Poll: 71% of Americans in favor of increase surveillance camera use
Posted on August 1st, 2007 by bile Categories and Tags: Uncategorized, ABC, Barack Obama, freedom, Google, liberty, London, nanny state, New York City, police state, politics, privacy, Rudy Giuliani, surveillance systems, Washington PostCrime-fighting beats privacy in public places: Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras — a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s.
Given the chief arguments, pro and con — a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy — it isn’t close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it.
Seniors are most apt to support the increased use of these cameras, with under-30s, least so; Republicans more than Democrats; women more than men; higher educated people more than the less educated; and whites more than African-Americans.
Through a political lens, support for increased use of surveillance systems is lowest, 62 percent, among Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents who support Barack Obama for president — and highest of all, 86 percent, among Republicans who support Rudy Giuliani, who made his name as New York City’s crime-fighting mayor.
A random national sample of 1,125 adults? I really really hope these people are the exception. Some gross coincidence that ABC News and Washington Post found a large set of people who don’t think privacy is important. Not a single group of people was less than 50% in favor. This is incredibly sad and scary. It’s this kind of thing that pushes me to move to the middle of nowhere. So far from other people that only Google and the State will be able to see me from space.
11 Responses to “Poll: 71% of Americans in favor of increase surveillance camera use”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
August 1st, 2007 at 10:57 am
An interesting thing about a Philly security camera that I saw recently:
Here’s the story
I do however think cameras can be a powerful crime fighting tool, but they need to work. Personally I would have responded with a “yes” to this question.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:50 pm
You are thinking as someone who knows the technology and what good it can do. Are you considering the bad which it can and will be used for? The slope this puts us on? The power it gives the government? How about reading the Constitution… the 4th Amendment. Or current laws regarding videotaping of people? How in some jurisdictions cops can video you without your permission but the you can’t video them?
Your justification for throwing away privacy can be brought to realistic extremes. To fight crime lets RFID/GPS tag every person in the country. Place GPS in every car. Store fingerprints, DNA, bank accounts, etc in a national database. When we the Big Brother computer notices that you are going 66MPH on the NJTP they instantly withdraw $X from your accounts, issue you a court date, and place a certain number of temporary points on your license. Something like Gattaca perhaps? RFID/GPS can be used to track where you were when any particular ‘interesting’ event took place so they can ‘talk’ with you about it. Instead of just visible light cameras lets use infrared to check for weapons or other suspicious items on your person while you walk down the street.
Is it alright that these cameras are often backed by pattern recognition software which could cause active false positives which could lead to incidents like the poor immigrant in the UK that was shot in the head 7 times because they supposedly thought he was a terrorist? Do these side affects and distortions of liberty justify the end? The illusion of safety?
The government is not your friend. It will not protect you. It infringes on your natural being through force and coercion and those who seek power in this monopoly of force are often those who couldn’t be trusted with watching a baby with candy let alone protecting your rights and are usually above the laws they create or know how to bypass them. The situation in the provided story does nothing to prove a camera would help. It would but give you a head start as to where to look for the criminal and possibly identify him. It didn’t nor could it prevent the offense. Crime in most western nations has been decreasing for years without these cameras. If you look at British statistics on the topic they don’t show much of anything. Between March 2006 and 2007: personal crime, house hold crime, and vandalism were all up. Vandalism which would most likely be caught on camera i’d think was up 10%. Comparing statistics are difficult but one site I’ve found says crime in the UK as measured by the BCS is down 32% from 1997 to 2007(march). The some of the values for the US i’ve seen show a 24+% drop between 1997 and 2005. This link shows that the UK is one of the most protected EU nations and yet it’s common crime is ‘way above the average.’ It doesn’t matter much because the BCS cooks the books.
They want to add lip reading functionality, more cameras (already 1 camera to 14 people), more recognition analysis to those already there.
How do these things, this image not scare you?
“Those who would give up Essential Liberty to purchase a little Temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.”
You can have all the cameras you want in on private property fine… but government should be defending, not destroying our rights and freedom.
