Chicago Rushes Head First Into 'Limitless' Surveillance
from the but-will-they-be-able-to-spot-political-corruption? dept
Governments around the world are finding reasons to install surveillance cameras, but few are keeping account of the costs and benefits that come from those CCTV systems. Chicago, in its bid to follow in China's steps as host of the Olympics, is the most recent one to do so. By spending millions of dollars, Chicago aims to have a camera "on every corner" in preparation for the 2016 Summer Games that it hopes to host. But they are doing so without thoughtful implementation or an understanding of the realities of around-the-clock government surveillance.Under the auspices of fighting crime and preventing terrorism, Chicago's Police Superintendent Jody Weis is hyping CCTV as having "limitless" crime-fighting potential. The reality, as is evident to anyone who has actually researched this type of thing, is that studies have shown municipal surveillance cameras to have little to no positive effect on crime. Further, London is widely known to have the most extensive CCTV network in the world, but that served as little deterrent to the terrorists of July 2005. But instead of bringing this up, the Sun-Times and Chicago officials point to a test in which "live video was used to catch a petty thief in the act of sticking his hand in a Salvation Army kettle outside Macy's State Street." Given the cost in both dollars and civil liberties, it is hard to justify catching petty criminals stealing some coins from charity.
But according to another city official, "civil libertarians have nothing to fear" from the blanket surveillance system because police operating the pan-and-tilt CCTV cameras see only what you would see if you were sitting on a park bench in front of that building." The difference, of course, is that by extending government power to all facets of public life, you extend the asymmetry of power between citizens and government (especially the corrupt ones for which Illinois is known). Indeed, we have already seen examples of "park bench" type cameras being abused by government.
What Chicago needs is an honest assessment of surveillance and a commitment to real police work, not hyped technology. If they want to follow in China's footsteps, it would be best to avoid the Big Brother ones.
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Filed Under: chicago, surveillance
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This does not happen in America, does it?
"by bigness - Feb 23rd, 2009 @ 7:27am...
The US government doesn't put up cameras throughout public areas or watch apartment buildings - your government does!... See our government doesn't watch us all the time - whereas you have allowed your government do so. Have fun with that."
Seems that perceptions in the US of what elected officials are actually doing could do with a brush up?
As it goes, they used the same excuses for putting up so many cameras in London too... It's to protect you! Have fun with that!
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Re: This does not happen in America, does it?
That said, I live in Chicago and I hate what this dumbass city has become. That was my reason number 1 for not voting for our new President. He is after all, nothing but a City of Chicago politician.
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Re: Re: This does not happen in America, does it?
Anyway - I live in Detroit, what would I know?
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Re: Re: Re: This does not happen in America, does it?
My point is that you have to be careful when you mix federal, state and local government. They are very different entities. The Federal government has little to no say (although they try their best) in the goings of state and local government, just like local government has little to no say on the federal level.
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Re: This does not happen in America, does it?
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If you've a thousand cameras pointed at you but it's only idiots and morons that use and are in control of them is it really worth bothering about? The cameras may have caught a petty thief stupid enough to be seen dipping his hand but I'm sure they missed pick pockets subtle enough not even to be noticed by those whose pockets they were picking.
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To start with then once they have those they will start to expand, as articles in the UK only yesterday pointed out, the police in london are now trying to put them inside pub's/bars.
And if the owner does not want that (as who would drink in a place full of cameras operated by the cops?) they don't get their licence
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Re:
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Daley hired an outsider for the police chief's job, a former FBI agent at $342,000 a year and the murder rate is on track for being worse than last year, Its now more dangerous to live and work in Chicago than it is to be a U.S. service member in Iraq. Sup. Jody Weis has publicly stated that it was the use of Mobile Strike Teams that kept January's murder rate so low, (Say nothing of the extreme cold temperatures in Chicago)
The police cars all have over 200K miles on them, and the replacements are nowhere to be seen, and the technology in them, PDT's and GPS are always broken. The police helicopter in Chicago is never in the air, (But Cleveland has six state of the art police helicopters)
Over the weekend there was one triple homicide in front of two camera and the rumor is one of the cameras is always broken and the other just scans back and forth. The criminals in Chicago just as the terrorists in London have shown they just don't care about CCTV cameras, and what the mayor is basically saying is its cheaper to deploy cameras on every corner of Chicago than hire and retain real police officers.
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then again
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Re: then again
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Re: then again
That whole state has been corrupt for well over a century.
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Re: Re: then again
http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/02202009/profile.html
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It can and will get worse
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Catch some major criminals
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on the plus side
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stealing from the salvation army?
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Crowd Sourcing Big Brother
(and bringing in some of David Brin's ideas from "The Transparent Society"
Would everyone be as up in arms if all of the feeds from the cameras were not only viewed by the Chicago police but open to anyone who logged in?
Afterall no one complains about all of the webcam feeds that are accessible.
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From the Ministry of Love:
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Or why not have the military provide "surveillance assistance" for the Olympics I'm sure they would be delighted to have a chance for urban training...
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operation virtual shield IBM software watching you
useless waste of money.
Police officers pay has been cut back to pay for this
Beat police officers can no longer come to community meetings.
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Unlimited Surveillance = Stalin's Wet Dream
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As a practical matter, there is little difference between federal, state and local government these days. The feds have a lot of indirect control, largely as a result of anti-terrorist initiatives that end up creating a police state for law-abiding citizens.
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surveillance
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