Surveillance downtown?
July 22nd, 2007 by some dudeThe Charlottesville police department wants to put surveillance cameras around downtown and the city council is considering it. That’s a scary thought. I was thinking one weekend I’ll go down with my camera and take pictures of everyone, but be really intrusive about it. You think that will get the point across, or just get me beat up? Maybe step 1 is to get myself more educated about the issue…who wants to educate me?
July 23rd, 2007 at 7:40 am
Unfortunately, the courts have generally held that if you are in a “public area” then the city (which theoretically represents the public) is within its rights to video you, if the video is for public safety or some other “legitimate public purpose”. The problem is, what else do they do with all that video, and how long do they keep it.
July 24th, 2007 at 11:33 am
maybe it’s just me, but I’m still way more concerned about the ability of some sullen teenager to hack his way through my firewall and steal my identity (or just make unfortunate use of public records) than I am about some city official watching tapes of me adjusting a bra strap as I wait for a bus. don’t get me wrong, i’ve read george orwell. but i don’t consider things to be invasions of privacy unless somebody intrudes upon something I intend to keep private. which, while I’m rambling, does not include cell phone conversations. people keep forgetting that cell phones operate like radios, and you can go to radio shack and buy a lil’ box, put it on the right frequency, and sit and listen to random conversations you pick up. maybe i’ll do that one day, if i ever get tired of guitar hero ii. unlikely.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:17 pm
I don’t agree with your cell phone example. Invasion of privacy is not precluded merely by the ease of eavesdropping. I can open your mailbox and read your mail with little to no difficulty, but you would definitely feel that I had invaded your privacy. Also, you may find listening in on CDMA radio frequencies somewhat non-trivial.
In any case, public surveillance could become alarmingly intrusive as a) biometrics takes off, b) more and more public information is collected and put online, and c) public API’s become standard practice for online services & databases. Our expectations of moving anonymously around town without much record may vanish.
July 24th, 2007 at 4:42 pm
Christine, how many times have you asked us to take down pictures from this site or flickr of you doing things you don’t want people to see?
July 24th, 2007 at 5:26 pm
The context in which I used cell phones as an example describes how I protect myself from an invasion of privacy. I won’t reveal sensitive info over a cell line because I know how easy it is for somebody to listen. Risk with mail is mitigated by my mailbox (which Luke would have to get a key to), and laws making tampering with mail a federal offense. That said, I still will not mail cash, and mail sensitive matters (tax forms, etc.) via registered mail. So even though it is against the law to tamper with my mail, I still take precautions that assume people can and will anyway. Luke, your part B is what worries me the most. About 2 years ago, I did a search for my name, and I found my birth records online. I’m not sure if any of you have seen what a birth record looks like, but it has my full name, date of birth, place of birth, my parents’ names, and my mother’s maiden name. The county has since taken down the records — you can still go to the courthouse and get a copy, but you should not be able to find that info on me via google. Rest assured, I do not use my mom’s maiden name EVER for security measuers. Nor will I use the town or hospital I was born in. As for what AJ said, there is a big difference between me saying “publishing that picture of me is an invasion of privacy” (which I have never said) and “publishing that picture of me means that everybody will know how horrible I look when I jowl and I totally broke out that week” (which I often say). I don’t consider you taking pictures of every single thing we do an invasion of privacy. But I consider you publishing the pictures where your friends clearly look horrible to be in poor taste.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:00 pm
Even though you’re not saying “publishing that picture of me is an invasion of my privacy,” in reality, “please take that down because I don’t want people to see it,” amounts to the same thing, doesn’t it?
If the government has a picture of you that shows how horrible you look when you jowl and shows that you were broken out, are you all of a sudden OK with it posted on the internet because it’s “not an invasion of privacy”? With me, you can say, please take it down. With the government, who knows. (BTW, I don’t think you look horrible jowling—everyone looks awesome jowling). To use the mailbox analogy, maybe the point is that I shouldn’t have to buy a mailbox with a lock and pay to send everything registered mail. I expect to use my mailbox because I expect a certain amount of privacy as protected by the law.
