Boing Boing: Police camera spying on the rise in California

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Monday, August 20, 2007

Police camera spying on the rise in California

Snip from Wired News Threat Level blog's analysis of a new report out by the ACLU, on the subject of police camera surveillance:

Backed by millions in Homeland Security dollars, California law enforcement authorities are quickly expanding video surveillance camera spying in public rights of way, a move the American Civil Liberties Union says is stripping away privacy rights while failing to dent the intended purpose: crime.
The ACLU report says at least 37 agencies and cities, big and small, from Los Angeles to Clovis, have some form of a video surveillance program or are planning one directed at combating crime. And as more cities look to install their own monitoring devices, there's little empirical evidence that the cameras are deterring crime or helping solve cases.
Instead, the surveillance "gives the government a vast quantity of information on private citizens that would otherwise be unavailable, allowing it to monitor people engaging in wholly innocent and constitutionally protected behavior," according to the report, released Monday.

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posted by Xeni Jardin at 04:01:19 PM permalink | Other blogs' comments

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