Freedom vs. Security: A False Choice by Ron Paul
August 1st, 2007 at 1:11 pm
I think you are fighting the inevitable. The idea that you will avoid cameras as a method of law enforcement doesn’t make much sense. With that logic you should not have police helicopters because they may see into peoples back yards. With a public camera, you are not going to see anything that you wouldn’t see if a police officer was standing there. To me, a camera in a public place is a logical extension of police work. Our efforts would be best spent on curbing improper use of the tool rather than banning the tool outright because it may be used inappropriately. We don’t disallow the use of handguns by police officers because they may be misused, instead we severely discipline the officers who use them inappropriately. As far as infringing on our rights, the fact that an officer can cause great threat to my life by pointing the aforementioned handgun at me seems more of an issue than recording me walking down the street, mowing my lawn or buying drugs. Currently we gladly forfeit that liberty for safety.
As far as the story I linked to, I think it makes a good argument for the ineffectiveness of cameras. If you put cameras everywhere there is SO much data that it becomes damn near impossible to process. Also, at least in Trenton, cameras really don’t seem to curb violent crime and vandalism nearly as much a community involvement.
August 1st, 2007 at 8:14 pm
“I think you are fighting the inevitable.” What exactly is that supposed to mean? Does the inevitability of something mean one should not fight for what’s right? Death is inevitable… should we stop trying to cure disease? One should fight for what they know to be right regardless of it’s possibility of it coming through. To do anything less should make a person feel hollow.
The analogy with helicopters is ridiculous. Helicopters are for transportation and don’t sit over your home 24/7. I somehow doubt you’d have no issue with one that did. Cops have guns for their defense just as the public can (should be able to).
The government is supposed to provide certain services, such as defending and upholding our natural rights. Privacy is one of those rights. These man made and often times bullshit laws do not trump our natural rights. Giving the government these tools and power allows for grave misuses of them and few tangible benefits. It makes the public afraid of the government and that is tyranny. When you drive down the street and a cop is behind you do you feel safe? Or do you feel nervous? What do you feel that these peace officers do more often, keep the peace and uphold your rights or enforce bad laws? Do you bother to look at cases of police getting out of line? How they protect themselves from the public? It’s a boys club and we aren’t part of it.
You completely ignored all the misuses and extremes the technology I mentioned. Is it alright to use infrared cameras to look through clothing? Is it alright to use pattern recognition? To track conversations? Track vehicles? To track people physically? Why not place cameras inside a persons home in an attempt to curb drug use and possible domestic crime? These technologies provide much more than any peace officer would see and fails to understand context or make rational decisions.
You ignorantly think all those cameras would provide too much data to process. Perhaps you should look into a company by the name of Narus at http://www.narus.com. ‘Real-time data capture, classification and normalization at speeds from 100baseT to 10G/OC192.’ Systems like this are used by the NSA to analyze internet traffic. Thats a single system. Funnel all that camera data to a few similar machines and I see no reason full realtime recognition of thousands of people, events and conversations a second is not possible. Given you have cameras which are actually Core Duo based machines with harddrives that can preprocess the data and then send it to a central server it is definitely possible.
’seems more of an issue’, another amazing comment. Your rights are not debatable. They are not optional. They are not tradeable. Infringement of our freedoms are wrong. Period. You may, but I do not forfeit anything gladly. The government does nothing for me, nothing i could not provide for myself privately, yet claims ownership over my life and poperty.
So again, does the means and its failures justify the end? That end IS the illusion of safety and crime reduction. These means are leading to innocent people being terrorized and killed.
August 1st, 2007 at 9:51 pm
From reading your response over several times, and scouring the inter-dash-web since both our point of views have been re-hashed in the past, the biggest rift I see between you and I is this:
You seem to believe the people are endowed with certain “Natural Rights”. My guess is you opinions tend to lean towards the works of the authors of the constitution and declaration of independence. Also you constant allusions to property make me think you follow the works of Locke who also believed in “Natural Law”.
I tend to take a more positivist approach. I think rights are a construct created by the government. The idea that there is a natural order is foreign to me, I need more justification than that. So my beliefs tend to coincide more with Hobbes or maybe Dworkin (from what I’ve read). Not Marx so much anymore, he tends to just throw them out the window and get right down to legislation.