Just because something isn’t protected by the law as currently interpreted, it doesn’t mean it shouldn’t be protected. That’s the point of this discussion, I guess—there are many who feel that the government should not be allowed to put surveillance cameras up because it is a violation of the right to privacy. Their expecation is to be able to be in public without electronic records being kept of their actions. Yes, people can see what you’re doing in public, but that is very different from it being recorded and/or tracked in even more detail (e.g. biometrics that Luke mentioned).
The part we haven’t even mentioned yet in all this is the cost of the damn system. That’s a whole other discussion on whether cameras are even effective, and whether the money is better spent on other measures to prevent crime. I’m more interested in the privacy stuff though.
p.s. yea, there’s an actual discussion on chopstork.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:10 pm
I see what you’re are saying about taking precautions, and I can relate to embarrassing online photos (see OM’s recent photo album on facebook).
However, I think our right to privacy is more than just safeguarding sensitive information and protecting ourselves from identity theft. If you live in a glass house, you can take precautions to keep out the crooks, but you can’t stop the peeping-toms. I’m a law abiding citizen with nothing to hide, but I still don’t want to live in a glass house.
We have the right to live our lives free of the rude gaze of public scrutiny…unless you’re Paris Hilton.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:38 pm
yay discussions!! I still don’t equate ugly pictures of me with invading my privacy — that’s the risk I take doing anything in public. I’ve come across pictures of me on strangers’ flickr pages (BYOBW, por ejemplo), and even though many are far from flattering, I shrug it off as a minor price to pay for the enjoyment I received while participating in group activity. When I request that you take down certain pictures, my intentions are more to protect my self-esteem, less to protect my privacy. More than one bad candid shot of me has made it into school yearbooks, and I didn’t feel invaded by that. But if I had friends on the yearbook staff, I would have tried to prevent it from happening. However, if those candid shots occurred while I was changing in the locker room instead of hanging out on the football field, I would have felt extremely invaded.
You’re right, we shouldn’t have to have mailboxes with keys. I shouldn’t have to turn down free drinks because I didn’t see the guy pour it. I shouldn’t have to take a cab at 2am when I am perfectly capable of walking home, or lock my front door when I get there. But people break laws, and so I protect my mail justa s I try to protect my physical self.
I ask this next question mostly beacuse I don’t know where I stand on the issue. Do you feel that surveillance cameras on private properties (residencies, parking lots, banks, etc.) should restrict their fields of view to avoid recording any public areas?
And Luke, as funny as your paris hilton line was, I think “the right to live our lives free… of public scrutiny” is an assumed right, unless I missed something in the Constitution. I think what this discussion is circles around is that our population is beginning to realize that rights we assumed have not been legally protected, and those we would expect to protect them (gov’t) are the very same who are challenging the rights. The gray gradient lengthens when we consider that the challenges come as a means of “protection.” If only Patrick Henry was alive to weigh in on this…
July 24th, 2007 at 6:39 pm
P.S. you can add this thread to the list of reasons why I will never again go commando.
July 24th, 2007 at 6:59 pm
one more thing (for now) — I definitely meant Ben Franklin, not Patrick Henry. Something about To arms! To arms! doesn’t quite fit in here… wrong speech :(
July 24th, 2007 at 7:46 pm
At least you have a clue what the speeches are—I don’t. I must have been in Japan for those grades. That’s also my excuse for not knowing the 80s bands I should know.
Yes, we all have to take precautions that wouldn’t otherwise be necessary, because there are bad people in the world. But why do I have to protect myself from my government?
Private cameras’ field of view… Hmm… I think it’s fine if a private camera sees a public area. But I’m not sure why I think that’s ok and a govt surveillance camera is not. I guess because the purpose of a private camera is not the type of surveillance these downtown cameras would be doing. They don’t have authorities on the other end watching you, and they’re not taking a sweeping view of everything just to see if something’s happening. If a crime is committed in the vicinity and it happens to be caught on tape, then by all means the government (police) should have access to that—but with a warrant or subpoena or whatever the legal means is (I don’t watch Law and Order).
