We have a few problems but they aren’t the ones you’ve head about in the news.
Tell that to the girls from Rotherham. Or does that not count as “in the news” since your news media refused to report on it while is was happening? Not to mention the people attempting to blow the whistle on this back in 2001, were promptly prosecuted for hate speech.
the massive online data mining [by the US],
(..)
The ever present cameras have not been abused and are generally only used when a crime happens to have been committed in front of them (assault, burglary ect).
I was not trying to say that the idea I had of the US was an accurate one, nor that the UK was some sort of paradise where nothing wrong happens. I was pointing out the general distortion one can expect by relying on news media for an idea of a country. Rotherham for example is a highly charged emotional subject. Trying to get an accurate idea of the actual situation just from exceptions like that is a bit pointless. It works about as well as using the situation in Detroit to judge a whole country
One is a recording in a public place where there is no expectation of privacy, the other is the cataloguing of everyone’s entire backlog of conversations on the internet, including private ones and in some cases encrypted ones. Aside from both fitting the emotional impression of overreaching security state I don’t see that the two are particularly comparable. The potential for abuse is certainly different. Unless there is some abuse case of the cameras that i’m not aware of?
Edit: The US data mining is a lot more comparable to the UK data mining. I believe they are similar. It may just be a failure of my creativity, but I can’t actually think of a situation where cctv footage could be abused to convict an innocent man. Conversely, abuse cases abound for largescale data mining.
I can’t actually think of a situation where cctv footage could be abused to convict an innocent man.
A couple of ideas come to mind immediately:
-- Just like reading all your email is likely to turn up something that sounds bad, tracking all your movements is likely, just by chance, to turn up something that looks suspicious; you may have been seen near a known drug dealers’ den, or bordello, or you often visit a person who has been convicted of a crime, or you have been seen near children’s playgrounds too much.
-- Use of the CCTV footage to catch you in a lie—bearing in mind that everyday human life involves telling necessary lies every so often. This can make you look really bad—oh, no, he lied to his wife about where he was, maybe he had an affair. He lied in his political speech—who knows what he was doing in back alleys back then?
-- Using the CCTV to capture images of something that would be embarrassing in public. Of course, you would have to make a mistake to show something private in public, but CCTV has the effect of greatly expanding the effect of such mistakes. Imagine someone caught on camera in bondage gear, or kissing a member of the same sex (or just cheating on their spouse). Or wearing a symbol of a sports team that is accused of being racist.
-- Taking a CCTV image out of context
Of course, you’re being too narrow by asking for a conviction; these can be used to damage someone without convicting him of anything. Driving a politician out of office or blackmailing someone is not convicting him, after all.
I was not trying to say that the idea I had of the US was an accurate one, nor that the UK was some sort of paradise where nothing wrong happens. I was pointing out the general distortion one can expect by relying on news media for an idea of a country. Rotherham for example is a highly charged emotional subject. Trying to get an accurate idea of the actual situation just from exceptions like that is a bit pointless. It works about as well as using the situation in Detroit to judge a whole country
You seem to be arguing that the UK is much better than the US in this regard. In fact similar forces are involved in creating both Detroit and Rotherham. On the other hand, the US wasn’t covering up Detroit’s crime statistics and prosecuting people who tried to blow the whistle.
The potential for abuse is certainly different. Unless there is some abuse case of the cameras that i’m not aware of?
How so. I can’t think of an abuse case for email reading that doesn’t also apply to the CCTV cameras.
Well I’m not arguing that. The UK doesn’t seem to be structurally much better than the US, I’m no even sure how I’d go about measuring that. Although it is a bit naive to say that the US (or rather the Detroit police force) isn’t covering up some of Detroit’s crime statistics. So far as I’m aware almost any metric used to allocate reward and punishment will eventually be gamed.
Jiro has some nice CCTV camera abuse cases. Online information gathering takes all those abuse cases quite a bit further. Instead of possibly one lie or falsehood or case of wrong/politically damaging information you can probably choose from dozens if you have access to a politician’s online data. Same abuse cases, more ammunition against an average person.
Tell that to the girls from Rotherham. Or does that not count as “in the news” since your news media refused to report on it while is was happening? Not to mention the people attempting to blow the whistle on this back in 2001, were promptly prosecuted for hate speech.
Do you see the problem with this juxtaposition?
I was not trying to say that the idea I had of the US was an accurate one, nor that the UK was some sort of paradise where nothing wrong happens. I was pointing out the general distortion one can expect by relying on news media for an idea of a country. Rotherham for example is a highly charged emotional subject. Trying to get an accurate idea of the actual situation just from exceptions like that is a bit pointless. It works about as well as using the situation in Detroit to judge a whole country
One is a recording in a public place where there is no expectation of privacy, the other is the cataloguing of everyone’s entire backlog of conversations on the internet, including private ones and in some cases encrypted ones. Aside from both fitting the emotional impression of overreaching security state I don’t see that the two are particularly comparable. The potential for abuse is certainly different. Unless there is some abuse case of the cameras that i’m not aware of?
Edit: The US data mining is a lot more comparable to the UK data mining. I believe they are similar. It may just be a failure of my creativity, but I can’t actually think of a situation where cctv footage could be abused to convict an innocent man. Conversely, abuse cases abound for largescale data mining.
A couple of ideas come to mind immediately:
-- Just like reading all your email is likely to turn up something that sounds bad, tracking all your movements is likely, just by chance, to turn up something that looks suspicious; you may have been seen near a known drug dealers’ den, or bordello, or you often visit a person who has been convicted of a crime, or you have been seen near children’s playgrounds too much.
-- Use of the CCTV footage to catch you in a lie—bearing in mind that everyday human life involves telling necessary lies every so often. This can make you look really bad—oh, no, he lied to his wife about where he was, maybe he had an affair. He lied in his political speech—who knows what he was doing in back alleys back then?
-- Using the CCTV to capture images of something that would be embarrassing in public. Of course, you would have to make a mistake to show something private in public, but CCTV has the effect of greatly expanding the effect of such mistakes. Imagine someone caught on camera in bondage gear, or kissing a member of the same sex (or just cheating on their spouse). Or wearing a symbol of a sports team that is accused of being racist.
-- Taking a CCTV image out of context
Of course, you’re being too narrow by asking for a conviction; these can be used to damage someone without convicting him of anything. Driving a politician out of office or blackmailing someone is not convicting him, after all.
Ah, I see it was a failure of my creativity, cheers.
You seem to be arguing that the UK is much better than the US in this regard. In fact similar forces are involved in creating both Detroit and Rotherham. On the other hand, the US wasn’t covering up Detroit’s crime statistics and prosecuting people who tried to blow the whistle.
How so. I can’t think of an abuse case for email reading that doesn’t also apply to the CCTV cameras.
Well I’m not arguing that. The UK doesn’t seem to be structurally much better than the US, I’m no even sure how I’d go about measuring that. Although it is a bit naive to say that the US (or rather the Detroit police force) isn’t covering up some of Detroit’s crime statistics. So far as I’m aware almost any metric used to allocate reward and punishment will eventually be gamed.
Jiro has some nice CCTV camera abuse cases. Online information gathering takes all those abuse cases quite a bit further. Instead of possibly one lie or falsehood or case of wrong/politically damaging information you can probably choose from dozens if you have access to a politician’s online data. Same abuse cases, more ammunition against an average person.