So if we apply this to the article above. I think cameras are a logical evolution of police work. We can use them and we will forfeit a little privacy just like when we launched the Corona satellites.
When a cop pulls up behind me how I feel depends on where I am. Where I work I’ve been pulled over several times, so I feel nervous. In all cases that I received a ticket I was breaking the law. In Trenton I’ve never been pulled over. I think the cops are too busy getting shot at to write me tickets for inspection stickers or registration.
I think if there are bad laws on the books, we should deal with them at the legislative level rather than with selective enforcement. That being said there are a ton of bad laws on the books and it will take some doing.
Based on what you showed me you are correct here. Apparently we have to computing power to get it done. I still think it would take a big national effort to link all that data together, but it’s not really a good argument for the cameras.
If the crime reduction really is an illusion than even despite my utilitarianism I would still have to concede that the cameras are harmful. That being said I disagree. I don’t think they will lower crime permanently. Crime fighting techniques will evolve and crime will evolve. It takes massive societal changes to lower the crime rate.
So there is my response. Please correct me if my perceived beliefs of yours were incorrect. Also if you get time, I realize these posts eat up a lot of time, what do you think about the implications of this fingerprinting technique?
August 2nd, 2007 at 11:59 am
My beliefs are actually irrelevant to the conversation now. You said ‘I think rights are a construct created by the government.’ I have for you a government which both of us are in the jurisdiction of. The United States of America. I will refer you to the Introduction and Preamble of the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights. The 9th and 10th Amendments are of particular interest. The Declaration of Independence may not codify anything in our government but just as the Federalist papers were/are used to understand and interpret the Constitution. The Bill of Rights does not define what our rights are but limits the governments (federal, local and state) ability to infringe on particular scenarios derived from the natural rights already implied and to protect against misinterpretation and misuse. This was at the explicit request of the Anti-Federalists who did not trust the government as defined in the Constitution not to infringe on those topics enumerated in the Bill of Rights (for specific historical reasons). Read about Hamilton’s objections to the Bill of Rights. Natural rights are not a declaration of anything but the lack of obligations or restrictions. It is but the way beings are without society. By your definition… rights are but privileges (as Hamilton said of the Magna Carta) and may at any time be taken without the populous having justification to complain. If the USA codified something like: ‘No bill of attainer, ex post fact law, or law denying or impairing the right of property in negro slaves shall be passed’, would you be OK with that? You personally, not an abstract relativist interpretation. If you do not believe that it is alright… I have to argue that you do not ‘need more justification.’ As you have said before (though perhaps you have changed your opinion), some things you feel/know are just wrong… like killing another person. Are you now saying that the right to life must be justified and codified by the government. That they therefore own your life? They currently say that, your draft card proves it.
You again failed to answer my questions. They were not rhetorical. Is it alright to use extra sensory methods to monitor individuals in ways humans never could? If your goal is to minimize crime I fail to see why you would have any problems (as you seem to have no problems with the ends justifying the means) being chipped and monitored 24/7 in order to enforce the laws. I think they are a logical evolution of police work. It’s far more efficient. The government already claims ownership of our lives and ‘pursuit of happiness’ (property, through income and property taxes), and you claim they define (or should define) the liberties we have (privacy). How can you then argue against total control, manipulation and monitoring?
Why do you feel nervous around the police if you honestly believe that they are doing what is right and have faith in the overall outcome of the means? You have little reason to worry about the cop going ape shit insane and shooting you (if your 2nd Amendment right wasn’t being infringed in the state you currently reside in you’d be able to make it a fairer encounter). I’d bet you have a greater chance of being killed while driving and that would seem to warrant more nervousness.
You must deal with them at all levels. Do good people obey bad laws? You seem to imply they should until they can have them changed or made void. So those protecting Jews in Nazi Germany or those helping in the underground railroad were in the wrong? Or if for you enforcement is only those directly responsible (police): are those who looked the other way wrong? “I am/was just doing my job.” is the statement of a coward. Those which are in the jurisdiction of the law have the obligation to challenge them. The judicial branch can only rule on the legitimacy of a law which has been explicitly challenged. The jury has the ability not to enforce laws it does not agree with. The executive branch has the ability not to enforce laws. The legislative branch can and does fail to fund enforcement of bad laws which are otherwise difficult to remove. There are many ways to deal with them and to say only one method should be used is ridiculous. These are all well known (jury nullification not so much as the government make a point not to inform jurists of this) and well used methods for dealing with the highly flawed, bureaucratic mess which is government. I’d like to also point out you take advantage of the insignificance of the traffic laws WRT registration and inspection and the resultant failure to enforce. If you believe selective enforcement invalid… shouldn’t you report these officers? Would it be alright for the government to place sensors on your vehicle to confirm you’re not breaking the law?
