From: Billy Brown (bbrown@transcient.com)
Date: Thu May 04 2000 - 09:29:26 MDT
Ruthanna R Gordon wrote:
> And freedom is slavery.
>
> Does anyone know if there is any legislation being talked about to
> prevent these cameras from being used for other than their claimed purpose
> of catching red light runners? Whether or no, as has been previously
> pointed out, people are being made, little by little, used to
> being watched. I personally don't care if the power behind the camera is
> government or corporate, I'm against it.
>
> When I became part of the 'cryonics crowd,' I made a deal with myself that
> I wouldn't become frightened enough of death to live a longer life less
> worth living. That means I'm still willing to sacrifice my life for
> others if I see the need, and that I'm very cautious about sacrificing
> freedom for the sake of security.
Unfortunately, I don't see any way to avoid public surveillance in the long
run. We can stage a holding action to slow down government efforts for a
while, and I definitely think this is worth doing. However, eventually
(10-15 years) wearable computers with audiovisual recording capability are
going to become so commonplace that you'll have to assume anything you do in
public is being picked up on someone's camera. At that point it isn't going
to be practical to keep government from doing the same thing.
I do, however, think that we can draw a solid boundary between surveillance
of public and private spaces. Setting up cameras inside someone's home is
far more expensive, less reliable, and more intrusive than putting cameras
on street lights. It also requires a much greater degree of consent -
stopping the government from putting cameras on their own property is much
harder than stopping them from putting cameras on yours. Fortunately, there
isn't much prospect of the government ever getting that level of consent
(after all, they would have to put cameras in your bedroom, and almost no
one will go along with that).
Billy Brown
bbrown@transcient.com
http://www.transcient.com
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Fri Nov 01 2002 - 15:28:24 MST