New at Reason

January 9, 2007

Katherine Mangu-Ward says that privacy is dead .  So smile and wave to the camera.

Comments

|1.9.07 @ 2:15PM|#

The link in the story that ostensibly leads to a map of known cameras in NY actually takes you to Declan McCullagh's story.

|1.9.07 @ 4:18PM|#

Excellent story with two signficant flaws. (1) Not everybody pays with a credit card everywhere they go, nor do they have a cell phone at all times. This is the minor flaw. The big flaw is the assumption that the police, controlling their own cameras, will do much to corral police misbehavior. Mustaches protect other mustaches, and one or two exceptions do not invalidate the rule.

Larry A|1.9.07 @ 5:33PM|#

Everybody is in favor of privacy until someone pays them with a check, they need to let a repair person in their home, or worst of all some pimply-faced male shows up and wants a date with their daughter.

Background check, baby.

"Expectation of privacy?" I remember growing up when everyone in the neighborhood could recite your life history, and end the story with, "But what do you expect? His grandfather was the same way."

|1.9.07 @ 8:13PM|#

I think this article reminds me most of the common anti-libertarian arguments that I hear by failing to distinguish between voluntary and involuntary invasions of privacy. When I pay for something with a credit card, I know it is traceable and am deciding not to care; when there's a camera on every street corner, I can no longer make such a choice. No one forces you to pay with a credit card, use an easy pass, use a cell phone as a gps, or enter a private business with surveillance cameras (or where people are smoking). When there's a camera on every street corner, it's hard to make the same argument. Just as it is valid to ban smoking in a courthouse but not in a resteraunt, it is valid to have surveillance cameras in private businesses but not on public streets.

|1.9.07 @ 9:57PM|#

"they're worried about what will happen when New Yorkers no longer have an expectation of some degree of privacy in the public sphere."

Want to know why it's called being "in public", instead of "in private"?

Because there never was any expectation of privacy to begin with. The most you could hope for was anonymity.

Even now, with around 8 million people in NYC, the odds are vanishingly small that anyone will give a damn about you specifically.

Guy Montag|1.10.07 @ 7:56AM|#

Great article and I did not know that Declan was a contributor in the past. Have met him several times in the hacker community and he is pretty cool.

Did not follow the link, but I was under the impression that current law prohibits the use of the image of a private person, without their permission, for profit with 'news' being an exception? Have heard radio lawyers talk about that and when I have been around documentry crews they asked for signed permission to film me and others.

The Leftists seem to find fault with everything in the universe that somebody is making a living off of, with the exception of their petty little operations. The complaints of public cameras don't go back to an invasion of privacy, they are masking their objection to a security firm being contracted to do it and disguising it as a privacy issue.

Now, that said, you can find plenty of information by the Leftoids on how to get around almost all of these measures. In NYC there was a thriving practice of exchanging metro cards for the express purpose of preventing the tinfoil-hatters from being 'tracked'.

Masking the location of your cell phone is pretty simple. Was easier when the external antennas were actually functional, buy taking the reflector from a flash light and using that to direct the signal at a particular tower to throw off any triangulation attempts. With modern phones a foil cone around the phone should work, i.e., tinfoil-hat for your phone :) Should throw off GPS too as that works on quadrangulation.

Use cash and if you use an ATM use the one closest to your home every time you get cash. A bright light shined in the ATM camera was supposed to have obscured the user's image, not sure if that was or is true.

EZ-Pass, another tinfoil hat for that unless you are actually paying a toll, because the ID can be read with easy to get equipment.

Oh, much of the above is handy if you are about to get divorced (aka, the conclusion of the marriage scam) because almost anything you do can be twisted into your doing something wrong. If they can't find you then they can't get you.

Larry A|1.10.07 @ 10:15AM|#

Oh, much of the above is handy if you are about to get divorced (aka, the conclusion of the marriage scam) because almost anything you do can be twisted into your doing something wrong. If they can't find you then they can't get you.

Ha! "Sir, if you have nothing to hide why did you take all these extreme measures to deceive us as to your location?"

Guy Montag|1.10.07 @ 10:20AM|#

Ha! "Sir, if you have nothing to hide why did you take all these extreme measures to deceive us as to your location?"

I really do not know what you are talking about. Walking is great exercise and all of the currency is so pretty.

David|1.10.07 @ 10:29AM|#

It's not how much data is collected but how it is preserved and accessed. We don't worry about credit card statements private security cameras and ez pass records because currently the individuals collecting information are diverse. The likelihood that a personnel enemy will be able to piece together all the bits of information required to unmask some secret is small.

This will change! As archiving of data becomes trivial and the databases become more accessible and search able the path between enemy and incriminating data will become shorter. Eventually the vast array of private cameras will be as search able as the web. When that happens our expectations of privacy will change. Not because our privacy rights will have changed in any way, but because what was once prohibitively difficult will have become trivial.