Cameras and police enforcement treat the symptom of a larger issue. Much of our ‘crime’ is man made. Prohibition of drugs is the number one reason for our disgustingly large prison system. We are number one in per capita and straight number of people incarcerated in the world. China has 4.37 times the population yet we have imprisoned 1.35 times as many people. If you want to lower crime you will repeal or otherwise nullify these victimless crimes and focus on the causes of real crime, generally those which bring direct harm to another’s person or property. Such as education and family life. As a utilitarian I’d hope you are familiar with a major early supporter, John Stuart Mill. He promoted negative liberty as the means to the end of utility. Classic liberalism. While I very much doubt he wrote anything about about government cameras targeted on private individuals on government property I’d suspect the idea of blanketing the nation with all seeing cameras would not sit well. Given he gave the benefit of the doubt to the individual and only sanctioned society restricting individuals on the basis of public utility in extreme cases. He mentions educating people in freedom and only when it’s ‘been definitively proved that they can only be governed as children’, doing so. I think assuming persons are unable to defend themselves, their loved ones, their property, their community without Big Brother’s ever watching eye is to treat them as children. They are no longer free and responsible men.
Here are some more reasons cameras are bad without all the philosophy.
As for the fingerprinting… whatever. As long as they don’t require people to provide that obtainable information without a warrant it is simply a new tool. The problem is not the ability to gather data, it’s forcing people to play their game. If you want to hand over your dietary information and DNA pattern to the government… have fun. I want no part in it. When a Gattaca like society appears, when they tax you for eating the wrong foods, withhold medical care because you aren’t in the condition the government wants you in (like they do in the UK’s NHS)… I will have little sympathy to those who were complacent or encouraged it.
August 2nd, 2007 at 1:56 pm
Personally I would take issue with that as I consider it inhumane.
Currently I would argue that for the sake of society it is irresponsible to not make a reasonable attempt to change the legislation before rebelling based on your beliefs. I tend to think about this stuff a lot and my opinions do change quite a bit.
Applying this to the scenarios you gave me. A responsible citizen would would work, within the government, to end the Nazi regime, or to end the draft. Once all reasonable and safe paths have been exhausted, then you can exercise the only right no government could ever take away from you, the right to revolt.
If the populace determines that the benefits of this monitoring outweighs the loss of privacy, then yes.
Personally I’d say the loss of privacy outweighs the benefits for being tracked everywhere. Once again, it would be up to the populace to guide their representatives to draft legislature that reflects this.
I was thinking about this last night as I went to bed. Enforcement has to be selective to some extent. We have Jay Walking laws to prevent people from walking in front of traffic, if the police enforced them every time someone crossed the street illegally it wouldn’t make any sense. That being said efforts should be made to make the law as clear as possible and if a law is useless to get rid of it.
I think our efforts would be better spent revising every drug law since the Harrison Act. In fact I think the strongest argument one could make against cameras is that it is an enormous amount of money being misspent. Not because it invades our privacy, but because, as you said, it is treating a symptom.
I’m not as well acquainted as I should be. My main motivation for citing utilitarianism was this “Thus, utilitarians deny that individuals have inviolable moral rights. As explained above, utilitarians may support legal rights or rights as rules of thumb, but they are not considered inherent to morality.”
I’d have to say I disagree with this. Humans rarely deserve the benefit of the doubt. In order for social and political systems to work, they have to be rooted in the basest of all human desires.
August 2nd, 2007 at 3:26 pm
Morality, society based on utility is flawed. The judgment on the amount of utility any event will produce is completely subjective. You can not predict the future and therefore every path to increasing utility is highly suspicious. Which is why Mill pushed liberalism, maximizing freedom, as the best path of utility. Read On Liberty.
