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Comment by jiggy2011 | Hacker News Reader

jiggy2011

I'm not sure if I oppose CCTV cameras or not. Sure there's a creepy element to it.

OTOH they are all in public places and the footage is not released to the public without some reason (in contrast to basically anyone just recording with a phone).

People always say they want more police on the street, so if each of these cameras was replaced with a uniformed policeman watching the street would this be better or worse?

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My personal complaint with CCTVs is, "why are they so hidden?" I understand that in a public place (shopping mall, public park etc), people could be watching me. I'm alright with that simply for the fact that those people watching me are themselves subject to the same condition of being watched. CCTVs are often black on very dark wall/ceiling or very reflective against a light wall/ceiling making them very hard to pick out unless you are looking for them. It wouldn't be surprising to me if some of them are even more hidden (embedded in decorations, wall hangings, toys, mannequins etc). To me, some of these CCTVs are effectively an attempt at being robotic peeping-Toms.

I think a CCTV would afford more real security (if it does at all to begin with) by following the norms of a real watchman (being visible).

tl;dr I think I have right to watch the watchmen (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%...), even though this is not guaranteed by any law.

If the police feel that hidden cameras are the way to go, then they should surrender the protection that claim to have (not being allowed to videotape or otherwise perform surveillance on a police officer). (I am not at all sure about this last part, please correct me should I be wrong).

edit: replaced <em></em> with *s

I don't want more police in my neighborhood.

At first, more police would probably improve a few things. Fewer people would litter, and the occasional drunk who passes out on the side of a street would be removed faster.

The trouble is, there's not actually much for extra police to do, so they'd eventually find things to do. They'd have to start writing speeding tickets for 5 mph over the limit and picking up stray cats. That kind of enforcement would not make this a more pleasant place to live.

"start writing speeding tickets for 5 mph over the limit and picking up stray cats"

Aren't those good things? I wish for someone to get a ticket if they drive faster than the speed limit, they're a hazard to themselves and others. I'd like stray cats to get picked up so that they will get taken care of and won't be a nuisance to the neighborhood.

I completely disagree. Speed limits are not based when someone becomes a hazard to himself or others. A great many people can and do safely travel faster than the speed limit. Also I don't think that stray cats are a nuisance, and that they do in fact keep down the rodent population and are a generally healthy element of the urban ecosystem.

If you are in the US and want more cops in your community, you can make it happen by convincing enough people to vote for the necessary tax increases to hire more law enforcement. Alternatively, you could move to a gated community, many of which hire security guards, that you pay for, who will help take care of the stray cat problem - but you'll still have to contend with the speeders outside the gate.

Those might be good things in some cases, but usually not. In my area, stray cats are mostly beneficial and not overpopulated. Speeding by such a small amount is not usually dangerous, and drivers paranoid about overzealous speed enforcement are likely to focus too much attention on the speedometer and not enough on their environment.

They're good things, but are they good enough to justify taking money from people by force (taxation) to pay someone to do them? Pink lemonade is good too, but I prefer a society where people who want pink lemonade choose to buy it for themselves.

> People always say they want more police on the street, so if each of these cameras was replaced with a uniformed policeman watching the street would this be better or worse?

Better, unequivocally. Why wouldn't it be?

I mean specifically from a "civil liberties" point of view, i.e your are being watched either way but CCTV happens to be cheaper (though less effective).

I meant my comment from the "civil liberties" point of view too. CCTV leaves a permanent record, accessible in perpetuity and to the authorities only. But if a police officer were on the street instead, public activities would remain pseudoanonymous so long as he's not paying attention or what you're doing doesn't otherwise stand out as important to the cop in the moment.

Because cctv cameras are not (at present) armed and thus can't kill innocent people. Nor are they racist and thus they can't beat someone close to death thereby starting riots.

And that's real, trained, qualified, experienced, officers. Imagine what it's like if you have people like the UK "Special Constables" (PCSO, Police Community Support Officer) - volunteer police with limited powers (and training). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_Community_Support_Offic...)

Police on the streets probably aren't much good at catching criminals; from the little I've read there needs to be more detectives but not more beat officers.

PCSOs are not volunteers, they are paid. Special Constables are volunteers.

PCSOs generally do not have any more rights than any normal citizen in terms of arrest etc and therefor don't really have grounds to make threats against you (apart from using their radio to call an actual police officer).

Special Constables are properly trained, qualified and warranted volunteer "real" police officers.

PCSOs are paid, barely trained normal citizens with a police-like uniform.

More police mean more people. More people mean more mistakes. And when police make mistakes people die or at best go to jail unnecessarily. Law enforcement is entrenched with a stand-your-ground-to-hell-with-the-facts culture.

Their job is essentially to find "bad guys" so when there are many more cops then bad guys, the category of bad-guy gets vastly expanded.

In 2002 at LAX there were so many cops it was ridiculous. My friend got a ticket for littering and I got one for jaywalking. Actually he was going to arrest me at first.

So yes, please, I want that experience everywhere I go. If I walk briskly, well then I should be stopped and questioned. If I stop slightly ahead of the line at the crosswalk, I should get a $500 fine every time and eventually lose my license.

But the police of course can simply turn on their sirens and go through whatever red light they please, or park in front of a hydrant, or on a sidewalk, they are above the law after all.

This overreaching police state sounds simply wonderful. Where does one sign up?

Police need to be convinced that your oppresive dictatorship is a good thing. Cameras wont revolt.

