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Comment by webaholic | Hacker News Reader

Well, it is hard to sell this to a friend of mine who got mugged in broad day light on a weekend on campus. If it was not for a surveillance camera, the thugs would still be roaming free.

Not only did the surveillance help in nabbing the criminals in a short time, it also helped prevent the same happen to other students as the thieves were caught looking for other scapegoats near by.

What is needed is oversight on this technology. Not outright banning. There is good and bad for any technology, surveillance is no different.

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I'm confused on why you brought up security cameras. It doesn't say anything about them. I see things like

> governments monitor our communications and social media activity

> The fact of the matter is that if you're using the Internet, you can bet the NSA is watching. They keep a record of what you’ve visited and whom you’ve been talking to. The NSA has the ability to build a complete picture of your day-to-day activities.

> if you have called a Pizza Hut, and a known drug dealer has called that Pizza Hut, then the NSA is currently keeping records of your actions -- and the actions of everyone you’ve spoken to.

It also addresses the good - there isn't any, or at least no good reason has been given:

> If it’s to prevent terrorism or keep the public safe, it’s not working. On December 12, 2013, the President’s Review Group found that this data collection was “not essential to preventing attacks”.

If there's a lot of bad (it gives details) and no known good ... I believe their point is, why have it in the first place?

We're not against any form of surveillance ever, we just think that over-broad NSA/GCHQ spying as it currently exists violates the Constitution.

Maybe we'll agree some day that this level of surveillance is a price we're willing to pay, but that needs a rigorous and well-informed public debate.

Our letter ends by calling on the U.S. government to "bring the NSA back within the bounds of the constitution," not to scrap the NSA entirely.

Hope this clarifies. :-)

So why on campus then? "on campus" implies this is a campus specific issue, hence the aforementioned security cameras.

The NSA/GCHQ is a nation-state level issue, effecting populaces on the same scale.

Well, headline aside, we feel the NSA/GCHQ overreach is a problem that particularly affects students, since college is a time for exploration, creativity, and freedom. The private realm is the only place any of these things reside, and we're concerned about the erosion of online anonymity.

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