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Post by Deleted on Dec 3, 2009 6:56:00 GMT
The current Minister of the Interior in France is totally in love with the British system of keeping all public places under videosurveillance and a thousand cameras are being installed in the streets of Paris. Not everybody is thrilled by this, so there is a group painting stencils on the sidewalk to inform the public that they are being watched. Arrows direct you to the cameras. |
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Post by hwinpp on Dec 3, 2009 8:39:21 GMT
That's good. If I resent one thing it's being photographed without my knowledge.
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 8, 2009 16:25:23 GMT
Has there been any evidence so far that the cameras are effective in crime-prevention? I'm thinking that could be a benevolent side effect of the stencils -- pickpockets would pick another place for their pilfering.
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Post by fumobici on Dec 8, 2009 23:01:56 GMT
It's a tradeoff. I do think it makes good sense in known high crime areas. Not much point in most places though. In the US I don't think the government does it as much as private businesses which are routinely equipped with CCTV and recorders.
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Post by patricklondon on Dec 10, 2009 16:26:44 GMT
As with having policemen patrolling the streets, it's more about trying to reassure people that someon's keeping an eye out for the bad guys, rather than actually frightening off criminals.
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Post by lola on Dec 10, 2009 19:43:19 GMT
I can't say it bothers me, since when I'm on the street anyone nearby can glance over and there I am, in public view. Doesn't particularly reassure me, but I don't require that.
My nephew was leaving a suburban convenience store late one night when a stranger walked up out of nowhere and started beating him in a crazed way. He landed in intensive care with a broken jaw. The parking lot surveillance cameras backed up his account; otherwise the police were treating it as two guys fighting. Also the cameras picked up license plate number.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 10, 2009 19:47:11 GMT
Obviously there are some beneficial effects, but there has also been quite a bit of evidence of video images being misused.
I am always fascinated by the terminology modifications to make it all so nice. It is no longer called video surveillance but "video protection."
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Post by imec on Dec 10, 2009 22:05:08 GMT
I don't have a problem with it. I do have problem with abuse of any information - but that shouldn't be blamed on the technology - tools in the hands of fools...
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Post by bixaorellana on Dec 10, 2009 22:24:43 GMT
Hmmm ~~ I don't know if this belongs here, or in the paranoid attack thread:
I play a game on facebook, which means many of my "friends" aren't people I know. Yesterday one of them contacted me to help out in the game, saying "Come help, brother." I said I wasn't a brother, but a sister, and we started chatting, in the course of which he said he was in Pakistan Islamabad. The conversation became slightly political, and almost immediately , the chat box started freezing and malfunctioning. I mentioned it, and he said we were probably being monitored.
I'm pretty sure I have my FB account set to the US, and I am a US citizen ......... one who became very paranoid over the idea of Big Brotherish monitoring, even though it was a completely innocent conversation.
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Post by lola on Dec 11, 2009 16:04:48 GMT
eek, bixa. Reminiscent of the last Jason Bourne movie, where the CIA monitored all the cell phones in the world to pinpoint a few words of a conversation in London.
kerouac, what sorts of abuses approximately? I ask out of ignorance.
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Post by Deleted on Dec 13, 2009 19:07:27 GMT
The authorities tend to compile information about people when it is none of their business... whether it is repeatedly visiting a liquor store, embracing someone on the street or just hanging out in the same area. It is very convenient to jump to conclusions when you think you have analyzed someone's behavior and very difficult for that person to defend him/herself when there is video imagery.
The police therefore do not feel the need to make a complete investigation if there is a crime, because they absolutely love circumstantial "evidence."
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Post by bixaorellana on Jan 3, 2010 19:50:55 GMT
Yee gads! Somehow this thread got pushed down and I failed to read the last Reply.
Kerouac, is that really true in France? Also, by "the authorities", do you mean the police? That's a chilling thought -- that circumstantial evidence is being compiled before a crime is committed, in order to easily find a convenient suspect afterward.
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