Comments on: Seattle Police surveillance cameras: No ‘public vetting’ events announced yet; councilmembers consider new oversight rules tomorrow

By: NotMe

NotMe — Thu, 07 Mar 2013 20:05:47 +0000

Anyone that supported the Patriot Act should realize this is one of many results. “Homeland Security” is a veil for spying on our own people, among many other things. Nice, huh? Nothing good can come from profiling with cameras like this. And no, it isn’t going to keep the boogeyman from getting to you.
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I have a new-found respect for the mayor. At least he is allowing us the sliver of a chance to stop this from happening. Kudos for standing up for his own fellow citizens to question the Federal Government.

By: CE

CE — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 22:47:48 +0000

Thanks to those few who made it to the city council meeting and commented, and thanks to Phil for all the work done on this issue. Also to WSB for the platform to discuss this.

By: Ordinary_Citizen

Ordinary_Citizen — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:16:22 +0000

How does not wanting to be spied on equate to being anti-social? How about being a good citizen by being involved and not slamming others for getting involved with our government processes and providing the checks and balances that the quiet majority doesn’t want to do? I don’t like people getting away with crime but don’t think this is the right way to do it. Btw, I try to stay away from hyperbole.

By: Ordinary_Citizen

Ordinary_Citizen — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 21:13:37 +0000

How does not wanting to be spied on equate to being anti-social? How about being a good citizen by being involved and not being slammed for getting involved with our government processes and providing the checks and balances that the quiet majority doesn’t want to do?

By: phil dirt

phil dirt — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 18:41:56 +0000

“So I’m not willing to join the chorus of paranoid hyperbole about the government stockpiling information. Nor do I think that public policy is best decided by the kind of irrational emotion I see being flung around over this topic. I don’t see patriots as much as I see a lot of antisocial people who consider it abhorrent that they’d have to follow the rules that are meant to govern our civil society.”
Comment by cjboffoli — 7:46 pm March 5, 2013 #

I’m sure Hugo Chavez would agree with you.

By: Sillygoose

Sillygoose — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 16:59:47 +0000

Activate these things already, we don’t have enough officers to be every where! If this helps catch the criminals then go for it. If you are not commiting a crime why does it matter! I would love to see them on the corner of Graham and California Ave to catch the drug dealers working out of the Chuck and Sally’s parking lot!

By: ivan

ivan — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 13:10:01 +0000

I thank my lucky stars every day and every night that I have never been molded and conditioned to acceptance of authority to the extent that cjboffoli has.

By: Phil Mocek

Phil Mocek — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 05:21:23 +0000

Cjboffoli wrote, "I don’t see these cameras as being any different than a police officer sitting in a cruiser parked along the side of the road." One of the cameras is somewhat like a police officer sitting in a cruiser on the side of the road who has perfect memory and works 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, recording the actions of everyone who passes, just in case that information is someday useful. The 30 cameras the U.S. Department of Homeland Security bought SPD are more like 30 such superhuman police officers, and a city-wide system of general public surveillance on every street corner that records our every move once we leave the privacy of our homes is a dystopian nightmare that will never be practical to staff with humans, but will be practical with surveillance cameras. Surveillance cameras on every utility pole, feeding their data to the nearest fusion center so that computers can read our cars' license plates and recognize our faces, storing all that data away at the NSA's Utah Data Center in case it's useful someday is precisely what we're going to have as soon as the cost of the equipment drops unless we get our rogue police department under control soon.

