Surveilance

The larger cities in Texas have been going a little bit nuts with the whole toll road concept for a while now.  From the outside of the system, at least in Austin, it looks as if there was a decision made to build new roads only if those new roads could be paid for with a toll road system.  Those toll systems involve setting up an account with some agency of at least pseudo-governmental nature; you pay money into the account, they send you a toll tag, and then when you drive through one of the new automated toll booths their cameras take a picture of the car, scan the picture for the toll tag, read the id, and then charge the amount of the toll to your account.

Simple, right?

Sure -- but the privacy implications are horrifying.

Realize that this system creates a detailed database of where everyone using a toll road goes -- in some cases down to which exit from the toll road is taken.  This information is in the hands of a government agency and can be easily queried.  Worse, it's stored for everyone who uses the roads, and the queries happen over all past data.  So rather than deciding someone is a "person of interest" and putting a full-time team on following them, the government can simply query the database to see who has been where. 

I decided that was enough to prevent me from signing up and getting into the system.  But, of course, it gets worse.  Houston has now decided to take things to the next step:

Harris County Toll Road Authority cameras are now on the lookout for more than just those drivers who blow through EZ Tag lanes without paying. County authorities promise new, upgraded cameras can help catch murderers and other violent criminals.

The cameras have the capability to search their databases and issue alerts to county dispatchers when a wanted criminal crosses their lenses.

Right now, it's just scanning license plates.  It won't be long before someone gets the idea to put facial recognition systems into the database, too -- then link in imagery from red light cameras, surveilance cameras, and so on. 

The problem is not the idea of catching criminals.  The problem is that the data is collected on everyone. 

One of the problems I've had with the warrantless surveillance scandal is that the public is being asked to render some sort of judgement on the program based upon too little information.  The ACLU has filed suit using people who may, or may not, have been evesdropped upon under the program; the Bush administration has maintained that the warrantless evesdropping has never applied to Americans directly, except in that Americans who have (international) conversations with Al Qaeda members under surveillance would also be surveilled -- but not targetted further.  At least, the Bush administration has maintained that if you don't read their statements closely. 

If you do read closely, it becomes clear that the spies are following the usual counterintelligence tactics: identify one agent through his or her contact to a known foreign agent, then identify the other domestic agents that have contact with the first, and so on.  There's no way to ensure that this ever-expanding network includes only members of Al Qaeda or even to ensure that it never contains an American.  And the net gets very broad, very fast -- if you've ever tried to figure out how many "degrees" (or levels of personal contact) you are from a major public figure, you can understand how almost anyone could be within just one or two levels of a terrorist or terrorist supporter. 

The Washington Times magazine, Insight, has an article out contradicting the administration's claim that only foreign conversations have been surveilled:

The sources provided guidelines to how the administration has employed the surveillance program. They said the National Security Agency in cooperation with the FBI was allowed to monitor the telephone calls and e-mails of any American believed to be in contact with a person abroad suspected of being linked to al Qaeda or other terrorist groups.

At that point, the sources said, all of the communications of that American would be monitored, including calls made to others in the United States. The regulations under the administration's surveillance program do not require any court order.

So, as you can see, they are sweeping up contacts even within the United States, even involving Americans.   Tha's what they have to do in order to roll up the networks that Al Qaeda allegedly has within the US.  (And to be fair, I have no doubt that Al Qaeda is trying hard to establish or maintain such networks).  Yet, the law sets forth specific requirements for surveillance of American citizens in matters involving national security and foreign intelligence.  Those requirements specify that a warrant must be obtained and allow for extremely relaxed rules on doing so.  If those rules are too restrictive, the President needs to make his case to Congress and the American people for relaxing them.  He is not above the law.

That we are "at war" with Al Qaeda, inasmuch as a nation can be said to be at war with a loosely-affiliated organization of individual actors who hold no territory of their own, does not mitigate this requirement.  Were this a traditional war, with a traditional opponent, I would be more sympathetic to this argument.  Yet, the odds are that the war against terror will continue for years, even decades.  That means that whatever policies we set now are likely to become the normal state of affairs for following generations.  In fact, this has already begun:

But despite the huge amount of raw material gathered under the legislation, the FBI has not captured one major al Qaeda operative in the United States. Instead, federal authorities have been allowed to use non-terrorist material obtained through the surveillance program for investigation and prosecution.