What do you mean by revolt? A revolution? Selective enforcement? Screw responsible citizenship. I’m a person first and foremost. I don’t give a shit what the collective thinks in that regard.
Your posts are filled with ‘if the collective chooses X then it’s OK.’ Who is this society? When did I agree with this ’social contract.’ Will you define how choices by the collective will be made? Simple majority, where any number greater than exactly 50% opinions? Any way you slice it unless it’s 100% (which isn’t realistic) is tyranny of the majority. If of course you force people to abide by the decision. Will they? Is it morally acceptable to you to force individuals to do things against their will? What’s the point of your society if it’s a coerced farce of what humanity is? Why is utility and existence of the collective more important than the utility of the individual?
August 2nd, 2007 at 6:56 pm
The argument that we can’t predict the future and therefore shouldn’t try to achieve utility doesn’t really lend itself to a practical ethos. We’ve got to try, otherwise life is hollow.
In the Marxist sense it’s the only right a citizen has. I was implying that if all else fails a citizen does have a responsibility to overthrow a corrupt government.
You agreed to this social contract by living in this society. Somewhere on this site I read something you wrote about how impractical it may be to immigrate in some countries. I’d have to say I agree and to the minority that get stuck in a society which they disagree with I’d have to say, tough. Some people will suffer and as long as they are less than 50% and still have the rights granted to them by the new government, then so be it. Realistically you are really going to have to strive to keep that number as far from 50% as possible. A nation will tear itself apart at that halfway mark.
Yes, this is what society does.
Humanity is violent and does not lend itself to progress. Society is ordered and allows knowledge to grow.
More humans alive and striving for common goals equals a greater chance of species survival.
Also, what is the ACLU website again? I get a 404 Error when I click on the link. I browsed the site and read a bunch of stuff about NSA, emails and the patriot act. Is that what you were referring to?
As far as On Liberty is concerned, I’ll get on that. Summer school ends tomorrow, so I’ve got a couple few weeks off. You were right when you said I wouldn’t find the time to read it at work. I did however find the time to use their printers to print it out.
August 3rd, 2007 at 4:06 pm
The link is fixed.
I didn’t say not to try (not that I agree that utility gives life meaning). In fact Mill’s opinion is that not doing anything is in fact the practical and moral way to utility. Explain why negative liberty is not as good as coercive force in bringing this utility you seek.
You are saying you either play the game or go down shooting? A little extreme… revolution can be slow and thoughtfully planned. Civil disobedience is a perfectly legit method of resistance and information propagation. To do otherwise in the current environment is madness. The government has more guns and actively attempts to prohibit them from reaching the hands of the citizens. When Locke and Marx talked of revolt they surely did not have modern military in mind.
You act as if they will have the choice. Like they started out a fully formed, knowledgeable, outsider and walk into this. A person is born into their environment and has next to no say in what they can do for almost 2 decades. The government schools teach kids to be sheeple and propagate the government propaganda. It is a bias system. Those people do not have the same option as the original members.
You said you your views of the social contract are more like Hobbes’s and you don’t recognize natural rights. Yet as far as I understand Hobbes and others believed in natural rights and said people ceded those rights to create a sovereign state in return for protection. It is not simply the cross section of beliefs. Their is also the issue where the social contract implies both consent and force. The government is legitimate because people are consenting to it yet after the creation are to be held to it’s laws regardless.
Mills said “If all mankind minus one, were of one opinion, and only one person were of contrary opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person, than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.” What justifies your society’s power over the individual? Their power or numbers? What is the point of human survival if you are actively stripping humanity and individuality away from people? Why not simply mandate fucking like rabbits if you want the species and society to survive? Where is your proof that this form of government will provide the end you’re looking for? Why is that end more important then treating people equally? If you are willing to force people to do things against their will at the threat of death I would expect some damn good evidence to justify the outcome.
Why is that a matter of fact? It doesn’t have to be. Not in this way. Many, including our founders and our founding government didn’t think so. Why won’t you stop with this social relativist question dodging? You have an actual opinion on these topics.
