andteater wrote:so again.

what are the potential abuses that could stem from it?

i'll hang up and listen for my answer.
andyk

space junk wrote:I'd like to hear someone explain exactly what it is they object to about the cameras, other than a) they "don't like" being filmed, b) it is totally "Orwellian" or c) erm...they just don't like being filmed.

What - exactly - are you scared of? I find their presence unpleasant, and I don't like being filmed one bit, by anybody. So I get filmed in public. So some creep I don't know watches me. So someone has footage of me. What the fuck are they going to do with it which could be so harmful to me?

I really don't give too much of a fuck about surveillance cameras.

Antero wrote:The rise in surveillance technologies is coupled with the War On Terror, which shifts the basic design of surveillance away from the Foucauldian disciplinary structure that had long been its primary assumption and replaces it with an interceptive structure in which the act of falling under surveillance is one and the same with the individual's reduction to homo sacer. The "I have nothing to hide" argument is erroneously grounded in the assumption that it matters, rather than confronting the paradox it has generated in which the "protection" of human and civil rights is extended only to those individuals whose rights have not yet been violated.

El Protoolio wrote:Well, Andy, how about someone getting caught up by the police because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and their filmed actions are accidently or even purposely misinterpreted? Especially when the quality, as you keep pointing out, is so low?

andteater wrote:

El Protoolio wrote:Well, Andy, how about someone getting caught up by the police because they happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and their filmed actions are accidently or even purposely misinterpreted? Especially when the quality, as you keep pointing out, is so low?

so are you arguing that they should use higher quality cameras to make sure that if you do happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time, that you cannot be misinterpreted as a murderer or rapist?

i'm so confused!

OMG!
andyk

El Protoolio wrote:

space junk wrote:I'd like to hear someone explain exactly what it is they object to about the cameras, other than a) they "don't like" being filmed, b) it is totally "Orwellian" or c) erm...they just don't like being filmed.

Why aren't any of those reasons good enough for you? Sometimes ideas are important.

space junk wrote:What - exactly - are you scared of?

Abuse. I am suspicious of the police and the government. They do not have the benefit of my doubt.

space junk wrote:So I get filmed in public. So some creep I don't know watches me. So someone has footage of me. What the fuck are they going to do with it which could be so harmful to me?

I am sure that as the practice becomes more common we will find out.

space junk wrote:I really don't give too much of a fuck about surveillance cameras.

Then why argue about it one way or the other?

Look, I understand you Brits might have a different idea of what "liberty" means, what with your lack of freedom of speech and a sitting monarch and everything, but over here some of us still believe that our idea of "liberty" is important and worth fighting for.

simmo wrote:

space junk wrote:
I'd like to hear someone explain exactly what it is they object to about the cameras, other than a) they "don't like" being filmed, b) it is totally "Orwellian" or c) erm...they just don't like being filmed.

Well, some practical and specific concerns/arguments against surveillance equipment that I imagine people might have:

- CCTV/similar technologies could be used to track your movements, so an organisation (governmental or not) could know where you are at all times. This seems to be an invasion of privacy, and is perhaps paramount to stalking which is a criminal offence.

- Following on from point one, CCTV/similar technologies could be used to build a profile of you - your general activities, who you hang out with, where you go, what you like, etc. This could then be used to target you as a consumer, which is at best a nuisance, or for more politicised ends - building up a profile of your political activities or anything you do that does not support/fall in line with state policy, which could later be used against you if, for example, you are implicated in a political crime or you are an immigrant.

- CCTV/similar technologies are perhaps more easily abused/manipulated than we, and the judicial system, might think. Images could be relatively easily manipulated by anyone with access to the images they record (and that includes a lot of people), in order to frame someone. This could be a personal attack or the work of an organisation (governmental or not).

- CCTV/similar technologies are being championed by many as a great resource for fighting crime. This is misguided. CCTV merely pushes much crime underground or sends it to already ghettoized areas. It is not a solution, merely a distraction.


There are probably other concerns but I think (if I've understood what everyone's saying on this thread) these are pretty much the main ones....


I voted waffles, but I do have a question for you about this:

space junk wrote:
What - exactly - are you scared of? I find their presence unpleasant, and I don't like being filmed one bit, by anybody. So I get filmed in public. So some creep I don't know watches me. So someone has footage of me. What the fuck are they going to do with it which could be so harmful to me?

Why does something need to be actually (i.e. physically, mentally) harmful to someone in order for it to be an invasion of their civil liberties or abuse of their human rights?

Imagine some guy comes up to you in the street and just takes a picture of you. Maybe that doesn't bother you - it'd probably just bemuse me. But then imagine he follows you everywhere, all day, snapping away. Would you not wish to confront him and ask him why he need take pictures and to what end does he use them? Would you not feel that you had a right to know?

Then imagine that you discover that the pictures he's been taking are passed amongst friends - for whatever reason, voyeuristic intrigue, I don't know. Or that they're being posted on the internet, or sold, or doctored to make pornographic images. None of these things would "harm" you in the physical sense, nor in the mental sense if you never found about them. But if you did, my guess is that you'd be livid, and feel that your privacy had been thoroughly violated.

I'm not saying that anything close to this analogy is reflected in contemporary society - I don't think the level of surveillance is anywhere near high enough - but my point is simply that just because you're being filmed on CCTV doesn't harm you in any tangible way, it isn't necessarily justified.