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| quote: | Originally posted by malek
what concerns me is no these cameras.... but the fact they started this trend of "we watch to protect you"... slowly it will change to "we watch" |
That's what worries me too. It's all done in the name of protection and safety at first, for as long as it takes for people to get used to the idea. Once it's "broken in" then the law starts to become more laid-back when it comes to what can be done with it (think photo-radar/red-light cameras, which were pure moneymakers and proven conclusively not to have any positive effects on driving conditions).
Don't forget that even though private establishments are allowed to monitor their own premises, we have very specific laws on how that's allowed to be used. Specifically, people have to give their consent before being audio or video taped. It's one thing to put a sign up in a private building saying "this premise is monitored by closed-circuit television" - you don't have to enter that building if you don't want to - but it's quite another to be waiving your right to privacy and consenting to being taped whenever you step outside your house. Public surveillance eats away at the legal fabric we have in place - even in the U.S., the Supreme Court recently decided in an e-mail related case to waive the wiretap act, partially because surveillance is so common now, especially when it comes to technology.
I'm not against the idea per se - it is troublesome what goes on downtown and I am glad to see them taking steps to fix it. But the potential does exist for abuse and people need to understand that. For anyone who's watched Futurama, I can give you an example, albeit a bit of a silly one right off the top of my head: Fry says something stupid about his PIN at the bank just before finding out he's a billionaire, and when the same conglomerate that runs the surveillance tapes decides he's in competition with them, they use the tapes to figure out a way to get his PIN and take all his money. Yeah, maybe that's a little far-fetched in today's world, but if the wrong people get access to the tapes - and who's to say they won't, knowing how many corrupt police officers there are - it could mean serious trouble.
I'm not saying it's wrong for them to put in the cameras, but keeping in mind that (a) abuse is possible and (b) erosion of privacy laws is almost definite, I think people should treat it with a degree of skepticism as opposed to the old "I've got nothing to hide" attitude. However silly it sounds, we should be keeping an eye on the people who keep an eye on us and make sure they stay in line, and not throw our hands up in the air and go "Oh well, that's the way the ball bounces" when things start to go haywire.
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