Humanity is not violent. To make such a generalization implies that over 50% is violent. If that were the case humanity would not have survived this long nor would it be in the relatively stable state it’s currently in. Do you actually believe that if it weren’t for all these laws we’d be putting knives in our neighbors backs? That government is somehow made up of the righteous, nonviolent members of our society which won’t lead to some downward spiral of violence as power is consolidated?
–Up to this point was written last night. What follows are things from today. The one today is less spastic but I didn’t want what I wrote prior to go to waste.–
Here are some of the problems I’m seeing in this discussion:
-You are not clearly defining what the goal is. You mention utility, positivism, might makes right or at least majority makes right, maximizing the possibility of species survival, social contracts: with lots of assumptions both on their truthfulness and definition. (Not in chronological order) You imply life is meaningless without the trek toward utility. Maximum utility being an end. Then you say society (which is defined as a coercive force, which is debatable) is for keeping people from killing themselves for the end of maximizing chances of the species’ survival. Then you said majority opinion is what rules and in that there is no defined end. Then you bring out positivism and knowledge aggregation and imply society’s end is ‘progress’ without explicitly defining what ‘progress’ is. ‘I think rights are a construct created by the government.’ then you say ‘you can exercise the only right no government could ever take away from you, the right to revolt.’ I don’t follow. Are there natural rights or not? What differentiates a revolt from treason? Greater than 50% population participation? What happens if through death those revolting now are less then 50% participation? Should they stop since the opinion that the government is corrupt is no longer held by the majority? Can a government be corrupt if the majority is ignorant to it. If it’s actual opinion which matters does a lying and coercive government that is not caught legit? Why is ‘more humans alive’ and’ed with ’striving for common goals’? I would argue simply larger numbers would perform the same end. Mice seem to do well without common goals. ‘Common goals’ does not mean or imply scientific advancement or ‘progress.’ Nor do you need some unified society to gain population. Africa does quite well in that regard. With all their issues and lack of common goals they out pace the rest of the world in population growth.
-By your words you are an irresponsible citizen: “I would argue that for the sake of society it is irresponsible to not make reasonable attempts to change the legislation before rebelling based on your beliefs.” “I think if there are bad laws on the books, we should deal with them at the legislative level rather than with selective enforcement.” Breaking the law willfully is ‘rebelling based on your beliefs.’ In the least you’ve willfully broke some traffic laws and while I may be incorrect I’m going to guess you have not ‘made reasonable attempts to change the legislation.’ It would seem that if you honestly believe in this you wouldn’t willfully break laws till the time to revolt arises.
-You ignore most of my questions. I’m not concerned with the public. The public is made up of individuals and therefore I want to know what you believe is right and wrong. The questions are about particular issues, some very extreme and I believe it’s important to consider the logical extensions and misuses to preexisting laws or proposed laws. Without your actual opinion it makes it impossible for me to predict the outcomes of your version of society. Thomas Jefferson said: “The natural progress of things is for government to gain ground and for liberty to yield.” Or slightly differently… governments are likely to go bad. I think history generally shows this. Therefore minarchism or anarchism strike me as an obvious possible solutions. Proudhon’s social contract is different than I one you seem to be pushing but it’d be easier to see how they may fit based on your actual opinions.
I have to wrap this up. I’ve spent too much time contemplating this at the detriment to my work. Next time lets do this in person ;-)
August 3rd, 2007 at 8:08 pm
I agree in person would probably be better. My work environment over the past few days has involved me proctoring tests and sitting in front of the computer from 9:00am - 12:00pm. This has afforded me a lot of time to think about this stuff (and read a lot of legalese and the first chapter of On Liberty).
As far as my arguments I agree they may be convoluted. Especially when you throw my personal distrust of the police and habitual law breaking in there.
As far as social relativist question dodging I can assure you it’s not intentional. I may be having trouble understanding exactly what you are asking, after all philosophy is pretty difficult to muddle through.
Hopefully the next time we meet I will have finished On Liberty, assuming I don’t spend too much time reading the State Constitution and Cigarette Bills.
I’ll leave you with this. If asked the question originally posed in the article, my gut reaction would be to answer “Yes”, more security cameras is good. Justifying this answer, which is important, is a 12 comment can of worms.