There is also a difference between a private entity having data and the government having the same data. Exactly why it’s so different I don’t quite have worked out though.
As far as whether privacy public scrutiny is a right or not, I don’t know. Amendment IV is: “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.” The premise of the cameras, I guess, is that you’re in public, so while the government can’t search your person, they can look at you all they want. On the other hand, I bet there’s a lot of precedent for “the right to live our lives free of the rude gaze of public [and government] scrutiny.” (Does anyone know for reals though, cuz I’m just making that up.)
I’ve got to work on being more succinct.
July 25th, 2007 at 11:02 pm
Maybe I have a dull life, but I’m struggling to think of a “public” place where I spend enough time to be concerned about this. If the majority of a consumer’s (that’s us) time is spent traversing camera laden establishments via heavily surveilled transportation systems, and don’t think twice about it, then what’s with the public domain invasion of privacy nitpicking?
AJ, are you just really upset about “public” cameras because they may be in violation of Amendment IV? If you see a problem with how data is potentially handled, then the solution lies with data handling, not through the avoidance of data production.
July 26th, 2007 at 9:07 pm
Old Man, you’re right. How the data is handled after it’s gathered is a big part of the equation and there should be limits on it as well. I think the data gathering can also be limited.
Not specifically about video surveillance, but here’s an article on “privacy” and the “nothing to hide” argument. I actually saw it before this dicussion started, but just now got to reading it. One of the points he makes is that even if we’re fine with each bit of information that we make public, the purpose of data mining and analysis is to glean more information about us by putting the pieces together. We don’t know what the new information is that they can figure out about us, because they won’t tell us. What they learn about us—or think they’ve learned about us—could very well be something you don’t want them to know.
He also says privacy tends to be put in terms of hiding something bad when that’s not all privacy means. Data mining, or even surveillance alone could have a “chilling” effect on perfectly legal actions that are beneficial to society. The very simple-minded analogy in my feeble head is, let’s say I attend a small neighborhood meeting of people opposed to cameras downtown. Then the next night a man in a suit knocks on my door, flashes his FBI badge, tells me he knows I was at that meeting, and walks away. I didn’t do anything wrong, and he didn’t harm me. But it might freak me the hell out and maybe I won’t go to those meetings anymore.
July 26th, 2007 at 10:02 pm
Also… if you want to simplify this argument, forget the meaning of privacy, forget the whether it’s a right or not, forget the more subtle consequences.
How about we stop pretending we have nothing to hide in public. If someone pees in a dark corner on the walk home from a bar (indecent exposure), if someone smashes a big potted flower on the walk home from a bar (vandalism), if someone sticks their head up a construction chute on the walk home from a bar (trespassing?), if someone looks at a hot girl or boy walking home from a bar (sexual harassment), if someone rides a shopping cart through a car wash on the way walk home from a bar (disturbing the peace), if someone leaves a shopping cart in an alley on the walk home from a shopping cart-centric race (littering)…. and there are cameras everywhere, and they can use facial recognition (hey, it’ll happen some day soon), and they can just mail you a ticket so as not to waste the officer’s time, or mail you a letter to come to your trial… Well then we all better stop drinking.
Don’t think it couldn’t happen; chewing gum is illegal in some countries.
July 30th, 2007 at 5:00 pm
I think your last entry ties into what Old Man was saying about how the information is used. Think of it in terms of warrants that are legally issued to search somebody’s house. Say a child is missing, and the police get a warrant to search the home of the batshit ex-wife who they suspect might have abducted the child. During the search, an officer opens up a desk drawer and finds a gram of coke. Is he allowed to arrest her for possession? No. Why? Because warrants are written in such a way that they restrict the search scope to only what is relative. Because a child is not small enough to fit in a desk drawer, the officer had no business opening it, and cannot use knowledge he obtained by doing so against her. However, if the coke was out on her kitchen table (aka “plain view,”) the rules are different.
