Subverting Austrian government spycams
By Ryan Block 
posted December 29th 2005 10:55AM
posted December 29th 2005 10:55AM
Instead of standing around using
the same old channels to affect change or whining about what a violation of civil liberties it is that Austrian police
can install closed-circuit surveillance cameras in public spaces without a court order, activist group Quintessenz took
it to the streets to fight back, both high tech and low. Before moving on to more advanced methods, Quintessenz's early
efforts merely blinded the cameras with lasers and balloons, but they've since upgraded to techniques that scramble
camera signals and even intercept their video feeds and automatically place Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap-style black
stripes over peoples' eyes. Way to subvert, boys and girls -- ain't no fire worth stoking like the Big Brother civil
liberties violations fire.
Hey: AC/DC!
Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap!
Dirty Deeds Done With Sheep!
I can see how this upsets people as far as privacy....but it will all be fun and games until someone get murdered and the only witness is a scrammbled camera....
The laughing man strikes again
Personal freedoms and privacy sometimes have high cost associated with them. While it would be awful for a murder to be caught on a scrambled camera the alternative is an erosion of personal freedoms until were all implanted with an RFID type device and followed by cameras in a "safe" but police state type environment.
There can be no expectation of privacy in public. That's why it's called "in public".
I'm all about protecting personal privacy rights, and I think alot of The new power that the government has been given and consequently the privacy we've lost since 9/11 is unnecessary.... But as long as public security cameras don't become used as rationale for putting cameras in more private places, I have no problem with them. As a part time press photographer I have to be somewhat familiar with the laws regarding photography (or videography) in public areas... and currently the law basically states that anything that can be photographed from a public place, as long as that person doesn't have a reasonable expectation of privacy, is fair game. So already we live with the fact that anytime we're out in public, anyone has the right to photograph or video us as much as we want as long as they don't use the images for profit w/o our consent, so what's wrong with the police or governments setting up surveillance cameras on public areas or streets? It's the same principle. There are already cameras in a large part of retail stores, and while these are private property, It's virtually impossible to go through life and not get filmed shopping. I can live with Wal-Mart filming me every time I go to buy milk and bread, although that's primarily protecting their interests (preventing shoplifting). I'd be more open to cameras in places that protect my interests, eg, cameras watching parking on the street.
Anyhow, this isn't about bugging private phone conversations or reading private emails, This is recording video of people in a place where they shouldn't expect any privacy. Between myself and my friends, I know of about 20 cars that have been broken into in a span of about 3 years.... and 5 of those were in a relatively small town, rural area that I live in, the rest were in Pittsburgh and Erie. Anyhow, That seems like there's way too much of that going on so to me, having more cameras in public parking areas would be a good thing, although I'm sure someone will be able to point out ways in which they could be abused.
Unfortunately, the definition of "in public" has been subverted to mean something completely different than 100 years ago.
You may be thinking of "public use". Yes, that has sadly been devalued recently.