If you find yourself sympathetic to Flock, you should ask yourself: do we have a right to any kind of privacy in a public space or is public space by definition a denial of any sort of privacy? This is the inherent premise in this technology that's problematic.
In Japan, for instance, there are very strict laws about broadcasting people's faces in public because there is a cultural assumption that one deserves anonymity as a form of privacy, regardless of the public visibility of their person.
I think I'd prefer to live in a place where I have some sort of recourse over when and how I'm recorded. Something more than "avoid that public intersection if you don't like it."
Surveillance technology doesn't stop property crime, so it isn't a tradeoff question.
The necessary and sufficient steps to stop property crime are:
1. Secure the stuff.
2. Take repeat criminals off the street.
Against random 'crime of opportunity' with new parties nothing but proactive security is particularly effective because even if you catch the person after the fact the damage is already done. The incentive to commit a crime comes from the combination of the opportunity and the deterrence-- and not everyone is responsive to deterrence so controlling the opportunity is critical.
Against repeated or organized criminals nothing but taking them out of society is very effective. Because they are repeated extensive surveillance is not required-- eventually they'll be caught even if not in the first instance. If you fail to take them off the streets no amount of surveillance will ever help, as they'll keep doing it again and again.
Many repeat criminals are driven by mental illness, stupidity, emotional regulation, or sometimes desperation. They're committing crimes at all because for whatever reason they're already not responding to all the incentives not to. Adding more incentives not to has a minor effect at most.
The conspiratorially minded might wonder if the failure to enforce and incarcerate for property crime in places like California isn't part of a plot to manufacture consent for totalitarian surveillance. But sadly, life isn't a movie plot-- it would be easier to fight against a plot rather than just collective failure and incompetence. In any case, many many people have had the experience of having video or know exactly who the criminal is only to have police, prosecutors, or the court do absolutely nothing about it. But even when they do-- it pretty much never undoes the harm of the crime.
Can you explain in more detail how the repeat criminals get caught in your scheme?
I can see how surveillance could help in identifying the criminal, finding him or her, and as evidence of crime in the trial, but what exactly happens without it that gets them identified, found and convicted? As of now clearance rate of property crimes is <15% according to a quick search.
There is already lots of surveillance and was even before modern technology. I'd agree that having some at all is of value, my argument was that you don't need much past that to get what we need and certainly don't need the kind of pervasive surveillance that some want: It won't move the needle on crime much past a baseline level but it will enable abuses that are much worse than the level of property crime we see today. Authoritarian governments are the number one mass murderer throughout human history by a wide margin.
Low clearance rates for property crime are significantly because nothing is even done much of the time -- police just take a report and often won't even follow up on an obvious lead (including stuff like "find my phone says my thousand dollar phone is in that house over there").
But in any case to more directly answer your question: If the clearance rate is 15% then they have a 90% chance of being caught after ~14 crimes.
That's easy. Person gets kidnapped, government surveillance camera helps police find the car before the kidnapper kills them. Or, probably more common: murder happens, government surveillance camera helps police find murderer and jail them before they kill someone else.
That's why these cameras are so prevalent, the case for them is extremely obvious and easy to make (give police more tools to stop bad guys), while the case against them is a lot more subtle (human freedom, government abuse, expectations of privacy, risk of data breaches, etc).
Agree.
If you find yourself sympathetic to Flock, you should ask yourself: do we have a right to any kind of privacy in a public space or is public space by definition a denial of any sort of privacy? This is the inherent premise in this technology that's problematic.
In Japan, for instance, there are very strict laws about broadcasting people's faces in public because there is a cultural assumption that one deserves anonymity as a form of privacy, regardless of the public visibility of their person.
I think I'd prefer to live in a place where I have some sort of recourse over when and how I'm recorded. Something more than "avoid that public intersection if you don't like it."
You can both have a desire to defend your peace, while also being against mass surveillance.
Gp specifies how we rank those 2 is the issue, and didn't say they are mutually exclusive
Surveillance technology doesn't stop property crime, so it isn't a tradeoff question.
The necessary and sufficient steps to stop property crime are:
1. Secure the stuff.
2. Take repeat criminals off the street.
Against random 'crime of opportunity' with new parties nothing but proactive security is particularly effective because even if you catch the person after the fact the damage is already done. The incentive to commit a crime comes from the combination of the opportunity and the deterrence-- and not everyone is responsive to deterrence so controlling the opportunity is critical.
Against repeated or organized criminals nothing but taking them out of society is very effective. Because they are repeated extensive surveillance is not required-- eventually they'll be caught even if not in the first instance. If you fail to take them off the streets no amount of surveillance will ever help, as they'll keep doing it again and again.
Many repeat criminals are driven by mental illness, stupidity, emotional regulation, or sometimes desperation. They're committing crimes at all because for whatever reason they're already not responding to all the incentives not to. Adding more incentives not to has a minor effect at most.
The conspiratorially minded might wonder if the failure to enforce and incarcerate for property crime in places like California isn't part of a plot to manufacture consent for totalitarian surveillance. But sadly, life isn't a movie plot-- it would be easier to fight against a plot rather than just collective failure and incompetence. In any case, many many people have had the experience of having video or know exactly who the criminal is only to have police, prosecutors, or the court do absolutely nothing about it. But even when they do-- it pretty much never undoes the harm of the crime.
Can you explain in more detail how the repeat criminals get caught in your scheme? I can see how surveillance could help in identifying the criminal, finding him or her, and as evidence of crime in the trial, but what exactly happens without it that gets them identified, found and convicted? As of now clearance rate of property crimes is <15% according to a quick search.
There is already lots of surveillance and was even before modern technology. I'd agree that having some at all is of value, my argument was that you don't need much past that to get what we need and certainly don't need the kind of pervasive surveillance that some want: It won't move the needle on crime much past a baseline level but it will enable abuses that are much worse than the level of property crime we see today. Authoritarian governments are the number one mass murderer throughout human history by a wide margin.
Low clearance rates for property crime are significantly because nothing is even done much of the time -- police just take a report and often won't even follow up on an obvious lead (including stuff like "find my phone says my thousand dollar phone is in that house over there").
But in any case to more directly answer your question: If the clearance rate is 15% then they have a 90% chance of being caught after ~14 crimes.
1 reply →
No, we do not "deserve this". The universe has no concept of "deserve".
"Deserving" not in the sense of dharma/karma, but as a natural consequence of prior actions.
People are part of the universe, and they have a concept of deserving.
I think you have it backwards. This is what happens when we rank human lives over human freedom.
The argument for these cameras is that they save lives. The argument against them is that they destroy freedom.
I don’t know that I’ve heard the “saves lives” argument for this type of camera. How would that play out?
That's easy. Person gets kidnapped, government surveillance camera helps police find the car before the kidnapper kills them. Or, probably more common: murder happens, government surveillance camera helps police find murderer and jail them before they kill someone else.
That's why these cameras are so prevalent, the case for them is extremely obvious and easy to make (give police more tools to stop bad guys), while the case against them is a lot more subtle (human freedom, government abuse, expectations of privacy, risk of data breaches, etc).
7 replies →