It is my understanding that the intent of public surveillance is thought out among similar guidelines. If a child goes missing but was last seen at a 7-11, police can sieze tapes from cameras on nearby streetcorners for clues. If, on one of those tapes, they happen to see DP taking a leak on a potted flower before smashing it, they can’t do anything, because it is not relevant to their search. However, if somebody were to witness DP do this in real time and not on camera (akin to “plain view,”) then they can tattle and he could get in trouble.
Do I trust our government to only use information legally as means for ensuring domestic tranquility? Not so much. But because I am one of those people with “nothing to hide,” I think my safety would benefit in general — maybe not all cases, but my physical safety anyway. However, there is a chance that this increased sense of security could come at the cost of somebody’s liberty (I’m not familiar enough with the Constitution and relevant legal cases to weigh in on that at present). If my security does indeed cost freedom, then I don’t want it. But if it only causes the lost of perceived rights, and not actual protected rights, then I’d be curious to hear what the Lunsford family suggests.
July 30th, 2007 at 6:46 pm
If the police in the missing-child case open a drawer and find coke, is it that they can’t take possesion of it (but could get a second warrant)? Or they can never use it as evidence? What if the first warrant is for something else that would fit in the drawer?
When I wrote this post originally, I was imagining cameras that are monitored real-time, like in casinos (and the U.K.). In that case, your point furthers my point—normally a search requires a very specific warrant. A camera monitored real-time is a search with no probable cause or specific suspicion. But of course that brings us back to the fact that the law currently says if you’re outside, you’re in public, so too bad. Do we really want that?
I don’t understand the difference between “percieved rights” and “protected rights” as you use those terms. Is it only “protected” if the law currently protects it?
There’s also the whole issue of whether cameras actually provide any added security. Is a sense of security justification for even the possibility of infringing on peoples’ rights? The merchants downtown would say yes. I say no. (And no, this is not meant to be anti-capitalism. I am all about the downtown mall and the local restaurants and stores there).
(I do admit I don’t know what form these cameras would take—I looked for the police memo online but couldn’t find it. I also don’t know what the research says about the effectiveness of surveillance cameras…I’m sure we could find evidence for both sides.)
July 31st, 2007 at 3:33 am
There are cameras all over Tokyo that are monitored real-time so the cops can hop on their little bicycles and come catch ‘criminals’. The governor of Tokyo had most of them put up in Shibuya, Shinjuku, and Roppongi in order to monitor the foreign nationals (ie me and my friends - even though most of us are actually Japanese nationals and just LOOK foreign/mixed). I didn’t think much of it but a lot of my ‘white-looking’ guy friends started to get randomly searched all the time since these cameras have gone up. And it’s not like they’re doing anything wrong either. The Japanese cops see a white guy and assume that they’ll have drugs on them, which is not the case. I’m sure you won’t have this problem in Charlottesville, but still, something similar could happen. Oh, and also, this would probably never happen in the States (I hope) but apparently there’s a website that streams images from these surveillance cameras so anyone at home can watch them real-time as well (althought I’ve only heard about it and haven’t actually found the website yet). But yeah…THAT is an invasion of privacy!
July 31st, 2007 at 5:22 am
Aya, I didn’t know they’d put cameras up in Tokyo. That sucks. There’s no reason to think random searches wouldn’t happen in the States too. Except maybe it would be “black-looking” or “arab-looking” people.
As far as streaming it online, some people would say it should be streamed, basically so that the public can supervise what the police are looking at. I don’t know which way would be better.
July 31st, 2007 at 4:43 pm
Here’s some current info on surveillance cameras
http://abcnews.go.com/US/story?id=342237…
July 31st, 2007 at 7:29 pm
Per AJ’s previous questions:
There is a federal “exclusionary rule” that says evidence not obtained in good faith, or compliance, with the terms of the search warrant is inadmissible. As an extension of this rule, there exists a doctrine that dictates any evidence that could stem from this search is also inadmissible. So, if he is looking for a child but finds coke in a drawer, he could not use that as probable cause to obtain a warrant to let him legally search that drawer. If he keeps mum on the coke find, and tips off a Narc to watch the batshit ex-wife, who then trails her to a drug deal and busts her, that case would/should also be thrown out. As always, there are exceptions to the rule — usually in instances where evidence otherwise inadmissible could result in saving somebody’s life. (say instead of finding a bag of coke, he found a plane ticket with the child’s name on it scheduled to depart in two days — chances are, he could convince a judge to let him act on that).
