What the hell were the last two decades?

[DisturbedPervert]

I can recall one time where some guy was looking to start a fight with me on the street and I pointed the camera out to him which made him back down (and likely go look for someone else who wasn't right in camera shot)

How many times have to been randomly attacked or chased through the streets?

[Martinus]

Can anyone provide a coherent objection to CCTV usage beyond "1984!!!1"? As BB says, it's no more sinister than more constables on the beat.

Besides the fact that it is simply not feasible to put a constable on every corner, whereas it is possible to do so with a camera, a camera recording provides a lasting material that could be used for different purposes, including blackmail.

For example, let's imagine someone (the government) wanted to blackmail me or destroy my credibility (e.g. if I was a dissident or an opposition politician) because I'm gay. In a situation like this having a bobby say "Uh, I saw that guy kissing another guy in the middle of the night in the street" would have a much less potency than having a tape they could show on the five o'clock news.

[Barrister]

Can anyone provide a coherent objection to CCTV usage beyond "1984!!!1"? As BB says, it's no more sinister than more constables on the beat.

Besides the fact that it is simply not feasible to put a constable on every corner, whereas it is possible to do so with a camera, a camera recording provides a lasting material that could be used for different purposes, including blackmail.

For example, let's imagine someone (the government) wanted to blackmail me or destroy my credibility (e.g. if I was a dissident or an opposition politician) because I'm gay. In a situation like this having a bobby say "Uh, I saw that guy kissing another guy in the middle of the night in the street" would have a much less potency than having a tape they could show on the five o'clock news.

So a police officer is better because he or she is less effective?

[Martinus]

Wow, are you retarded? My point is that a CCTV tape can be used to blackmail people for performing legal but embarrassing etc. stuff - something a police officer shouldn't be AT ALL effective at because it is not his or her job.

You wanted to get one example where a usage of CCTV can be problematic compared to the same situation being witnessed by a cop - I gave you one.

So yes, a police officer is LESS EFFECTIVE than a CCTV camera in collecting dirt on law abiding people.

[Martinus]

Can anyone provide a coherent objection to CCTV usage beyond "1984!!!1"? As BB says, it's no more sinister than more constables on the beat.

Also, to turn the question around - could you provide a coherent objection to your every conversation, including phone conversations, when carried out in a place where it is capable of being overheard by someone, being taped and stored? After all, we could put a constable with a notepad and capable of writing in shorthand, every 5 metres, in a grid covering all public space.

[Warspite]

Can anyone provide a coherent objection to CCTV usage beyond "1984!!!1"? As BB says, it's no more sinister than more constables on the beat.

Besides the fact that it is simply not feasible to put a constable on every corner, whereas it is possible to do so with a camera, a camera recording provides a lasting material that could be used for different purposes, including blackmail.

For example, let's imagine someone (the government) wanted to blackmail me or destroy my credibility (e.g. if I was a dissident or an opposition politician) because I'm gay. In a situation like this having a bobby say "Uh, I saw that guy kissing another guy in the middle of the night in the street" would have a much less potency than having a tape they could show on the five o'clock news.

The problem there is not with CCTV, but with an illiberal society and laws that does not tolerate gays.

But in this content, a whole host of otherwise innocuous things could be threats to civil liberties, including search warrants and police surveillance carried out within purely legal parameters.

So in your example CCTV is just a tool that can be misused, like any other.

Can anyone provide a coherent objection to CCTV usage beyond "1984!!!1"? As BB says, it's no more sinister than more constables on the beat.

Also, to turn the question around - could you provide a coherent objection to your every conversation, including phone conversations, when carried out in a place where it is capable of being overheard by someone, being taped and stored? After all, we could put a constable with a notepad and capable of writing in shorthand, every 5 metres, in a grid covering all public space.

No more of an objection that I could muster than for other people eavesdropping on my conversations. Telephone conversations are however considered occuring in private space, are they not? hence tapping requires special dispensation.

[MadImmortalMan]

It's not really the way it's used so much as the principle behind it. What's the point in pursuing justice if you use unjust or unscrupulous methods in that pursuit?

[Richard Hakluyt]

Tyr has successfully derailed the discussion into a strawman debate on the merits or otherwise of CCTV, which was not the principal argument in the article I posted.

Let's look at another interesting aspect of modern Britain, stop and search in London under section 44 of the terrorism act. There were more than 170,000 of these in 2008 alone :

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/england/london/8034315.stm

[Richard Hakluyt]

Incidentally, this :

"The Home Office, the Ministry of Justice and the Metropolitan Police were all unable to say whether anyone had successfully been charged or convicted for terror offences as a direct result of section 44."

........almost certainly means that nobody has been successfully charged or convicted for terror offences as a direct result of section 44.

[Barrister]

Can anyone provide a coherent objection to CCTV usage beyond "1984!!!1"? As BB says, it's no more sinister than more constables on the beat.

Also, to turn the question around - could you provide a coherent objection to your every conversation, including phone conversations, when carried out in a place where it is capable of being overheard by someone, being taped and stored?

I can't.  Can you?

[Barrister]

But in this content, a whole host of otherwise innocuous things could be threats to civil liberties, including search warrants and police surveillance carried out within purely legal parameters.

So in your example CCTV is just a tool that can be misused, like any other.

I think that's an excellent point.  Every point and stop in the criminal justice system, from police to prosecutors to judges, have the potential to be corrupt and misused.  The potential for something to be misused is rarely, by itself, grounds to not use something.  You should look at the history of something being misused, the safeguards in place to prevent it, and the potential for catching and prosecuting such misuses.

[DGuller]

I wonder if that would have saved Dguller.  Or Spellus from the third graders.

Wasn't guller at an ATM? 

Haven't heard anything about that, or anything else, since that day.  Wouldn't be surprised if police didn't even bother getting the footage.

[DGuller]

Back to the original topic, I think that this decade can be called the lost decade.  It started with an economic clusterfuck, and it'll end with an economic clusterfuck, and with the interlude proving to be largely a mirage. 

[Martinus]

The problem there is not with CCTV, but with an illiberal society and laws that does not tolerate gays.

You are missing the point. It's not about illiberal societies - it's about things we all do in "public" that while legal may be embarrassing or hurtful for various reasons and than can be later used as a blackmail material.

If you, a student, takes a barf in the street because you got sick from drinking and a cop walks by, he at best would give you a ticket or wag his finger at you. If on the other hand this goes on a CCTV, the video may resurface in 20 years when you are an influential politician and the powers that be want you to vote in a specific way or the video goes public, undermining your chances of reelection etc. This is but one example how it could be used - even against people who, at the time the video was taken - were nobodies and thus would not cause the cop in question to run to the Daily Mail to sell the story for example.

It's like putting all citizens on a DNA database - it gives the authorities a powerful tool that could be used in ways that have nothing to do with fighting crimes.

[Martinus]

Can anyone provide a coherent objection to CCTV usage beyond "1984!!!1"? As BB says, it's no more sinister than more constables on the beat.

Also, to turn the question around - could you provide a coherent objection to your every conversation, including phone conversations, when carried out in a place where it is capable of being overheard by someone, being taped and stored?

I can't.  Can you?

Wow. Just wow.