Complacency

[Gordon Mohr]

Eugene Leitl:
> Talk to the local authorities, about installing such cameras, and giving
> the public access to it. I'm sure you have the $$$s to buy the hardware
> and hire the programmers and the sysadmins to run your very own
> surveillance service.
> 
> After you're done, then we can start discussing about whether it was a
> smart idea, or not.

My suggestion is that the condition of making surveillance available to 
anyone is to make it known and available to all; that is, the burden is 
on those who would surveil.

> > Again, for Eugene the question I asked Jeff: Are you arguing for
> > voluntarily relinquishment of surveillance technology? Laws against
> 
> I'm arguing against installing blanket surveillance infrastructure.

I think that technology is progressing at such a speed, and the
jurisdictions so fractured, that your position is the fanciful 
one.

Can you (would you) try to prevent private property owners from 
installing cameras in their own buildings, stores, and plazas? And 
then pointing them out towards public places?

Will you criminalize the use of cheap, off-the-shelf components by
private citizens and ad-hoc citizens' groups to blanket surveil their
surroundings and neighborhoods? 

You referenced Vinge before; I'm thinking of precisely the kinds
of tiny devices in "Deepness in the Sky" and "The Peace War". It
seems you agree such devices are imminent; it further seems you
would not pass blanket laws against their creation and use.

Thus there seems a very good chance that even without any allocation
of government resources towards surveillance, and without any
"megaproject" to install an "infrastructure", we will still find 
underselves under a de facto universal surveillance regime.

Against that background, your suggestion of a "lobby against 
government installation programs" is simpleminded, a Maginot
line that will waste effort while the real threats goes 
unaddressed.

> > Will those laws protect us from the government, or other sufficiently
> > powerful entities which choose to ignore the laws?
> 
> Well, once we ignore laws, we're talking about either a surrender, or a
> guerilla warfare scenario. We don't have to discuss these yet.

To repeat your question from earlier: Are you that naive on purpose?

Drug laws are ignored. Speed laws are ignored. Financial reporting
laws are ignored. Copyright laws are ignored. Yet none of these 
situations are raw "surrender" or "guerilla warfare". 

They are just the natural grey areas which arise because laws and
behavior are rarely matched, and legislative fiat alone doesn't 
particularly constrain the actions of governments, organizations, and 
individuals. Instead, a complex system of balanced enforcement and 
incentive powers, only vaguely matching the letter of the law, 
prevails.

Your proposed political solution creates another hypocritical grey
area, only constraining the lawful and perhaps, depending on your
exact agenda, only constraining the government. Further, you solution 
gives private entities and rogue agencies added incentive to engage 
in the kind of supersecret, asymmetric surveillance which, to my 
mind, is the most dangerous. Your enforcement requires expensive 
case-by-case investigation and analysis -- "was the adoption of 
surveillance OK in this context?"

In contrast, the policy of "blanket permission with total disclosure
and reciprocal access" is simple and provides marginal incentives
for openness rather than secrecy. Every bit of secrecy, in the
deployment and use of surveillance, is verboten -- and so there is
no way that an initially legitimate "secret" governmental or private 
surveillance system can later be incrementally corrupted. It's either
easy to condemn or easy to approve/audit, there is no room for
monkey business.

> > I've proposed that it is total openness and equality of access.
> > That's the only way to mitigate abuses. If I'm being recorded, let
> > me (and the public at large) record the people who are recording
> > me. Watch the watchmen.
> 
> If you're volunteering, how good are your with machine vision? Data
> warehousing? System security? Fiber to the home? Sysadmining, at least?
> 
> Failing that, how many megabucks are you worth, and how much of that are
> you going to contribute for that infrastructure, assuming the gummit gives
> you access to the raw video, or even face biometrics?

My skills are not the issue. Can we only suggest solutions that
we personally can implement? If so, please list the political lobbies 
that you have led, and the citizen-protection measures they have
successfully enacted, preferably in multiple jurisdictions, so that
I can further assess the plausibility of your "citizen lobbies against
surveillance" plan.

To the extent that specialized skills are necessary to utilize the
data, I am confident they will emerge from the public and private
organizations which find countersurveillance important. Further,
the reciprocality I envision includes continued access to all the
ongoing databases and analysis tools that are maintained by the
surveillors.

> > WHAT IS YOUR OH-SO-SOPHISTICATED PROPOSAL?
> 
> Form a lobby to not install the darn things in the first place. Inform the
> general public (the stupid fools) about the abuse potential.

Have a nice time trying, but I think you will be defeated by both
public opinion and the progress of miniature surveillance technology.

Further, your victories, to the extent that they retard the development
of "open source" surveillance, while "proprietary" surveillance marches
on unabated, will in fact be counterproductive for the causes of 
individual liberty and empowerment.

- Gordon