If the first warrant is for something that could fit in the drawer, then I am not sure. I was required to take a law class as part of my undergrad engineering curriculum, but a sole class leaves many an unturned stone.
In terms of perceived rights vs. protected rights, I do indeed use the word “protected” to indicate that there are laws at either the state or federal level outlining those rights. I believe the Constitution was intentionally vague when phrasing the right to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” All 3 have valid debates, for exampe: an unborn child’s right to life vs. a mother’s right to choose. As the law is currently written, though many believe (perceive) that an unborn child has a right to life, the mother’s right to choose is the one that is currently protected. Legislature may or may not change that; certainly, amendments have been proposed. Let’s take a look at the right to vote. It has been a long time since I read the US Constitution (and I ENCOURAGE ALL OF YOU TO READ THE US CONSTITUION AT LEAST ONCE IN YOUR LIFE), but I do not recall any of the articles outlining which citizens were allowed to vote — only that there was a popular vote, and an EC vote. Many States’ Constitutions stipulated that only white men were allowed to vote — perhaps all, but nonetheless, until the 15th Amendment was passed as an amendment to the federal const., only white men were guaranteed the right to vote. It was both perceived, and protected. However, even the amendment wording is curious: “The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.” There are no masculine words in that amendment whatsoever, yet it was not until the 19th Amendment was ratified that a woman’s right to vote was protected. Prior to that, across states, counties, and school boards, whether or not women were allowed to participate in elections was whimsical. It was not uncommen for women to be allowed to elect some officials, but not others. Regardless of what is fair, equal, whatever, men of color did not have protected voting rights until A.15, and women did not have protected voting rights until A.19. You might perceive a right to not be videotaped in public places while security guards grow fat watching you on TV and curious teenagers stream you into their bedrooms, but that right is by no means protected. If you think it should be, educate yourself on any legal precedents that support your inclination, and vote. Vote for your mayors, your senators, your representatives. Write letters. Call. Blog. Hell, I drunk dialed the White House on my birthday — they have a comment line too. But apparently, the pleasant people that usually answer the phone tend not to at 3am EST. Who knew.
I agree with you that a sense of increased security does not warrant the possibility of infringing on people’s rights. But that sentence can be twisted all sorts of ways. You continue to say that the merchants would disagree. Are these merchants on private or public property? It varies, as does the law. To me, a sense of increased anything is not worth a damn. But if actual levels of security increase, and not just perception levels, different story. Possibility of infringing on people’s rights: are we or aren’t we infringing? And do they really have the rights, or do people just assume they do? Many different stories.
What Aya said really interested me — Douglas MacArthur & Co. had a strong hand in drafting the Japanese Constitution in 1947, and although Japanese officials also weighed heavily, I’ve arrogantly and ignorantly assumed that their Constitution would be similar to the US Const. (sans the Executive Branch, obvi). Clearly, I need to reevaluate that assumption.
Does anybody know if somebody with non-admin rights can edit her comments? I type these out so furiously and neglect proofreading, and can’t figure out how to go back and correct myself.
Hey Aya, are you going to the Yellow House Party?
August 1st, 2007 at 2:23 am
Christine,
Actually the good faith doctrine and the exclusionary rule would not prevent use of the evidence found in the search you give as an example. If the cop has a valid warrant to look into the house in search of a child, and during that search finds other illegal activity, like the drugs in the drawer (he could have opened the drawer looking for a letter or something that could lead to the whereabouts of the child), then those drugs could be used in a case for drug possession. He is not required to ignore illegal activity that he finds in the course of a legitimate search.
But this not the real argument about cameras everywhere. It is more of a policy issue than a legal issue in my view. Sure, most courts have held that in a public area your have no expectation of privacy, so the city can put cameras in public places. But is that the policy that we want the government to follow? It’s debatable and there are good arguments on both sides. But what concerns me after 9/11 is that many things are being done in the name of “security” that don’t really improve security, but sure do infringe to a certain extent on traditional American expectations of what the government’s role in our private lives should be.
