Atlanta seeks to add 500 surveillance cameras (to fight gun crime)

[onehandle]

Source: AJC

The city may now engage in a debate that has roiled European capitals for years: Is closed-circuit surveillance a benign tool that helps the cops deter and even solve crimes, or is Big Brother coming to town to observe and record every move you make?

City officials are seeking $13.7 million in federal cash amid a series of high-profile crimes in recent months: a champion boxer shot dead in the street, a City Council member carjacked at gunpoint, a rash of armed robberies near Georgia Tech.

The system Atlanta plans to use could store images for up to 30 days and support software that reads license plate numbers and detects gunshots. Critics say the system conjures up images from George Orwell’s “1984,” a novel about a totalitarian state presided over by an all-seeing Big Brother. They wonder where the cameras will be pointed, who will have access to these images and sounds, how long will they be kept, and where will they be stored.

“It’s kind of creepy,” said Marc Rotenberg executive director of the Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center. “Mass surveillance is essentially directed toward everyone, so it doesn’t matter if you are someone planning a crime or if you are a resident or tourist or someone who is walking into an office building to go to work. Everyone gets swept into these big databases.”

Read more: http://www.ajc.com/news/atlanta/atlanta-seeks-to-add-171808.html

[naaman fletcher]

1. It's big brother.

I am willing to give up some safety for freedom.

[phasma ex machina]

3. +1 Creepy. Inside cams needed to enable the public to watch the watchers. nt

[Ozymanithrax]

2. I see no problem with trying to reduce gun crime...

but from everything I've read, surveillance cameras are ineffective, at best.

London’s Surveillance Fails - Only 1 Crime Solved per 1000 Cameras

There has to be better ways to solve the problem then spy on everyone.

One more comment: Surveillance will not keep people from committing a crime with a gun. If the gun is concealed, the camera's won't detect it. Thousands of robberies have been filmed by surveillance cameras in liquor stores, banks, and elsewhere. Those cameras did not solve the problem.

Since crime is a disease of the poor, perhaps the money spent on cameras should be spent on education and improving the lives of the poor in a premptive measure.

[Fumesucker]

7. *Street* crime may be a disease of the poor..

But crime is not confined to just the poor..

Witness the Wall Street meltdown and the crimes of the Banksters, which have cost our nation far more than any amount of street crime.

"A man with a briefcase can steal more money than any man with a gun" -Don Henley, who got the idea from Mario Puzo

[Ozymanithrax]

10. But the remedy for street crime or gun crimes is not the same as that for Banksters.

Indeed, because most of what wall street did was legal in an unregulated market, most of them did not commit an actual crime. Yes, there were your Madoff's, but most of them hid their crimes behind the law, or lack there off. The way to stop that kind of crime is with regulation and oversight, which seems to be outside the subject of this thread.

The kind of crime people who install surveillance cameras are trying to stop is street crime. Cameras are shown to be next to useless for that.

[Fumesucker]

11. I was responding to your comment about "crime is a disease of the poor"..

Just pointing out that crime happens at all levels of society and the crime which happens at the highest levels costs us far more than the crime which happens at the lowest levels and yet even many so called progressives ignore high level crime.

[xchrom]

4. cameras may not stop crime -- but they may catch criminals after the fact and

get them off the street.

i HATE the idea of this -- but damn people have to do something.

[naaman fletcher]

5. and thats how it happens..

"liberals" who have lost all notion of what being liberal is, and instead are willing to resort to a police-state to assuage their fears.

[xchrom]

9. ...

:rofl:

[The Court Jester]

6. This will be another "Bait and Switch"

This is what always happens. The government tells us that they need more power to do something. And they always phrase it in a way that helps them gain enough support to implement the new policy or action. Then as soon as they get the new powers, they begin to use those powers for LOTS of other things than previously stated. Just look at the Patriot Act. They have used it primarily for drug crimes, not terrorism.

NEVER TRUST THE GOVERNMENT WITH MORE OF YOUR RIGHTS.

[forum slut]

8. echelon, carnivore, narusInsight, patriot act, CCTV cams with facial recognition,

ain't the future great?

[emilyg]

12. Good.

[baldguy]

13. Bad

[lunatica]

14. This kind of 'progress' is inevitable

Anything that can be converted or used to control others WILL be used. It's easier than dealing with the causes of unrest or crime. And it goes along with the military and policing mentality that prevails.

[Psephos]

15. It's only inevitable if we acquiesce.

But I will grant you it's probable. ;)

I do not plan to acquiesce, ever.