In more than one case, the sources said, a surveillance target was prosecuted on non-terrorist charges from information obtained through wiretaps conducted without a court order. They said the FBI supported this policy in an attempt to pressure surveillance targets to cooperate.

We should not leave our children a legacy of lost liberty.

From an EFF alert:

The US Department of Justice (DOJ) has told the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that it will not appeal a New York decision that forcefully rejected its request to track a cell phone user without first showing probable cause of a crime.  It also appears that DOJ will not appeal a similar opinion recently issued in Texas.   

Recently, the government lost a case where it had requested the ability to monitor a cell phone, including location data, without a warrant.  Normally, that would be cause for cheering; after all, the decision would stand and be counted as a victory.  Not here, though.  Without guidance from appellate courts, the government can simply choose judges inclined to grant such requests, in secret, and never face significant opposition to the practice: the government doesn't have to tell anyone and the person being monitored isn't told either.

From an Electronic Frontier Foundation alert:

Agreeing with a brief submitted by EFF, a federal
judge forcefully rejected the government's request to track the location of a mobile phone user without a warrant.

It is disturbing to realize that the government not only asked a judge for this, but that the judge's ruling represents a change; judges had previously granted such requests without any probable-cause requirement.

Freedom and security are a zero-sum game.  The more freedom you have, the less security the government can give you, and vice versa.  While, in general, I like the idea of the FBI evesdropping on suspected foreign agents in our territory in order to capture them and disrupt their plots, I think that the restrictions on their ability to do so have been weakened substantially by the Patriot Act -- and not necessarily wisely.  But even with those weakened restrictions, they can't seem to obey the rules (according to papers obtained by the EFF), and that is troubling.

This is why it is a bad idea to allow the FBI to require that networks be designed to facilitate easy evesdropping.  The easier it is for the FBI to evesdrop the harder it is to keep that evesdropping under proper legal control.

... where we value free speech so highly we require airlines to redesign the aircraft communication systems to allow for wiretapping, at their own expense, in order to facilitate FBI evesdropping.  Because, you know, it was terrorists communicating that allowed the first attacks to... no, wait.  It was ordinary people communicating that stopped the last of the 9-11 attacks.  The FBI didn't have a clue.

So tell me again why we need the FBI to be able to evesdrop on in-flight communications, identify the seat number and/or general location of the communicators, and expeditiously cut off communication access to everyone on the plane except government agents?

Remember who stopped that last airplane?

Remember how they found out what was going on?

Let's roll.

Hat tip to PoliTech again.

In America, we like to talk about being free, and we do it a fair bit better than a lot of other places. But we don't do it well enough to stop the government surveillance cameras from going up in Washington DC, Chicago, New York City, Honolulu, Baltimore, Newark, Tampa, Virginia Beach, Memphis, Tacoma, Hollywood, Anchorage, San Diego, Nashville, Dallas, Oakland, and Palm Springs.

The common wisdom concerning liberties and political parties is that the Republicans protect the 2nd Amendment and the Democrats protect the rest. Maybe, once upon a time, that was true. But the modern Democrats are the party of special rights, not equal rights; the party of exceptions, rather than rules. And without a firm rule against government surveillance to fall back on, Democratic politicians and police forces in the large cities have to cope with the contradictory demands of their special interest groups. In short, they need to:

1. Protect everyone from crime
2. Prevent anyone from legally owning a gun
3. Prevent the police from cracking down on Democratic constituencies
4. Attack the police whenever a constituent gets killed, justified or not
5. Encourage citizens to call 911 rather than defend themselves
6. Support lenient prison terms and parole policies

Have you ever known a Democrat to come out and say, "Well, if you want me to implement these policies, I can, but it will mean that crime will rise, and we're just going to have to accept the increased victimization as the social cost of our enlightened government?"