That’s the argument also about date mining by the government. Does the government really have a right, or a need to know, what library books I might check out? In the current situation in the U.S., it might not be a problem. But in the runup to Nazi Germany, it would have been a problem. Or in the old Soviet Union, since those governments put people in jail for reading books with “dangerous thoughts” (meaning anything that could be interpreted as critical of the government). It’s that way in China still today. We’re not there in the U.S., but we can’t assume that future governments wouldn’t go down that path — thus the founding fathers put certain fundamental rights into the bill of rights, rights which have been expanded and modified over the years by Supreme Court decisions and constitutional amendments.
So for surveillance cameras, it’s a tough call and a tough balancing act. One concrete example of the problem: If political party A were in power, and wanted to know which government employees might be sympathetic to political party B in their private time, and were to use the surveillance video to find out who was attending political party B’s meetings, then fired the employees so discovered, wouldn’t that be a problem? (By the way, federal goverment employees now can attend such meetings on their private time without it being a violation of the Hatch Act). Or even if the employees just knew the party in power was watching who attended the meetings, isn’t that going to have a chilling effect on political participation. Or another example. If a lady were dating guy A, and seeing guy B on the side, and guy A found out by looking at the government’s video, is that not a privacy issue? I’m a simple country boy from the South — one of my fundamental political beliefs is that some things are just nobody else’s damn business. On the other side, what’s wrong with a real time camera informing the police that a guy at the ATM machine is being robbed, so they can respond. So it really depends on who controls the surveillance, and how is it used.
Sorry for the long comment. It’s the end of the day in Okinawa.
August 1st, 2007 at 12:06 pm
Thanks for the input, “Dad.” I always like it when you post — some day, I’ll have to meet you. I’m still a bit confused on the legal/warrant issues though — I had to look closely at one or two cases involving similar examples for a paper I wrote, and the precedents that have been set seem to indicate that in most cases, an officer’s hands are tied. But it seems as though there is quite a bit about the exclusionary rule that I don’t know. In any case, as long as I continue to not possess cocaine, I should be fine, right?
What you said about the Hatch Act was news to me — I had no idea. I’ve noticed there are a lot of issues I don’t become aware of until after the fact. I know I can’t exactly stop the political machine and have no control over what gets passed and what doesn’t, but do you have any advice for somebody who has limited time, yet wants to stay on top of the crap her government tries to pull? Are there any websites, periodicals, etc., that you would recommend? That question isn’t just for Dad, it is for all two of you that have continued to read this thread.
August 1st, 2007 at 3:58 pm
All I know is I need to read the news more.
August 1st, 2007 at 4:42 pm
I know that this thread has left paranoid curled up in a corner biting my nails.
August 5th, 2007 at 10:07 pm
Great! Another thread I killed. I should just stay away far…
August 6th, 2007 at 8:00 am
A.J./Christine — Best way to keep abreast of what is going on is to read a lot of news sites, but keep in mind that the press doesn’t alway get it right, either. I’ve seen stories claiming I said something I never said too many times in Japan to completely trust the press. It’s not so much that they make stuff up, but they sometimes just don’t understandthe issue, and then embellish.
Anyway, to keep up with the news, one of the best sites out there is (I hate to say this, because he’s kind of a right wing nut sometimes) is the Drudgereport.com site. What is good about the site is that it has links on the homepage to just about all the major English language news sites. So it’s a good start to see which news sites you want to read. I usually keep up with the Washington Post and the New York Times myself. But remember the web is like what they used to say about computers and data bases in general –”garbage in, garbage out.” Which I guess means you always have to ask yourself if what you are reading is reliable or not. That’s hard to know at times.
And with respect to your question about keeping up with what the government is trying to pull — one of the most profound moments I had was shortly after I moved to Washington after joining the State Department, and realized that “the Government” is just us. That was a scary realization, since I used to think the government was a bunch of smart people who knew what they are doing all the time. Now I realize it’s just us. Kind of like figuring out there’s no Santa Claus when you’re a kid…..
