Company proposes privately funded camera network for downtown

[Midway ®]

This is a horrible idea.  Further erosion of our privacy and civil liberties, and people are actually glad for it?!? Are you people nuts?! This is total Big Brother nonsense, and anyone with a thinking brain should reject it outright.

If this thing was using facial recognition software to pull criminal records or something like that, I could see your points, but how is this any different than a security camera at a mall?

1. Mall is private property.
2. Facial recognition software will be applied later.

The giant step is putting in the cameras. All the rest are just baby steps.

[Midway ®]

Joe.   There isnt much more that you can say that isnt overly incorrect either.

You have a Right to Privacy.

The argument about what the limits to that right are is an ongoing argument whose parameters have not been settled by US law yet.

This ongoing argument does not however, cancel your rights.  It would be absurd to claim otherwise.

The argument that I made however, is not based on the absolute Right of Privacy.  But merely on good sense and the idea that there are all kinds of things that a person would probably like to do without being observed or taped doing.

Even though the arguments are different, I still feel its important not to let the unrelated argument that we dont have any "Right" to privacy even on an empty or abandoned public street--stand.  It is factually incorrect.

Just as you do not have a 'right' to privacy or property if your house is burning down and you refuse to let your spouse and children out of it.  There are instances of overwhelming need or importance that supercede these rights.

Catching the homeless panhandling or urinating in public, in my mind, doesnt exactly rise to that level.

I will call this treatise "Dare on Constitutional Law".   

Smarmy and sarcastic, with nothing useful to add, as usual.

He's just as smart as a constitutional lawyer, so, by your "logic", he's an expert. as a matter of fact let's just say he is a constitutional lawyer, OK? That's not a problem, is it? Because if it is, that would just be quibbling over minor details, wouldn't it? Mind you, I'm just asking the question here.

[RiversideGator]

Once the cameras are in place, COJ & JSO will apply for federal grants to install facial recognition software, connect the cameras to a national database system and make their primary mission looking for members of Al Queida, ACLU, and maybe even JAXHATER. Incidental street crime will be out of the scope of the federal grants, so that will become someone else's job, and you will be back to square one, except there will be no privacy and no security.

Look for a requirement for your picture and DNA to be in a national database, coming to a city near you, soon! (AKA "REAL ID") But not to worry, we're just keeping you safe.

If you just think about it for a few moments, you will realize that this is a step in the wrong direction.

Apparently they are already on top of this.

Just passed unanimously by the Jacksonville City Council on tuesday:

ISSUE: Illegal aliens and crime grant. What it means: Appropriates a $25,991 U.S. Justice Department grant to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office to help it identify illegal aliens and any involvement in crime. Bill No. 2008-212 ACTION: Passed, 14-0.

http://www.jacksonville.com/tu-online/stories/042308/met_271204843.shtml

They should have allocated $2.5 million for this.

[RiversideGator]

Smarmy and sarcastic, with nothing useful to add, as usual.

He's just as smart as a constitutional lawyer, so, by your "logic", he's an expert. as a matter of fact let's just say he is a constitutional lawyer, OK? That's not a problem, is it? Because if it is, that would just be quibbling over minor details, wouldn't it? Mind you, I'm just asking the question here.

What are you talking about?  I wasnt speaking to his qualifications, just the substance.  BTW, you are unqualified to judge either.

And, you wrote the book on smarm and sarcasm.

[Jason]

I'm guessing many that oppose this would be singing a different tune if they were vicitmized and then served justice due the criminal being caught on film and thereby captured.

I would feel much better knowing that if I get mugged or my car broken into there could be a good chance that it was caught on film and the crook captured.  Again, the cameras aren't going to keep them from doing it but at least justice may be served.

Guys, these arent' x-ray cameras that zoom in on your purse or wallet and examine its contents.  They are simple "eyes" that have the ability to be accessed by the police when needed to investigate a crime.  A crime that they may have been an eye witness to.  The only difference between accessing a camera as a witness versus a person as a witness is the ability to see what the camera saw.  In court, doesn't a witness to a crime significantly increase the chance that the accuser is caught?  Moreso, a camera as a witness would be much more subjective due to the ability to show the court first hand what it saw.

[Midway ®]

Smarmy and sarcastic, with nothing useful to add, as usual.