The history of military recruiting, and even police recruiting, shows that this check is a non-issue. Police departments hire power tripping bullies who enjoy harassing dirty/brown/hippy/communitst/Irish/whatever.

I don't know more than half-a-dozen policemen but none of them fit that description.

Right. 6 people in your anecdotal experience is a good rebuttal when compared with thousands of years of world history where there have been no problems finding people to do awful things. For the most obvious example, go to Germany in WWII.

No idea why the grandparent is being down voted.

>6 people in your anecdotal experience is a good rebuttal //

No, it's not and we all know that. That's why I phrased it that way. However it does falsify the [apparent] claim of it being a universal truth, for me - obviously you'd need to weigh my trustworthiness as an observer+reporter for it to count as evidence.

Specific to my statement and your rebuttal. I only know about the current UK police's history. What's the earliest police force and how do we know they hired sadistic sociopaths?

I don't think the point was that every policeman was a jackass, or even a majority. The point is, that throughout history, anyone with power has been able to convince a lot of people to do their dirty work. Likely many of these people weren't even bad people, they just didn't have the courage to stand up for what is right.

It doesn't falsify anything, and I have no reason to believe you aren't trustworthy. I just need to be able to provide lots of examples where the opposite is true, and I can. It's trivial.

I don't for a second believe that every German soldier in WWII was as bad a person as Hitler made them be. I do believe they were willing to go well past what most people would admit to doing, likely because they were afraid they'd die if they didn't. But millions of jews were slaughtered because it wasn't that hard to convince people to do it.

Not everyone is an asshole, or on a power trip. But there has been enough instances of cop brutality. The more people you add, the more the number of bad apples increase. Having more people might dilute the percentage of bad apples, but it still increases the number of bad apples. And as another commenter pointed out, when there are lot of cops on the street, and there are no conventional bad guys, the definition of bad guy extends. I certainly won't want to be arrested for jaywalking.

That's a pretty strong stance you are taking. To suggest that policeman trump cameras unequivocally, well, you'd have to ignore history to make that case.

Just reading through various threads here and I see examples of cases where cameras solved problems better then people could have.

The problem with CCTV cameras is camera footage can be processed automatically to track people's movements. This gives the state more power than it reasonably needs.

Good point. But OTOH what if some private organisation (cough google) decided to pay private property owners to put street facing cameras on their buildings, record everything and upload it to some server?

This could then be used for all kinds of purposes but AFAIK they wouldn't be breaking any laws in doing so, so in this case it doesn't give the state any extra rights than a private company has.

You're once again believing the ridiculous notion that somehow all CCTV cameras feed into a central state monitored control station. They don't.

Note the use of the words "can be". What's the trend of modern states? Is it towards limiting or increasing surveillance?

Is there not any other ways to stop violence than with threats of violence (like more police and cctv who will make sure the cops gets you if you do crimes)? A better, but harder way, is to design society so that crime is low because it's not as necessary as it is today.

History is littered with designed societies.

History is littered with societies in general.

I don't want either. I'd prefer more people took care of themselves. An armed society is a polite society.

"An armed society is a polite society."

Do you really believe this platitude? On a purely logical level, there are so many counterexamples that one has to be embarrassed to state it as fact.

I do. Please show lots of examples of people with their HCP committing crimes.

Look at Switzerland. Do they have huge mass murders happening on a daily basis?

I'm still waiting on your counterexamples, but in the mean time here are a few links.

In Switzerland, most 20-30 year olds are in the militia, and have automatic assault rifles in their homes. After their service, they are made into semi-automatic rifles and generally kept by the servicemen in their homes. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_politics_in_Switzerland 2006 - 34 gun killings, 7.6mil population - rate of killings or attempted killings with firearms at about one for every quarter million residents yearly

DC - poster child for gun control, had 137 gun killings last year with a population of 600k. http://www.boston.com/news/nation/articles/2007/11/18/effect...

In Australia, we've decreased to about 0.1 gun homicides per 100k: http://guncontrol.org.au/wp-content/uploads/2012/09/1995-200... (Note: somewhat biased site)

That's compared to 0.22 for DC, or 0.04 for Switzerland, so it's still higher than Switzerland with vastly higher gun control. However, I think that it's more about the surrounding gun culture than it is the laws: most Australians are against gun usage (see the response to the Port Arthur massacre or the Monash Uni shootings), whereas for Americans, it's their right to hold arms, and they seem to defend that adamantly.

See also, this opinion piece by our former Prime Minister: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/politics/brothers-in-arms-yes-...

Edit: http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/region/australia notes 30 gun-related homicides in 2008 for a population of ~21 million.

That's not a counter example though. Having a place with gun control that isn't full of gun crime isn't that shocking, though it hasn't worked in the US. What you need to prove me wrong would be one without any gun control that has huge lawlessness and gun crime compared to similar places with gun control.

>An armed society is a polite society.

Is the subtext of this statement "An armed society is a polite society because rude people get shot"?

No. It's that criminals think twice about robbing or raping someone if they know they are armed.

The Swiss then do not count as an example, what with them not actually being armed in any sort of public-ish space.

You only get robbed in public?

Mostly

http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/c...

30% was at home, which is over 100k.

Which is kind of surprising considering that possibility of home owner having a gun is mentioned as strong deterrent for criminals.

>No. It's that criminals think twice about robbing or raping someone if they know they are armed.

Then wouldn't a more appropriate aphorism be "An armed society is a safe society"?

It's probably way cheaper with cameras..

Some studies point that operating cameras is expensive and in some way just move or change crime, therefore less efficient than real police at the same cost.

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