IP: DC to get spycams --"no choice but to accept it"

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

------ Forwarded Message
From: Adam Shostack <adam () homeport org>
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2002 11:58:35 -0500
To: Dave Farber <farber () cis upenn edu>
Subject: [mv () cdc gov: DC to get spycams --"no choice but to accept it"]

For IP...I particularly like the avoidance of responsibility in the
"we have no choice" comment.

----- Forwarded message from "Major Variola (ret)" <mv () cdc gov> -----

To: cypherpunks () lne com


[domestic surveillance, brinworld, big bro, pseudosecurity]

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Washington police are building what will
be the nation's biggest network of surveillance cameras to monitor
shopping areas, streets, monuments and other public places in the
U.S. capital, a move that worries civil liberties groups, The Wall
Street Journal said on Wednesday.

The system would eventually include hundreds of cameras, linking
existing devices in Metro mass transit stations, public schools and
traffic intersections to new digital cameras mounted to watch over
neighborhoods and shopping districts, the Journal said.

"In the context of Sept. 11, we have no choice but to accept greater
use of this technology," Stephen Gaffigan, the head of the police
department project, told the Journal.

He said city officials had studied the British surveillance system,
which has more than 2 million cameras throughout the country, and
were "intrigued by that model."
<snip>

http://www.reuters.com/news_article.jhtml?type=topnews&StoryID=593227

----- End forwarded message -----

Jeffery Rosen had an excellent bit in the NYTimes
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/07/magazine/07SURVEILLANCE.html?pagewanted=pr
int
on 'that model.'

"Last year, Britain's violent crime rates actually increased by 4.3
percent, even though the cameras continued to proliferate. But CCTV
cameras have a mysterious knack for justifying themselves regardless
of what happens to crime. When crime goes up the cameras get the
credit for detecting it, and when crime goes down, they get the credit
for preventing it."



-- 
"It is seldom that liberty of any kind is lost all at once."
                                   -Hume




------ End of Forwarded Message

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