By: cjboffoli

cjboffoli — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 03:46:06 +0000

chuck and sally’s: I think you misunderstand. My point was not that the government should have warrantless access to our communications. It was that there are intrusions into our privacy (by both the government and the private sector) that are considerably more significant than cameras monitoring public places. I don’t see these cameras as being any different than a police officer sitting in a cruiser parked along the side of the road. And as a law abiding citizen doing nothing wrong, I have no reason to be concerned by their presence.
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I’m pretty sure the Founding Fathers didn’t have an opinion on electronic monitoring of sections of our coastline as much as they were just trying to prevent British redcoats from bursting into their houses in the middle of the night. And I think they’d agree that anyone standing in the middle of the town square ridiculously demanding privacy might need to have their cider ration reduced. Not for nothing but the Founding Fathers also thought regular bathing was unhealthy and keeping slaves was A-OK. So let’s keep that in mind as we invoke their memory in relation to the issues of quite a different modern age.
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Steve T: What is more a real ‘problem’ to me is less the threat of government intrusion in my life than daily events that remind me that I’m living in a place and a culture in which people go to great lengths to avoid responsibility. T-bone someone at an intersection? Just drive off. Drunk drive your truck onto someone’s lawn? Just run away. Break into someone’s house and steal from them? Your lawyer will help you plead it out. It doesn’t matter who you hurt along the way. There’s always an excuse or a sob story about a hard scrabble upbringing to justify even the most despicable crimes.
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I see way too many people committing crime with impunity in this city and I personally cheer every time I see when a random bit of video surveillance helps police detectives solve previously unsolvable crimes. As someone who makes a living with cameras I’ve also seen, time and again, how the truth-telling presence of cameras works to keep law enforcement responsible and accountable. Not Big Brother but the unblinking eye of truth that makes it very difficult for people to lie.
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So I’m not willing to join the chorus of paranoid hyperbole about the government stockpiling information. Nor do I think that public policy is best decided by the kind of irrational emotion I see being flung around over this topic. I don’t see patriots as much as I see a lot of antisocial people who consider it abhorrent that they’d have to follow the rules that are meant to govern our civil society.

By: G

Wed, 06 Mar 2013 03:19:03 +0000

Tempest in a teapot. We live in a political correct society that governs everything we do from the moment we leave the house till we come home, and people are worried about a few police cameras.

Rich indeed.

By: Phil Mocek

Phil Mocek — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 02:05:41 +0000

We have reasonable expectations of privacy in public from cameras looking up our skirts, from X-rays peering into our bags, and from parabolic microphones listening in on our quiet conversations.

That I leave the privacy of my home is not justification for our government to stockpile information about where I’ve been.

By: Ordinary_Citizen

Ordinary_Citizen — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 01:04:56 +0000

So many people just accept the fact that they don’t have a right to privacy in public so that means its ok for the government to stalk us and spy and keep data for undefined purposes.
@Phil Moeck Thanks for being so proactive.
@Gregory “Like”
@ B_B I agree. I wonder why they chose to test it on us and the SE community. Is there an underlying racist/poor(er) people agenda?
Everyone that can should go to tomorrow’s council meeting.

By: Dead End Marc

Dead End Marc — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 01:02:53 +0000

If you aren’t doing anything illegal you still ought to be worried about this intrusion.
This is not going to go away anytime soon, IMO, because the folks that paid for it, and are implementing it thinks it will make their jobs easier, at the expense of a small slice of your privacy and freedom.
This was originally explained as Port security, but the Ports have their own cameras. They claimed to ‘black out’ private residence windows in the field of view, but have mentioned that could be overridden at a moments notice for a good reason (whatever all of that means).
Not sure if they take IR (infra-red) or if normal cloth blinds are ‘transparent’.
Despite the timeliness, this is a ’1984′ slippery slope.

By: Steve T

Steve T — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:51:00 +0000

Traffic violations and traffic patterns are allowed to be captured, by the definition of surveillance cameras. And anyone who uses the term “no reasonable expectation of privacy” are part of the problem.

By: chuck and sally's van man

chuck and sally's van man — Wed, 06 Mar 2013 00:05:26 +0000

Say CJ, me thinks you are looking at this the wrong way. Maybe the question is why the (____) should law enforcement be able to so easily access your personal information? Many people on here seem so eager to let government lead them around and erode their rights, drop by drop. Our founding fathers cringe.