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There are good and bad aspects to that...
Posted on: January 29, 2021 at 11:37:06 CT
JeffB MU
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About 25 years or so ago I was working late & got a call asking me to take a survey for some government agency. I agreed. It was obviously an attempt to see upon what basis they could sell widespread video surveillance of the citizenry to the voters.
The questions were asked from a variety of different angles and then repeated with slight variations. Things like, on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being vehemently opposed and 5 being very accepting would you accept video cameras in/on (highways / roadways, shopping malls, parks, train stations / bus stations / airports, sidewalks, ball parks... etc.).
Then they would give various scenarios... to reroute traffic due to accidents or traffic jams, to prevent crimes, to catch criminals and so on.
I was a little shocked that they were considering this at the time. I still have those same concerns, perhaps even more so now with our country's lurch towards totalitarianism.
On the other hand, my wife was driving down a road and a car pulled out of an apartment complex making a left turn and clipped my wife's rear bumper... and kept on going.
My wife continued on down the street & pulled into a police station ~ 1/2 mile away. The person at the counter said they could check the traffic cameras for her and would get in touch with her if they could find anything.
They called her about a half hour later and said that they were able to identify the vehicle and had contacted the owner. She had an out of state drivers license and claimed she didn't realize she had hit my wife. They wanted to know if we wanted to prosecute for hit and run.
Her claim of not realizing she had hit our van was not very credible. I think there was a little over $1,800 or $2,800 to our vehicle and my wife said the impact was pretty obvious to her.
My wife called the girl who was very apologetic, of course, and claimed she had just broken up with her fiance and she was very distraught when she left etc. At least she did have insurance, which paid for our damages.
In this particular case the cameras were a blessing for us and undoubtedly a deterrent to future hit and runs at least for this young woman and anyone she or we shared the story with.
I still think they have great risk of egregious abuse of human rights in the hands of despots or corrupt governments/bureaucracies, however.
The questions were asked from a variety of different angles and then repeated with slight variations. Things like, on a scale of 1 to 5 with 1 being vehemently opposed and 5 being very accepting would you accept video cameras in/on (highways / roadways, shopping malls, parks, train stations / bus stations / airports, sidewalks, ball parks... etc.).
Then they would give various scenarios... to reroute traffic due to accidents or traffic jams, to prevent crimes, to catch criminals and so on.
I was a little shocked that they were considering this at the time. I still have those same concerns, perhaps even more so now with our country's lurch towards totalitarianism.
On the other hand, my wife was driving down a road and a car pulled out of an apartment complex making a left turn and clipped my wife's rear bumper... and kept on going.
My wife continued on down the street & pulled into a police station ~ 1/2 mile away. The person at the counter said they could check the traffic cameras for her and would get in touch with her if they could find anything.
They called her about a half hour later and said that they were able to identify the vehicle and had contacted the owner. She had an out of state drivers license and claimed she didn't realize she had hit my wife. They wanted to know if we wanted to prosecute for hit and run.
Her claim of not realizing she had hit our van was not very credible. I think there was a little over $1,800 or $2,800 to our vehicle and my wife said the impact was pretty obvious to her.
My wife called the girl who was very apologetic, of course, and claimed she had just broken up with her fiance and she was very distraught when she left etc. At least she did have insurance, which paid for our damages.
In this particular case the cameras were a blessing for us and undoubtedly a deterrent to future hit and runs at least for this young woman and anyone she or we shared the story with.
I still think they have great risk of egregious abuse of human rights in the hands of despots or corrupt governments/bureaucracies, however.
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There are good and bad aspects to that... - JeffB MU - 1/29 11:37:06