Didn't think so. But that's the bind they are caught in. Their policies don't allow self-protection, discourage police effectiveness, and encourage recidivism. The people who have to actually enforce the law in Democratic jurisdictions (eg, the cities) are left with few options. Increasingly, surveillance cameras monitored by police officers are one of those favored options. And the Democrats show absolutely no recognition that they have opened Pandora's Box by using it, making a deal with the devil that may come back to bite them later.

And it doesn't even work.

A highly advanced system of video surveillance that Chicago officials plan to install by 2006 will make people here some of the most closely observed in the world. Mayor Richard M. Daley says it will also make them much safer.

Last I checked, London has been installed cameras all over the place, and its citizens are now the most surveiled nation in the world. But they are also having serious crime problems, and the cameras don't seem to be helping.

"Cameras are the equivalent of hundreds of sets of eyes," Daley said when he unveiled the new project this month. "They're the next best thing to having police officers stationed at every potential trouble spot."

The difference between a pair of police eyes and a camera is that the camera can't pull his gun and save your ass if he sees something happening. Worse, criminals will learn to spot and avoid cameras, just as they learn to spot and avoid policeman... except it's harder to move the cameras.

Oh, and if you stationed a police officer at every potential trouble spot, you've be living in a police state. I guess Chicaco now qualifies.

Police specialists here can already monitor live footage from about 2,000 surveillance cameras around the city, so the addition of 250 cameras under the mayor's new plan is not a great jump. The way these cameras will be used, however, is an extraordinary technological leap.

Over two thousand cameras. How long before they are calling for one in every home? And what will these cameras be watching for? Serious crimes, like muggings, murders, terrorist incidents? Well, here's the criteria:

Sophisticated new computer programs will immediately alert the police whenever anyone viewed by any of the cameras placed at buildings and other structures considered terrorist targets wanders aimlessly in circles, lingers outside a public building, pulls a car onto the shoulder of a highway, or leaves a package and walks away from it. Images of those people will be highlighted in color at the city's central monitoring station, allowing dispatchers to send police officers to the scene immediately.

Well, hell. I occasionally wander around aimlessly in circles. Does that make me a terrorist? And I linger outside public buildings, too. And wait... I've pulled to the side of the road more than once! Oh my god! Where can I turn myself in?

When the system is in place, Huberman said, video images will be instantly available to dispatchers at the city's 911 emergency center, which receives about 18,000 calls each day. Dispatchers will be able to tilt or zoom the cameras, some of which magnify images up to 400 times, in order to watch suspicious people and follow them from one camera's range to another's.

I wonder how many times that tilt and zoom functionality will be used to watch some nice T&A... and I don't mean "Terrorists and Asphault!" For that matter, I pity the ex-wife whose husband works in the surveillance center.

City officials counter that the cameras will monitor only public spaces. Rather than curb the system's future expansion, they have raised the possibility of placing cameras in commuter and rapid transit cars and on the city's street-sweeping vehicles.

"We're not inside your home or your business," Mayor Daley said. "The city owns the sidewalks. We own the streets and we own the alleys."

That's the best argument I've ever seen for privatizing the roads.

An unprecedented number of video cameras will be trained on Boston during the Democratic National Convention, with Boston police installing some 30 cameras near the FleetCenter, the Coast Guard using infrared devices and night-vision cameras in the harbor, and dozens of pieces of surveillance equipment mounted on downtown buildings to monitor crowds for terrorists, unruly demonstrators, and ordinary street crime.

This is how the surveillance state will be built, folks. All they need is one "special event" per large city, and they will end up with a full surveillance network within a few years. You won't even see the "Department of Big Brother" created by Congress... you'll just see the cameras showing up in one city after another.

From the Inner Harbor to the Bay Bridge, local and state homeland security authorities are beginning to build a regional network of 24-hour surveillance cameras that will first go live this summer in Baltimore.

The closed-circuit video surveillance system of public spaces will begin in the Inner Harbor by summer's end, and a $2 million federal grant accepted by the city yesterday will expand the cameras into downtown's west side by early November.

"We're trying to build a regional network of cameras," said Dennis R. Schrader, director of homeland security for Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr.

What of privacy concerns raised by groups opposed to cameras constantly monitored by retired police officers or college students?

"We're at war," Schrader said.

