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> My belief is - if one wants privacy - they should park in the backyard (i.e. area restricted to general public)

Old Town Alexandria (http://www.visitalexandriava.com/about-alexandria/old-town-a...) is a very dense, built-up historic district. Because space is at such a premium there, lots of residences there are not going to have backyard or garage parking available; it's on-street parking or nothing.

(Source: I live in Alexandria, though not in Old Town -- that neighborhood is crazy expensive. Like, SF expensive.)

> If you don't emit anything, there's nothing to receive thus nothing to store - privacy problem ultimately solved

We've assigned Officer Smith here to follow you around and make notes about what buildings you enter and exit, and when. He won't follow you into the buildings, of course -- we respect your privacy! He'll just be waiting there for you outside whenever you step out a door.

If this makes you uncomfortable, you are free to cover yourself in a tarp or plastic garbage bag whenever you go outside. Problem solved.

Right?

You have a point. A serious one.

Not sure, but I guess, the distinction here is active vs passive surveillance. If there's an attack on my privacy (i.e. a stalker or a bunch of ones targeting me) - that would be problematic, because I'm quite limited on (legal) options to stop that behavior.

If someone walks around the city and records everything they see, systematizing the collected data - well, we all do this. Our brains do this, our smartphones do this, some of the cars do this, and as tech progresses a number of examples would only rise. Technology just enhances our vision and memories, and I think it would be very bad idea to limit that.

Yet, I don't know the solution. I just say, that I believe "make it illegal to record things" is a bad option too - maybe not as bad as "make everyone wear garbage bags", but certainly not a good solution.

Added: I say that because I have somehow bad memory (medium-term one, like remembering dialogs after half an hour or faces of the people I met yesterday) and really happy that modern tech helps me to mitigate this issue. Obviously, I'm not thinking of spying on anyone, but I think having an ability to remember anything that happened around has a value.

Personal memory != computer memory. Requiring that records are deleted after a certain time is not the same as asking someone to forget something.

If a crime is committed police will frequently ask the public to remember and submit details. It is the entire basis of Crime Stoppers[1].

In this case, instead of humans everywhere remember things (imperfectly) you have computers everywhere remembering things exactly.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_Stoppers

The line which seems so clear to you now will only get blurrier.

Not really. If you have a statute of limitations and mandatory data retention requirements, data deletion sounds perfectly reasonable.

I'm not sure if you're arguing that the line between computer and personal memory will not get blurrier (implied by "not really"), or that mandatory memory erasure sounds perfectly reasonable.

Or maybe I didn't communicate clearly. :)

Well, the reality is that until we get memory implants this will still be a concern, and it would be ideal if options start being explored now. It's certain that between now and then there will most likely be a more developed ethical and legal framework for this.

> Technology just enhances our vision and memories, and I think it would be very bad idea to limit that.

Why?

We limit and regulate how much technology enhances our abilities in all sorts of ways when there's a consensus that the enhancement harms society at large. Cars enhance our ability to travel, for instance, but we require their operators to be licensed and to maintain them properly to reduce the amount of accidents and environmental damage they cause. My cellphone can take pictures and record video, but there are places where I'm legally restricted from using it to do so, like courthouses and locker rooms. And so forth.

Any technology that empowers people is going to empower some of them to do icky things to the rest of us. So we have to draw boundaries to delineate where appropriate use of those technologies becomes inappropriate use. Police departments have benefited from ALPRs being so new that these lines don't exist yet for them, but the more stories like this that emerge, the greater will become the pressure on communities to start drawing them.

"the distinction here is active vs passive surveillance"

I fully agree with the rest of your comment, but this part is a distinction without a difference, ultimately. With more and more complete passive surveillance, active surveillance will be less and less necessary. I think the best way forward is Brin's sousveillance idea: if there are no legal restrictions on recording anywhere, this at once evens the social/legal playing field, and prevents wasting increasing resources on stopping something which is increasingly difficult to stop.

> I believe "make it illegal to record things" is a bad option too

Phrased that broadly, it would be terribly abusive and detrimental to free speech. But imagine a much more narrow rule, concerning only the mass recording and retention of geotagged, timestamped license plate photos. It may be only a quantitative difference and not a qualitative one. But public policy often hinges on distinctions of that sort, as we try to balance competing societal interests.