August 6th, 2007 at 1:22 pm
what do you mean, there’s no Santa Claus?!?
I’ll check out the Drudge report website, thanks. I read the Atlantic Monthly regularly, and The Economist occasionally (even I have too much of a life to read that one cover-to-cover), and both provide me with thoughtful outlooks that usually prompt me to investigate further. At times, I’ll attempt to read the actual Bill, Doctrine, or Article in contention — holy crap are they worded funny. Not that I’m known for employing much brevity myself, but still… Without any legal background, I feel like the context is often lost on me.
Anyway, Wikipedia has a decent enough explanation of the Exclusionary Rule, as well as limitations and caveats. Of particular interest might be the Fruit of the Poisonous Tree clause, which I just heard about during a Law & Order: SVU marathon yesterday. About that life I claimed to have…
I’ve noticed that most news websites credit many of their articles to the “Associated Press.” Who are they, and what are their guidelines for responsible journalism? How come in this Age of Information, it is nearly impossible to know a true fact when you see it? And how did AJs short little blurb get to 27 comments?
August 7th, 2007 at 7:38 am
Associated Press (AP) is one of the major news wires. They have reporters and stringers around the world. The majority of news reports you see in most newspapers actually come from AP reports that AP provides to the subscribing newspapers. Most papers can’t afford to have their own correspondents in other cities, so they rely on AP. Ever wonder why so many papers carry the same stories at the same time? At least AP is a known, generally reliable, professional traditional news source. I don’t know if we can say that about Wikipidia — can’t anybody who wants just add stuff to that site, whether they know what they’re talking about or not?
I think A.J.’s blurb generated so many comments because people are concerned about their privacy, whether they are actually doing anything wrong or not.
August 10th, 2007 at 7:18 pm
I’m feeling some love here now. The Drudge Report is a different source of the news. Is it so far rightish as in that most of the state run media here in the U.S. is so leftist. Its nice to see there is a balance or at least a voice other the A.P. and Reuters, the state run media outlets.
Question my definition of the media sources as being state ran? Just take a look at what this whole thread has been about. Who supports it and have been implementing it in your local City council and in your State Senate. Then onward to the Congress, google it!
I get a kick out of it when I’m reading an article and it references, per “China’s Xinhua News Agency or the People’s Daily” a state ran news agency said… or state media in the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea officially reported the country’s first outbreak of avian influenza in poultry… Like the A.P. or Reuters is any different. Okay well, its still just one of two news sources that get jammed down our thoarts.
In a possible post-apocalyptic future in which powerful, intelligent machines have dedicated themselves to the eradication of humanity, John Connor is the leader of the human rebel group Tech-Com that opposes them. Skynet, the supercomputer mainframe of the machines, decides that John Connor is the focal point of the rebellion and his termination would end the opposition. After repeated failures at terminating John during the war, Skynet decides to use a time dilation device to send android assassins called Terminators to various points in John Connor’s past in an attempt to terminate him before the war begins.
Peace and much love my brothers,
P.S.
I like you Dad.
August 17th, 2007 at 8:06 pm
How about private citizens who install their own little video surveillance systems and use that video to help convict citizens? One of my students at the University of South Carolina is facing a future as a “sex offender” because a paranoid neighbor lady had a Radio Shack system which caught a bud and him streaking. Should her tape be legal as evidence against the student? He wasn’t on her property, but her camera caught his image. I think she should be popped for voyeurism.
Luckily, it was cold the night of the streaking so the kid only got charged with a misdemeanor.
August 18th, 2007 at 9:20 pm
…. so you’re saying he wasn’t at large do to the cold. I’m just tring to get the facts here Uncle.
August 21st, 2007 at 7:45 pm
You are correct Crazy Lou!
August 24th, 2007 at 1:19 am
I feel a need to correct my grahamar, I said “he wasn’t at large do ((should have been), due to the cold)” huh?!
October 1st, 2007 at 7:44 am
CCTV illegal in UK?
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/01/…