Surveillance Society
The prevalence of closed-circuit TV monitoring systems in our society is something to behold. It is safe to assume that any time you are in a place of retail that you are being watched. Convenience Stores and lower end discount stores were the first to really put the systems in, primarily in order to thwart crime and reduce shoplifting losses. Since then, the systems have really taken off.
It is a safe assumption by most people that a CC-TV system will assist police in capturing law-breakers on private property. CC-TV has been a component in high-end security systems in the commercial (i.e. office) world for some time. Even high end home security systems are offering it.
It is now possible for someone with enough resources, and willing shop-owners, to put together a tape that shows a car driving down a street. It sounds mundane, but this tape would be the pieced together footage from security cameras as said car passed each place of business. On large commercial corridors such as Lake St. in Minneapolis or University Av. in St. Paul, you could conceivably get several miles of good coverage. This is in fact one kind of police work that is done.
While the cameras are privately owned, police frequently request access to the tapes from shop-owners. Even if that business wasn't involved in whatever it is. This purely voluntary submission of footage is then used to get an idea of the movements of who was in the area, or whatever the investigation needs. Shop owners are typically in favor of reducing crime in the area of their business so cooperation with officialdom is high. The trick here is getting at the tapes before they're either destroyed or overwritten.
What typically meets great community resistance is when the police themselves put up cameras. This has been going on in England for a few years now, but the privacy issues haven't been fully settled over here where we have much stronger privacy laws. What rights do the police have to look over public places? Can they use such evidence as a basis for a criminal charge?
An example. As a private property owner, I can place a camera just under the eave of my roof that looks out onto a street intersection where kids have been known to congregate. This isn't my property I'm looking onto, it is a pair of public throughs with sidewalks. No expectation of privacy at all. Perfectly legal for me to do this.
But if the police were to attempt the same thing, but instead use the light-pole ten feet away from my roof-line, it would be a different animal entirely. The camera is on public property, for one. Herein lay the privacy issues that haven't been fully addressed.
This could lead to Neighborhood Watch organizations that use CCTV or digital-camera systems instead of the more traditional methods of, "if you see someone suspicious, call the police." Digital cameras are getting really cheap these days, and wiring them into a broadband system for central storage is within easy grasp.
The only place you have an expectation of privacy is within your own home, and in your own head. Everywhere else is up for grabs. Some see this as a good thing, since everyone's movements are traceable with enough effort, evil-doers will have a much harder time getting away with it. Others see this as a bad thing, since the government shouldn't have the right to know our every location. The Supreme Court ruled a few years ago that the police practice of using an infrared camera to see through the walls of a house was a violation of that same expectation of privacy, so there is a judicial basis for this.
So just get used to having your every move on tape.
It is a safe assumption by most people that a CC-TV system will assist police in capturing law-breakers on private property. CC-TV has been a component in high-end security systems in the commercial (i.e. office) world for some time. Even high end home security systems are offering it.
It is now possible for someone with enough resources, and willing shop-owners, to put together a tape that shows a car driving down a street. It sounds mundane, but this tape would be the pieced together footage from security cameras as said car passed each place of business. On large commercial corridors such as Lake St. in Minneapolis or University Av. in St. Paul, you could conceivably get several miles of good coverage. This is in fact one kind of police work that is done.
While the cameras are privately owned, police frequently request access to the tapes from shop-owners. Even if that business wasn't involved in whatever it is. This purely voluntary submission of footage is then used to get an idea of the movements of who was in the area, or whatever the investigation needs. Shop owners are typically in favor of reducing crime in the area of their business so cooperation with officialdom is high. The trick here is getting at the tapes before they're either destroyed or overwritten.
What typically meets great community resistance is when the police themselves put up cameras. This has been going on in England for a few years now, but the privacy issues haven't been fully settled over here where we have much stronger privacy laws. What rights do the police have to look over public places? Can they use such evidence as a basis for a criminal charge?
An example. As a private property owner, I can place a camera just under the eave of my roof that looks out onto a street intersection where kids have been known to congregate. This isn't my property I'm looking onto, it is a pair of public throughs with sidewalks. No expectation of privacy at all. Perfectly legal for me to do this.
But if the police were to attempt the same thing, but instead use the light-pole ten feet away from my roof-line, it would be a different animal entirely. The camera is on public property, for one. Herein lay the privacy issues that haven't been fully addressed.
This could lead to Neighborhood Watch organizations that use CCTV or digital-camera systems instead of the more traditional methods of, "if you see someone suspicious, call the police." Digital cameras are getting really cheap these days, and wiring them into a broadband system for central storage is within easy grasp.
The only place you have an expectation of privacy is within your own home, and in your own head. Everywhere else is up for grabs. Some see this as a good thing, since everyone's movements are traceable with enough effort, evil-doers will have a much harder time getting away with it. Others see this as a bad thing, since the government shouldn't have the right to know our every location. The Supreme Court ruled a few years ago that the police practice of using an infrared camera to see through the walls of a house was a violation of that same expectation of privacy, so there is a judicial basis for this.
So just get used to having your every move on tape.
posted by Corwin at 12:45 PM
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