I have come to understand that in life we must weigh the good against the
bad in everything. If this monitoring can rid us of pedafiles, rapists,
murders, thiefs, and other undesireables in our society, then I say go for
it. I for one have nothing to fear from the police. They can interview me
anytime they like or anywhere for that matter. They have my respect and
will continue to have it.
I wouldn't have a job where you have a target painted on your chest by
anyone with an extremist view. We have known this was coming or didn't you
read 'Brave New World' or '1984'
BTW this thread belongs on another site, not here in discussions of Linux.
Michael C. Rock
> -----Original Message-----
> From: slug@lists.nks.net [mailto:slug@lists.nks.net]On Behalf Of Paul
> Legato
> Sent: Wednesday, July 18, 2001 3:21 AM
> To: slug@nks.net
> Subject: [SLUG] Public hearing THURSDAY at 11:30AM on face scanning
> software in Ybor City
>
>
>
>
>
> As you've probably heard surveillance cameras are in place along Seventh
> Avenue in Ybor City that use computer face recognition software to check
> EVERYONE who passes' face against a database of known and
> suspected criminals.
>
> The Tampa City Council is having a public hearing on the face scanning
> software at 11:30AM this Thursday, the 19th, at City Hall in
> downtown Tampa.
> Anyone who wants to can speak for 3 minutes on the subject.
> PLEASE come out
> if you can and show your support for getting RID of this fascist
> monitoring
> system!
>
>
> This is messed up for several reasons:
> - It destroys the public's reasonable expectation of being able to move
> around in public without being searched and accosted by police.
> Suppose you
> look like someone who robbed a bank a few years ago. The cops
> stop you and
> search you on 7th Avenue because you matched on the face scanner.
> You aren't
> the person they want, but they find a bag of weed in your pocket
> and arrest
> you for posession. Or you're drunk and start arguing with them.
> They haul you
> in for resisting arrest and public drunkenness. Without the face scanner,
> none of this would have happened.
>
> If the court rules that a face match is probable cause to conduct a
> search. What next? What if a cop thinks you look like that suspect he saw
> last week? Can he search you then, too? These cameras will be the
> first step
> in the erosion of our Fourth Amendment protection from random
> searches and
> the transformation of America into a police state.
>
> - Every other city in the country is looking at Tampa to see how
> this goes
> over. If we set a precedent of allowing this to pass in our city,
> soon EVERY
> streetcorner in the COUNTRY will have a camera hooked up to
> unreliable face
> matching software.
>
> - The framework will then be in place for total 1984-style
> tracking of the
> whole population. They'll be able to tell when you go out, where
> you go, who
> you associate with.. what next? If they arrest some guy for
> selling drugs and
> you've been seen in his vicinity several times that week, can
> they use that
> to get a warrant and search your home for drugs? Anyone the government
> decides to target will be subject to all kinds of fines and penalties for
> trivial crap like jaywalking, dropping a gum wrapper, etc. In short, the
> government will gain the ability to make anyone they want to's
> life a living
> hell by pulling out a backlog of minor offenses and prosecuting for them.
>
>
> This is just the tip of the iceberg. If we let this go, it'll
> open the door
> to a whole new era of technological monitoring of the populace.
> (What if your
> car was required by law to have a device which issues you a ticket if you
> speed?) It will become 1984. If we slam the door on this now and
> make clear
> laws saying we don't want this, it can be caught and stopped now
> before it's
> everywhere. If we don't, it will become precedent, accepted, and
> commonplace.
> We decide the future NOW.
>
> PLEASE come out if you can, or at least visit
http://www.tampagov.net/ and
e-mail City Council to let them know what you think. The whole world is
watching us. This public face-scanning system is the first of its kind in
use
anywhere in the entire planet. WE decide the what the future of the world
will be like by what we do now.
Thanks. Please forward this to anyone you know who cares about privacy and
uncontrolled government power.
-Paul
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