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Tag Archives: criminal surveillance
Public Surveillance History
In this article that i found, it gives you some type of history on how video surveillance became about. It gives you what rights you have, as well as what they can do with the surveillance that they just taped. What i thought was interesting was:
A person traveling in an automobile on public thoroughfares has no reasonable expectation of privacy in his movements from one place to another. When [an individual] traveled over the public streets he voluntarily conveyed to anyone who wanted to look the fact that he was traveling over particular roads in a particular direction, and the fact of his final destination when he exited from public roads onto private property.
This is a different side of the surveillance cameras, and if you think about it this way, then its true. Technically, if you are walking down the street, then you are in the pubic eye, and you are giving all your rights up, because at the end of the day, everyone can see your actions. You are not in a private property, hiding from everyone, but you are actually giving up that right when you step out in the public.
The article also gives us information on how different countries such as England, and France use the surveillance system to make sure everyone is okay. It also has different cases and charts, and lets you know what type of surveillance was implemented and how effective it was. For the most part, having that type of video surveillance did something positive for the community, either crimes being lowered, or local business benefiting from them.
-Armenis P.
Are Microhips the Solution or the Problem?
With all the talk about surveillance we’ve done in this course, I figured this would be an appropriate clip to show. This clip (Microchip Implants) talks about how everything is becoming more digitized, and in a few years everyone will have chips implanted in them, which upon scanning will be able to divulge personal information, financial information, medical information, and basically your entire life in a single scan. It also discussed new facial recognition technology which police will be able to use to track criminals. Facebook actually introduced similar face recognition technology to a lot of negative criticism and privacy groups, because they felt it was a violation of peoples rights. The benefits that would come with such technologies would be tempting to anyone. Who wouldn’t want to have more affective methods of catching criminals (besides criminals themselves), the amount of man hours and money that would be saved would be phenomenal and all that money and time could be allocated towards other tasks, increasing overall productivity. How great would it be if people would no longer have to carry keys or cash and could just open and pay for everything with a finger swipe? Crimes like robbery would go way down and people’s general sense of security would rise. Of course there are the security issues, there are people who do not see the benefits of this technology and just view it as another method of government surveillance and tracking. All of that information could and probably would be stored somewhere, and could be potentially used against you, may it be something as innocent as advertising or something as sinister as blackmail.
The Dangers of Using High Tech Facial Recognition Software to Catch Criminals
In light of the rioting in London, British police have been using CCTV in combination with facial-recognition software footage in order to identify and separate the criminal elements in the crowd. The article goes on to speculates on the need of creating a database for “confirmed” faces (primarily faces that can be linked to an identity). The article even illuminates the issue of quality control and some of the problems that lighting, distance, and clarity plays in distorting and inevitably making it harder to match. With facial recognition technology commonly found in television and movies unavailable, combined with the likely chance to misidentify individual (which could also be used to benefit criminals); it seems that British officials have the daunting task ahead of them. Also police fear that people who resemble rioters (solely the images) may be in danger by vigilante groups (which introduces certain notions of stigma).In the end the article alludes to the social media such as Facebook (750 million users) and its database, and the potential it may have for law enforcement if they were to be exploited.
Its relevance speaks to me in the article we read called “A means of Surveillance: The photograph as evidence in law”. It describes the insertion of the photograph gradually into institutions such as the police apparatus and its connection to power. The photograph or surveillance footage in the article’s case has the power (in conjunction with police power) to incriminate, or identify to the jury a person to the site of a “crime” or act of deviancy.
Real Life Superheroes
We often talk about deviance and deviants as people who do things outside of society in a negative way. This week I watched “Superheroes” a documentary on HBO about people who consider themselves real-life superheroes and do what superheroes do: fight crime. Clearly these people are deviating from the societal norm by dressing up in costumes and fighting crime themselves rather than relying on law enforcement officers to do so. While at first they seem a bit foolish, their intentions are actually quite sweet. Most of the superheroes had bad childhoods and were teased and abused. Since they had been impacted personally by crime, they decided that they would dedicate their time to fighting crime.
