[Cryptography] "Most Americans Don't Mind Being on Candid Camera"

[Ray Dillinger]

On 03/23/2015 01:13 PM, Tom Mitchell wrote:

> My current bias is for more cameras in the hands of the public to balance
> the abuses
> by those in power.    We see this in eastern europe where cameras in
> vehicles are
> a personal defense against accidents caused by criminals to extract
> insurance
> and other criminal actions.

This.  Privacy as we knew it is a memory.  Information is too easy
to record, transmit, organize, and search for there to ever be real
privacy again.  But there can be real fairness in sharing it, and
at this point I think that's the only possible thing that could
preserve democracy.

Information which is available to those in power needs to be
available to everyone, in exactly the same way that democracy
demands that every kind of power be shared with the people whom
it is power over.  If the police can record you, then you can
record them.  If they can demand copies of your video, you can
demand copies of theirs.  And if they get to go through your
email looking for incriminating crap, you get to go through
theirs.

Cameras that record the public should have URLs printed on them
that allow any member of the public to download their video
stream.  If the government (who at least in theory serve the
public) can use it, and public taxes pay for it, then that
information is a goddamn public resource.  So, if a crime is
committed against you in view of a camera, you get to download
the footage yourself, whether immediately or the following day.
Even if the crime is committed by the police themselves.

And if a recording of you in that video stream would result in
your arrest and be used in court against you should you do
something, then a recording of the mayor or the police chief or
your senator doing that same thing in that video stream should
have exactly the same result with respect to them. And every
last member of the public needs to have the same ability that
they have to search for such recordings and bring them to
court.

Otherwise democracy dies right alongside privacy.

Bear







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