Hat tip to No Quarters. You've gotta love this one; they are going to have a "regional network of cameras" and they handwave privacy concerns? I wonder how expensive this camera network will be -- and how many terrorists it will catch. Betcha it doesn't catch any. Takers?

The state plans to test a system on the Ohio Turnpike that uses optical scanners to catch criminals and look for stolen cars.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol will use two scanners on turnpike gates and two scanners in patrol cars for four months. The system recognizes license plates registered with a national crime database that tracks stolen cars and serious crimes.

The patrol will report to lawmakers by year's end and won't implement the system or expand it without approval by the Controlling Board or the Legislature, said patrol spokesman Capt. John Born. Born said the devices don't take pictures or make videotapes and don't create any databases of individuals.

Oh, they don't create any databases, do they? Sure; it's just the people who receive the reports that create the databases. This is, to put it bluntly, the infrastructure of a surveillance state. They may claim that there will be no database -- but there is clearly the capability to create one, should they choose. They may claim that only "stolen cars and serious crimes" will be included in the database -- but these days, engaging in a peaceful protest against your own government may be considered a serious crime.

Hat tip to Politech.

Yet a recent report in The Washington Times reveals that the number one money-making camera in the district is placed such that it does virtually nothing to make for a safer roadway, being placed as it is on "A six-lane highway bordered by two service roads with no homes, schools, churches or hospitals nearby." The speed limit on the road leading out of the District quickly picks up from 40 to 45 to 55 mph across the border with Maryland.

Indeed, as another report pointed out, three of the top 10 most-dangerous intersections in the city are not even covered by the government's 39 red-light cameras, indicating a preference for dollars, not safety, by the District muckety-mucks.

In fact, placing traffic cameras on pedestrian-free highways like New York Ave. and Anacostia Parkway may increase danger on the roads by mixing drivers going at 'highway speed' and other drivers slowing preciptiously to below the too-low speed limit, anxious that a camera will snap them. This is a recipe for disaster that compromises both safety and privacy.

Remember, whenever the government wants more power or more money, they cite safety. For "safety" reasons they want to put up red light cameras to protect non-existant pedestrians. How hard would it be to put a "red light camera" at all significant intersections, and then run the images through facial recognition software? If you think the government isn't planning ahead for this sort of thing... think again.

One of the nation's wealthiest towns will soon have cameras and computers running background checks on every car and driver that passes through. Police Chief Clay Walker said cameras will take infrared photos recording a car's tag number, then software will automatically run the numbers through law enforcement databases. A 911 dispatcher is alerted if the car is stolen or is the subject of a "be on the lookout" warning.

Next to the tag number, police will have a picture of the driver, taken with another set of cameras ? upgraded versions of the standard surveillance cameras already in place.

If there is a robbery, police will be able to comb records to determine who drove through town on a given afternoon or evening.

This is the classic surveilance-state, Big Brother scenario. It's not a joke. They really do have cameras that will automatically read your license plate and notify someone if you are in some kind of database.

A far-reaching proposal from the FBI, made public Friday, would require all broadband Internet providers, including cable modem and DSL companies, to rewire their networks to support easy wiretapping by police.

The FBI's request to the Federal Communications Commission aims to give police ready access to any form of Internet-based communications. If approved as drafted, the proposal could dramatically expand the scope of the agency's wiretap powers, raise costs for cable broadband companies and complicate Internet product development.

Legal experts said the 85-page filing includes language that could be interpreted as forcing companies to build back doors into everything from instant messaging and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) programs to Microsoft's Xbox Live game service. The introduction of new services that did not support a back door for police would be outlawed, and companies would be given 15 months to make sure that existing services comply.

Surveillance cameras no longer are relegated to banks and convenience stores. They are in bars and supermarkets, over highways and in buses. They seem to be everywhere: recording images blurry and crisp, often with the date and time clearly displayed.

The average American is captured on video about a dozen times a day, police estimate. And that has caused video surveillance cameras to become an increasingly important law enforcement tool in Delaware and across the country. From crimes committed in a crowded bank to those pulled off on a desolate street corner, police now routinely look into whether there was a camera near the crime scene.