Would you be bothered if someone followed you daily on the sidewalk, noting your paths? I would.

Would it be any better if, rather than one person following you, it was one guy on every street corner, who collaborated to reconstruct the paths you walked, and kept a record?

For me, that would be just as offensive. Now consider that by collecting data points from every car, anywhere, the police can do this kind of tracking to everybody. I don't find that any better than hiring one stalker per citizen.

You remembering that you met me in a coffee shop wouldn't bother me. You following me everywhere certainly would.

I'm not the grandparent commenter, but your first example would indeed bother me, while the second wouldn't. The scenario of someone following me around holds worrisome import quite apart from the mere knowledge of what I'm doing or where I'm going (which I used to worry about, but tried to avoid worrying about after I realized that in a decade or two, there would be no way of knowing if someone had a camera (other than their eyes, of course...) pointed at me).

The first one would be a little bothersome... but as much (or more) from a personal safety aspect than a privacy aspect. I would feel just as uncomfortable if the person was just following me and not even recording my movements. The physical presence of some one and their close proximity all the time would make me nervous about physical harm coming to me.

The second one would be much less bothersome but I would still feel a little uncomfortable about it. Being singled out would be curious. And while it would not be the same person the whole time, we still have the physical presence and close proximity focused solely on me that would make nervous about physical harm.

So a third scenario: rather than one person following you, it was one guy on every street corner, who collaborated to reconstruct the paths everyone walked, and kept a record. This scenario is much more akin to that of the article.

I would hardly care. Sure there is still the physical presence but it is not focused solely on me. I would be much more at ease knowing that each person standing there, noting the paths of everyone that walks by, doesn't actually care about me individually. If they are not concerned about me then they are far less likely to cause me harm.

Parking enforcement has used License Plate Recognition tech for quite a while. They drive around and it records plate, location, time, etc. If your vehicle is in violation of the local parking limits, it sounds an alarm and they stop and issue you a ticket. They can also detect if your vehicle is in need of a boot/tow due to excessive tickets, etc. Just because they have records of where and when you parked, doesn't mean they are "tracking" you.

When it comes to the State, we have to actively limit its activities. Especially when it comes to indiscriminate information gathering. Don't you find it odd that there's no record of the real crimes -- homeless people fighting, gunshots, attempted burglary -- but there's the time and location information of this man's vehicle? Seems like the Alexandria PD has a clear bias in the types of information that they're interested in collecting and retaining.

That's right. Taxpayers money should be spent on a things that help taxpayers, not make problems for them.

But I feel that's only tangentially about the privacy - it's all about state-to-citizen relationships.

Except there is a record of those crimes - and largely due to other persistent sensors like gunshot sensors that have been put into high crime areas [1]. This one individual was not involved in those activities so he did not see them in his FOIA request.

What you see with these types of sensors are easily deployable, fairly cheap, useful sensors that are doing what cops already do (license plate searches) only more quickly with the addition of geo-tagging.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gunfire_locator

One would think that there was more direct record from the 911 calls that he made.

>I don't like the idea of forbidding someone to remember things they've seen (heard, received, observed - whatever verb's appropriate).

The state is not people. The state is a fiction that we use to do things in the way that we've collectively decided is appropriate. We order it to forget things all the time e.g. illegally discovered evidence, juvenile criminal histories, things ordered struck from the record in court, etc.

Anthropomorphizing the state is dangerous.

And yet the courts have already affirmatively confirmed that the police are not required to "pretend not to see" something in public view, or that they saw in plain sight in the course of a legal search.

By the way, knowing what is normal for a neighborhood is very much in the definition of "good old fashioned police work" that I've seen trotted out around here before.

>courts have already affirmatively confirmed that the police are not required to "pretend not to see" something in public view, or that they saw in plain sight in the course of a legal search.

This is the process, yes. They don't gain these abilities as some sort of natural right.

Neither of these are a dragnet over the general populace, or the creation of a record of every observation during that dragnet for computer-aided analysis, so they should expect to be in court for this too. The current court would probably be very friendly to their arguments, no matter what they are.

