of public cameras. If you have to go get diapers at midnight you'll feel safer with those cameras. Muggings and public assaults will go down.

Look at it this way. Do you really think you have a right to privacy outside your home? What would you be doing in public that would violate your rights against being watched. And cameras are already a large part of our lives in public places.

And the ultimate question is would you put cameras up around your house if you've been broken into a couple of times? I would.

[acmavm]

21. They're watching the wrong people. Those cameras belong in

the White House, the Senate, Congress, and Wall Street.

[screembloodymurder]

25. Now there's a good idea.

Total transparency.

[DailyGrind51]

22. My neighbor believes she is being watched!

Do you think it has something to do with her vacuuming in the nude?;-)

[ThomWV]

23. The cameras are everywhere - and this is certainly not a good thing

I look for them and I find them everywhere. They are at most intersections, they are at cross-walks, every public building is decorated with them and many private places too. All banks, I suppose most ATMs, and for all I know the back's of schoolbuses too have them. Big Brother has no problem watching you around here (closest city of any size is where I'm talking about).