One of the crime-fighting organizations even managed to get a non-profit status, although most of them are considered a liability by police officers. I think this documentary was so interesting to me because it dealt with people who are considered “at risk” for becoming criminals, who in fact did the opposite. While it’s hard to know how legitimate the portrayal of the superheroes was, the presence of a camera may have influenced their actions one way or another, it seems that it was pretty accurate.
I really enjoyed watching this documentary and would highly recommend it. While it doesn’t seem like they are too efficient at combating actual crime, it does seem like they are making a difference in their daily encounters with people and through this documentary, by inspiring people to make a difference. Corny, but real.
Surveillance ! (Zhanna Onishchuk)
“The Outsiders” has made the point that certain people set the rules, and others are forced to abide by them. Although we tend to rebel in our minds against the police and the government, we often just accept rules because they seem credible. There’s this new “Smart Meter” technology, an electricity meter to be installed by major electric companies in homes, that is advertised to reduce green house emissions and reduce electric bills. I heard about it from “Lionel’s” Commentary on the WB 11 news. Here’s the video :
Can you believe it ? Now the government is not only surveillance criminals through unethical methods, as per our classmate (@Antonio,) but it is surveillance regular people. If you do any research about the smart meter, which homeowners probably wont, it is difficult to find out out about the surveillance characteristics that the meter has, all that is advertised is its beneficial bill-reducing capabilities.
How are we supposed to follow rules when they are not justified at all ? We are blinded by everything that the government wants us to hear – and we have done nothing wrong. The government applied bad stigmas to regular people just as much as they do to criminals. Otherwise, such deception and surveillance would not exist. This is proven over and over again with intrusive privacy legislation that applies to everyone. So are we all really criminals that need to be controlled ? If we look at aourselves as criminals, we can justify breaking laws. Which comes back to the government’s need to surveillance us. This loop will never end !
Zhanna Onishchuk
Deporting Crime?
This article dealt with many of the issues we have been discussing in class. The U.S Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agency (ICE) has developed new tools for identifying and ultimately deporting illegal immigrants nation-wide. The main tool that they have created for doing so is the Secure Communities Finger-Print sharing program. This program helped to successfully convict and deport Francisco Gomez-Kiroga, a man who had been previously deported 4 times and voluntarily removed himself 19 times. He was pulled over for making an illegal left turn and this new technology helped discover his true identity (he presented himself to law enforcement officers as a different man) as well as his previous offenses. Using a program such as this one is a good way to discover someone’s true identity- perhaps it can be said that some illegal immigrants are the confidence men of today.
However, this system employed by the ICE has been subject to much criticism. Many of the people ultimately deported by this system have not committed any serious crime (most have been driving infractions). Critics claim that this is a waste of the ICE’s limited resources which should be spent targeting dangerous criminals. The thing that I think is the most alarming about this system is that it perpetuates racial profiling. Faced with much pressure to keep deporting illegals, law enforcement officers are using driving infractions as a way to pinpoint people who “look illegal.” As evidenced by the historical precedent we studied in class, this is a slippery slope. I think that in the future there will be litigation that deals with racial profiling in situations such as these.
Posted in Assignment 2
Tagged crime, criminal surveillance, illegal immigration, Stereotyping
14 Comments
Criminal Surveillance? Gone too far?
While searching for a video of interest to post, I came across this video(Click for video). In the video, it reports how the U.S. wants to pass a bill in which FBI agents dont need a motive or any evidence in investigating a crime. Everyone can be investigated without a reason. I think this is getting a little out of hand. The government already has too much control on individuals as it is. We have cameras installed in every possible area, street, and block in most of the country. I think this is categorizing every single person in the U.S. as a criminal. The message that U.S. citizens will get from this is that everyone is a criminal unless proven innocent. From what I understand from growing up, I thought that the correct motto was ” everyone is innocent unless proven guilty”. This is one of those moments in a nations history where the times are truly changing. I was born in 1985 and even though crimes did happen, I remember being able to leave the front door of my house open and unlocked and we werent so cautious about who our neighbors were and what they did. We werent so closely monitored and crimes were less than today. Nowadays, with the street cameras and surveillance, it seems that crime has risen. We basically are like animals stuck in a cage and the government is in control of us. I think people will get fed up with this new law and feel that since we are all categorized as criminals as a nation, why not act like a criminal anyway. I really hope that this bill does not pass because criminals are supposed to be the minority not the majority.