You've hit the nail on the head--infringing on an individual's right to remember something is nuts, but requiring that group entities (governments, corporations, etc.) have certain forms of acute amnesia is quite reasonable.

One of the reasons for this is that most of those entities are not able to be reasoned with or to show empathy in any meaningful capacity--they'll bear stances which appear to be petty grudges for years, sometimes decades, because that's the sort of timescale they can operate on.

Intuitions for individuals do not and can not apply to organizations.

In my opinion, "stop emitting information if you want privacy" is just as weak an argument as "stop spying on me by remembering information that you perceive." There is a continuum between privacy and convenience, and a certain amount of privacy must be given up in order to actually get things done. Mass surveillance takes advantage of the necessity of leaking information in order to control people. Taking extreme measures just to get a little bit of privacy should not be necessary - you should have a "reasonable" amount of privacy by default.

It is the intent and reasoning behind the collection of this information that is usually found to be objectionable, not the actual process of perceiving and remembering it. And the opposite applies here - just as a certain amount of information must be leaked in order to get things done, a certain amount of information must be spied upon in order to regulate things. It's all about balance.

>I don't like the idea of forbidding someone to remember things they've seen

There's a huge difference between a human, who can typically only remember a fairly limited amount of information, and a machine that is only limited by its hard drive capacity.

> My belief is - if one wants privacy - they should park in the backyard (i.e. area restricted to general public)

You should read Kozinski's dissent in United States v. Pineda-Moreno: http://cdn.ca9.uscourts.gov/datastore/opinions/2010/08/12/08...

Kozinski makes a compelling argument that allowing police and federal agents to apply surveillance in publicly visible areas even though they're part of someone's curtilage disproportionately favors the rich.

Should we really grant privacy only to those who can afford gated communities, garages, or other barricades against the same state employees that are supposedly serving them?

I believe the plates are recorded while driving as well, in most cases. By law, you must display plates while driving. The only way to opt out is to refrain from driving. Does that change your feelings on the matter?

This is like a law that forbid me from disguising myself (like wearing a mask) in a public places.

I can complain about such law, but can't really complain about others remembering my face - that would be unfair to others.

You've used the memory metaphor a couple times, but I'm not sure it's fitting. There's a significant difference between memory (for most people) and a camera that's always on. Yes, it would be absurd to toss someone in jail because s/he happened to remember the license plate of some parked car. But that person didn't go to great lengths to set up an elaborate, distributed recording system. Those are different things.

As to my original question, I'm still curious how you'd feel. What if it were facial recognition on public sidewalks and parks, and not license plates? Would you feel differently?

Sorry, had to AFK suddenly.

As for how I'd feel - I guess while I don't like the fact I'm being observed, there's nothing I could do about that. Somehow similar to feelings when others say things I disagree with - I'm not comfortable with that, but there's free speech rights.

Although, if that'd be within my powers to contribute to improving such laws (say, allowing to replace identification plates with something more privacy-respecting), I'd probably consider this option.

And that argument is what's wrong with surveillance in the US. There is a very drastic difference between someone remembering things they've seen and heard and a database full of points marking exactly when and where I have been in the last year.

Your argument of avoiding a barrier between what's okay and what isn't is good, but I argue the opposite of your first point. It's not that I'm emitting the information for you to take at your will, public or not. It's impossible to do anything at all without interacting with the public.

It's that you can now easily store, retrieve and correlate my information in an unprecedented way. That's bad. So very bad.

I like your point of emitters. I dont want to get slapped with a ticket for looking at an attractive woman in public. Her: "He looked at me", Me: "She's emitting beautiful light!"

Rather than emitting, she'd be reflecting the light in a beautiful way.

That depends on how hot she is.

similar sentence modification for the license plates then. They are not emitters, just reflectors.

With whom are you disputing, though? Who's suggesting the type of law you mentioned? When people express concerns about surveillance tech, we aren't talking about one pedestrian looking at another pedestrian. It's not hard to imagine a world in which a) there are no mass license plate recording devices, and b) it's perfectly legal to look at another person on the street.