Philosophy Now Forum

Where I live at, it'll be coming up for a vote to register your camera/camcorder with the police.
This means giving all sorts of information about the setup. E.g. the owner's name, how many cameras are involved, where are the cameras pointed at, specifically what areas are covered (e.g. which portion of the porch and how many feet are involved), etc. Outside of intruding upon your privacy, you can be fined for not being forthcoming with all the information. The purpose?: to help the police.

Sounds unconstitutional to me.

PhilX

But you live in the 'land of the free'.

vegetariantaxidermy wrote:But you live in the 'land of the free'.

And where do you live, laughing girl?

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Where I live at, it'll be coming up for a vote to register your camera/camcorder with the police.
This means giving all sorts of information about the setup. E.g. the owner's name, how many cameras are involved, where are the cameras pointed at, specifically what areas are covered (e.g. which portion of the porch and how many feet are involved), etc. Outside of intruding upon your privacy, you can be fined for not being forthcoming with all the information. The purpose?: to help the police.

Sounds unconstitutional to me.

PhilX

I presume you mean any CCTV or surveillance cameras that give views onto public land???

The way you start the post makes it sound like any camcorder.

It sounds like it might be a good idea.

If you live in USA, you live in the land of Locke, what do you surprise you?

Galdosiano wrote:If you live in USA, you live in the land of Locke, what do you surprise you?

If you mean John Locke, didn't he live in England?

PhilX

where is this?

i googled ths and there are a few places where the police is trying to convince people to volutarily register their surveilance cameras - but nothing of the sort desribed

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Galdosiano wrote:If you live in USA, you live in the land of Locke, what do you surprise you?

If you mean John Locke, didn't he live in England?

PhilX

It's irony, but Locke is the grand philosopher for the founders of USA, he is inspirator of the Constitution, law positivism and moral normativism (discussion Hart-Dworkin).

Philosophy Explorer wrote:Where I live at, it'll be coming up for a vote to register your camera/camcorder with the police.
This means giving all sorts of information about the setup. E.g. the owner's name, how many cameras are involved, where are the cameras pointed at, specifically what areas are covered (e.g. which portion of the porch and how many feet are involved), etc. Outside of intruding upon your privacy, you can be fined for not being forthcoming with all the information. The purpose?: to help the police.

Sounds unconstitutional to me.

PhilX

Definitely is going overboard, and I see that they got it all justified - that it "deters crime". I wonder what kind of crime it could ever possibly be...

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Galdosiano wrote:If you live in USA, you live in the land of Locke, what do you surprise you?

If you mean John Locke, didn't he live in England?

PhilX

He wrote the Bill of RIghts 1698, which inspired the "land of the free".

Philosophy Explorer wrote:

Galdosiano wrote:If you live in USA, you live in the land of Locke, what do you surprise you?

If you mean John Locke, didn't he live in England?

PhilX

Will you clarify. Is it only CCTV cameras that view public land?

This is a proposed law for the state of NJ.

It sounds like invasion of privacy. The camera is doing what a private individual is doing from his house who may be looking out onto a street or the park or wherever, but looking out into a public area.

It shows you how security concerned we have become (cctv is just part of this proposed law).

PhilX

Philosophy Explorer wrote:This is a proposed law for the state of NJ.

It sounds like invasion of privacy. The camera is doing what a private individual is doing from his house who may be looking out onto a street or the park or wherever, but looking out into a public area.

It shows you how security concerned we have become (cctv is just part of this proposed law).

PhilX

I don't see the problem really, unless you think it is a precursor to spying INSIDE the house.

I imagine that registering the device would mean that the police could ask you for the tape, or if necessary get an order from the court to get the evidence.
Your refusal would ipso facto be concealing evidence of a crime. If you don't want to gather crime evidence then don't have a camera.
The information would not be anything more than you can see in plain view.
There is nothing implied that the owner of the camera has an obligation to store data; nor that the police have ANY right to enforce you to keep it for when it might be needed.

In what way is it an invasion of privacy??
Surely having a camera on the street 24/7 is the invasion of the privacy of every person that walks along. And I would bet that some cameras are focussed on the bathroom window of the blood across the street!

If it's any kind of mandatory thing, it's BS. If left voluntary, that's OK. I really don't like anyone telling me how to deal with my things, unless they, "in fact" somehow "do" harm to another of innocence, instead of harming those that are in fact doing harm to me, or anyone else of innocence.

Two things LM,

By privacy, I mean the inside of the home that has the camera. And I don't regard a public street as being private so whatever goes on outside is fair game for recording by camera. And if a crime is taking place outside, I hope whoever is running the camera will help the police readily.

PhilX