He's just as smart as a constitutional lawyer, so, by your "logic", he's an expert. as a matter of fact let's just say he is a constitutional lawyer, OK? That's not a problem, is it? Because if it is, that would just be quibbling over minor details, wouldn't it? Mind you, I'm just asking the question here.

What are you talking about?  I wasnt speaking to his qualifications, just the substance.  BTW, you are unqualified to judge either.

And, you wrote the book on smarm and sarcasm.

Not talking about my qualifications.  And you wrote the book on hyperbole and bravado.

And I would have misgivings having you represent my dog before the city council, no less any human activity.

And the reason that they did not allocate $2.5 million is because they spent all the rest in Iraq. So $25,000.00 is all you little hillbillys get. That is, unless you can prove that Jacksontucky has been infiltrated by Al Queida,

[Jason]

Can we please get back to topic.  Save the flaming for personal messages and spare the rest of us all the bickering and name calling.

[raheem942]

this would go good with my plan to run the homeless out and make the area safer

[Jerry Moran]

http://www.firstcoastnews.com/video/player.aspx?aid=126468&bw=//

[Jason]

The Viido unit is beginning to establish a London-wide database of images of suspects that are cross-referenced by written descriptions. Interest in the technology has been enhanced by recent police work, in which officers back-tracked through video tapes to pick out terrorist suspects. In districts where the Viido scheme is working, CCTV is now helping police in 15-20% of street robberies.

The article starts by saying the system isn't working but then says parts of it are.  Helping with 15-20% of robberies is pretty good.

[Lunican]

Beijing Olympics visitors to come under widespread surveillance



The government has installed about 300,000 cameras in Beijing and set up a network to spy on its citizens and foreigners.

BEIJING -- The blocking of human rights websites in China leading up to the Olympics is part of an information control and surveillance network awaiting visitors that will include monitoring devices in hotels and taxis and snoops almost everywhere.

Government agents or their proxies are suspected of stepping up cyber-attacks on overseas Tibetan, human rights and press freedom groups and the banned Falun Gong spiritual movement in recent weeks. And China is spending huge sums on sophisticated surveillance systems that incorporate face recognition technology, biometrics and massive databases to help control the population.

China has installed about 300,000 cameras in Beijing under an estimated $6.5-billion, seven-year program dubbed the Grand Beijing Safeguard Sphere. Although face recognition software still can't process rapidly moving images, China hopes that it can soon electronically identify faces out of a vast crowd.

Full Article:
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-snoop7-2008aug07,0,7333292.story?%3F

[ChriswUfGator]

The article says that cameras are to be monitored by the police.  Are we not to trust them anymore?

In this day and age, that really is awfully naive...

Law enforcement is becoming more of a business vs. a public service with each passing day, and despite what we were taught in school, the police are generally not your friend. The handful (countable on less than 1 hand) of times I've called the police for anything in my lifetime have yielded an hourlong wait (or more) only to be greeted with hassles and service with a snarl.

Which I find somewhat funny, at a time when the roadways have turned into a virtual sea of flashing red and blue lights issuing fines. And they routinely go through Riverside at night issuing hundreds of tickets to cars parked a bit too far from the curb, or facing in the wrong direction. Before I switched to using a private process server, I repeatedly had service returned unexecuted by JSO for no reason. They cash your check, and their rule is that they make one visit and if the person isn't there whenever they happen to stop by, then too bad for you. I threw in the towel after service on a corporate defendant was returned unexecuted because JSO dropped by at lunchtime (when their office was closed) and refused to go back.

They do nothing about the gigantic homeless camp that exists blocks from their headquarters. And don't even get me started on the new library, which has been rendered virtually useless by its de-facto status as the City's daytime homeless shelter. Or on the mess of panhandling, drug use, and general weirdness that is Hemming Park. And both of these are also just blocks away from police headquarters, not to mention across the street from City Hall.

They take 45 minutes or longer to respond to a burglar alarm, if they respond at all. Though they certainly don't mind collecting alarm registration fees, lack of service notwithstanding. Hamsterdam is alive at 4am, crawling with prostitutes and drug dealers operating in plain view as the police drive by and wave, sometimes even saying hi to the 'girls' at the Shell station. Jacksonville's serious crimes rates are multiples higher than the national average, broken down per 100k people.

