From: Jonah Bossewitch <jb2410@columbia.edu>
  To  : <cpc@emoglen.law.columbia.edu>
  Date: Fri, 11 Feb 2005 12:03:25 -0500

Re: video cameras

> However, without more, I'm not too worried about cameras.  For one 
> thing, can anybody coordinate this data? When somebody comes up with a 
> way to track everybody, all the time, on camera, and pick out the 
> illegal or embarrasing material, then I'll be really concerned.  If we 
> are there already, I haven't heard about it.
>

Are you kidding?  Use your imagination. Watch 24 this season.  
Biometric identification cards are already making their way into 
cooperate and government.  Facial recognition (at least the 
declassified algorithms) _may_ not be reliable enough for airport 
security, but if your demands are not in real time, perhaps a few false 
positives aren't such a big deal.  Are you aware of tools like this 
http://imgseek.python-hosting.com/ ?  The technology in its current 
state is far beyond conspiracy theorists wildest speculation.

You are correct that the coordination of this data is the last major 
hurdle, but that hurdle has been identified.  Do you think it is 
intractable? Double click managed to pull it off, just by placing an 
innocuous 4k file on everyone's computer.

Between metrocards, ezpass, credit card transactions, electronic super 
saver discount coupons, and even bars like the west end swiping ids, 
the trail was already thick enough for a novice tracker with the right 
connections to reconstruct .  Now with gps cell phones, and RFID coming 
on fast and strong?  How long do you think it will really be before it 
reaches a point where you begin to worry?  If you only start worrying 
about it then, won't it already be too late?

Do you really think this scenario is a paranoid delusion?


> For another thing, who actually cares about all this video?  If you're 
> a police officer tracking somebody, maybe you do care about a few 
> videocameras, but if you are Big Brother, I would think you would 
> rather have things like telephone and credit card records.  Watching 
> me walk down the street at 8:49 every morning doesn't really establish 
> anything about my behavior other than that I have to be somewhere at 
> 9:00 everyday.
>

I dunno - say I run a private elementary school, and I want to make 
sure that the parents of my students are all of the right moral fibre.  
Or I am on a co-op board and I want to get my pesky neighbor thrown out 
of the building.  Or I want to humiliate and embarrass my ex 
significant other - perhaps by revealing something which could cost 
them their job or career.   Are these cases really that hard to 
imagine?

My investigation budget might not be able to afford more than a google 
search, but do you have any idea what that already might reveal?

> I agree with Heather that in certain situations, like a yoga class, 
> you don't want to be videotaped, but I think the concern there is more 
> with the yoga studio's use of the footage.  As far as the government 
> or large corporations go, I don't know that they have the interest or 
> ability to make videocameras a concern for me.  There are too many 
> other forms of data collection that I think are much more dangerous.
>
>
> Steve
>
> --On Friday, February 11, 2005 9:58 AM -0500 Heather Schneider 
> <hms2103@columbia.edu> wrote:
>
>>
>>
>> Camden -
>>
>> I feel that even if I'm not breaking the law, that doesn't mean I 
>> want a
>> video camera recording my every move. It's just a gut feeling I have; 
>> it
>> bothers me. I'll see if I can articulate why...
>>
>> I think that to me the problems with cameras are (1) the one-sidedness
>> of the transaction and (2) the ability to permanently store the data.
>>
>> What do I mean by one-sided? This is the same problem I see in the GPS
>> location cases. The court says that placing a GPS on a car is just 
>> like
>> following the car on the street. But I disagree. The GPS allows a 
>> party
>> who isn't present to track my movements without me seeing him. In the
>> old days, a police car would have to follow me. There is a chance I
>> might see him in my rearview mirror and I could try to lose him. But
>> with the GPS that's impossible.
>>
>> It's the same with the cameras. It allows someone who I can't see to
>> watch my movements. Yes, when I walk down the street I'm "in public".
>> But generally the people who can see me are the same people I can see.
>> There is a _mutual_ lack of privacy. With the video camera I've lost
>> _my_ privacy, but the person with the camera hasn't lost _his_ (or
>> hers).
>>
>> Plus, I don't like the fact that the data can be stored indefinitely.
>> When I walk down the street people see me. But after a moment all 
>> record
>> of that transaction is gone, except in our memories. In a few weeks, I
>> probably won't even remember where I was at 2:15 on a Monday afternoon
>> walking down Broadway, but the record of the camera will still be 
>> there.
>> In that sense, the person who owns the camera will know and remember
>> more about me than I do.
>>
>> So, you ask, why should I care if I'm not breaking the law? Well, 
>> there
>> are a lot of things I might do that aren't illegal, but I still don't
>> want a 3rd party who I never saw to have a permanent record of. I 
>> might
>> go to an abortion clinic, a gay bar, a gun show, whatever. Hell, I go 
>> to
>> _yoga_ class several times a week. There's nothing wrong with that, 
>> it's
>> not something I'm ashamed to admit. But I wouldn't want the owner of 
>> the
>> school watching our classes on video tape. That would just be plain
>> embarrassing.
>>
>> So, if you don't have the same gut reaction, there is probably 
>> nothing I
>> can say to convince you. But maybe you can at least see why it bothers
>> me.
>>
>> -Heather
>>
>
>
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