And when they do happen to get involved in stopping real crime, as opposed to speed traps and parking tickets, they have gone embarrassingly berserk. Just the other day, they shot a suspect 42 times, and fired multiple rounds across a crowded parking lot and into a vehicle with 2 children inside, managing to shoot a 2 year old boy in the process. JSO's defense is that they believed a bank robber was carjacking the car. So their dumbass solution is to immediately blast the child-occupied car with several dozen rounds? They'd have been better off with the bank robber. Literally! And forget that one incident, it's the pattern that's troubling. Some story or another of that nature is in the news weekly. Jacksonville's sheer number of police-involved shootings is stunning, and the fact patterns behind them are generally equally shocking.

Beginning almost as soon as Rutherford took over, JSO began having no problem using people who are already running away for target practice. Call me old fashioned, but unless the officer is facing imminent danger, I really don't see the need for deadly force. And certainly not as frequently as it's been occurring. Even scarier is that, unlike in other communities, JSO is not subject to outside oversight by an independent panel or citizen review board. So I suppose it's hardly shocking, given this fact, that every single shooting has been declared justified. Usually by Rutherford at a press conference, before the investigation is even begun let alone completed. Even worse, in several cases, when the investigation was finally completed, JSO ultimately declared that the fatal wounds were somehow "self-inflicted". Because, you know, apparently it's just perfectly normal that people are somehow able to fatally shoot themselves...multiple times. That's certainly quite a magic trick.  

Meanwhile, despite the constant barrage of police-involved killings, the number of serious crimes in Jacksonville per capita has remained the worst in the state, at a time when the national average has trended lower, and we have had the highest murder rate in the state for years. As a lowly public citizen, it's really not hard to see why. If you ever need to call them for some reason, you better hope you have a book to read while waiting. But if you go a little over the speed limit, or forget to park your car in the right direction, or anything else of that equally retarded nature, then voila! They'll pop up in no time. If my house gets robbed, I bet it will probably be faster to go park my car in the wrong direction to attract the police than to call 911.

In a trend that began in the 1990's and has only gotten worse, the majority of their resources is now plainly focused on hassling money out of those who can afford to pay it, vs. any real emphasis on public service. I won't go into my experience on jury duty last week, and the utterly preposterous case (or lack thereof) on which JSO and Angela Corey's office wasted god knows how much money charging and bringing to trial. A total waste of time, and of public resources. I was disgusted.

So now we're going to install a giant web of security cameras? Hmm. Well, pardon my cynicism, but given how the rest of law enforcement is operated around here, doesn't it strike anyone else as virtually inevitable that those resources will only wind up being used in the most irritating and ineffective (though no doubt "revenue-producing") way possible?

This is a slippery slope. I feel the same way about red-light cameras. It wouldn't be long before they can just sit in the police station watching us on TV and sending us tickets in the mail. The way things are going, you may as well just replace their badges with bank deposit stamps. We're getting to a real turning point with law enforcement in Florida, it's becoming difficult to determine whether they're police officers or tax collectors.

Also, I should say that this type of problem originates from the top down. I don't fault the individual officers, it's the top leadership that's the problem. And in this economic downturn, I suspect even Rutherford isn't entirely to blame, he's probably getting leaned on by his own bosses (COJ) to bring in more money.

[JC]

As a street photographer and wannabe photojournalist I like the idea that there is no legitimate expectation of privacy in public places.  However I don't want "the state" looking over my shoulder every time I walk down the street. 

I have been in plenty of situations where it is clear that the police are not acting in the interests of the public, instead shielding the interests of the powerful few.  I am always suspicious of authority and give them zero credit when dealing with sensitive information. 



And no, I was not at the Denver DNC but some friends from Democracy Now were and they were harassed, to say the least!

[ChriswUfGator]

Just poking through some stats; Jacksonville had 113 murders and 143 reported homicides in 2008. By comparison, London, a metropolitan area with more than 8 times our population, and where the police do not even carry firearms, logged only 153.

This is also a good read, if you have a strong stomach anyway, to watch Rutherford trying to take credit for the historical statistical link between recessions and crime rates;

http://jacksonville.com/news/crime/2010-04-07/story/release-crime-stats-shows-good-and-bad-duval-down-crime-rate-highest

           

[CS Foltz]

ChriswUfGator..............your correct (even if your a lawyer  and I do agree with your point regarding London! Something is wrong for sure and I can't quite put a finger on it other than the enviroment in London compared to Jacksonville?