YouTube Tests Honor Among Thieves

Katherine Mangu-Ward | November 7, 2007

After a pair of thieves took two wristwatches right from under the noses of the employees of Big Sticks Fine Cigars in Mesa, Arizona, the store owner decided to take the usual Wanted poster a little farther. He posted footage from his security cameras on YouTube and offered a reward for anyone who identifies the crooks.

"I wanted to make them famous," [store owner Bob] Guertin said. "There's no honor among thieves, and his best friend today might be the one turning on him for a thousand bucks tomorrow."

More benefits of living in Surveillance Nation: Crowdsourcing your detective work instead of waiting for police to track down a couple of guys who stole a couple of watches.

Do your part to fight crime, check out the video here.

Read more about the upsides (and a few downsides) of zero privacy here and here.

Via Fark.com

Comments

|11.7.07 @ 1:02PM|#

I can hardly wait for a You Tube video of a botched police raid.

|11.7.07 @ 1:09PM|#

I can hardly wait for a You Tube video of a botched police raid.

I can hardly wait for said video to be the first YouTube video pulled by government censorship...

And by "can hardly wait" I mean "fear immeasurably."

Headshot|11.7.07 @ 1:17PM|#

Do you have a problem with CITIZENS using surveillance equipment?

|11.7.07 @ 1:23PM|#

Do you have a problem with CITIZENS using surveillance equipment?

Nope. I'd even go so far as to let them keep diaries.

Kolohe|11.7.07 @ 1:26PM|#

J sub D-
But only if they live in attics?

|11.7.07 @ 1:28PM|#

benefits of living in Surveillance Nation: Crowdsourcing your detective work instead of waiting for police to track down a couple of guys who stole a couple of watches

Just a small quibble -- I don't believe a private business having security cameras is an example of living in a Surveillance Nation.

ed|11.7.07 @ 1:30PM|#

That's really a great idea. Surveillance cameras are somewhat useful as a deterrent, but they earn their keep after-the-fact as a means of maintaining and furthering the concept of justice, i.e. apprehension, conviction and sentencing. They are just another set of eyes that never call in sick, ask for a raise or demand six-months leave for childrearing. Huzzah!

Zach|11.7.07 @ 1:32PM|#

Idiots, didn't they know never to shoplift from small non chain stores? They defend their merchandise like their lives depend on it.

|11.7.07 @ 1:37PM|#

Brilliant. It's so much more cost effective than paying a cop to do nothing. Granted, he's still getting paid, but at least there's a greater chance that the thief will be caught.

|11.7.07 @ 1:38PM|#

Hmmm... kinda looks like thoreau.

|11.7.07 @ 1:40PM|#

A more useful application of the technology will occur when we all have barcodes on our foreheads...then we can just take what we like and have the bill sent to our homes...sort of like red-light cameras.

Brian Sorgatz|11.7.07 @ 1:44PM|#

Most of all, Katherine, thanks for introducing me to the useful term crowdsourcing.

VM|11.7.07 @ 1:47PM|#

gaijin -

like the bar code tatoo Henry Rollins has (back of the neck)?

Fred|11.7.07 @ 2:03PM|#

I thought yesterday we were griping about how home owner's associations were using radar guns on residents? Which way is it -- is private surveillance good or not?

I have to admit I am stunned most of the time by the libertarian thinking (as espoused by KMW) that thinks the mob (a.k.a. "the market") can solve all of society's problems and that, as a result, there are only "a few downsides" to living in a zero-privacy world. I thought liberty was ALL ABOUT privacy -- i.e., the right to be left the hell alone.

However, in this case -- good for this guy. When you rob a store, you surrender a good chunk of your rights.

R C Dean|11.7.07 @ 2:14PM|#

I thought yesterday we were griping about how home owner's associations were using radar guns on residents? Which way is it -- is private surveillance good or not?

Surveillance by private individuals to protect private property against theft - good.

Surveillance by the state to raise revenue and cow the populace, with few if any public safety benefits - bad.

Surveillance by homeowners associations of people who voluntarily come onto their turf - somewhere in the middle.

Was that so hard?

|11.7.07 @ 2:36PM|#

I can hardly wait for a You Tube video of a botched police raid.

You assume here that police are just like regular people. Silly, silly Aresen- only "civilians" need fear their misdeeds being posted on YouTube for the world to see. Police officers, being enforcers for the state, are not subject to oversight by the public.

...I actually threw up in my mouth a little, typing that.

|11.7.07 @ 2:38PM|#

I thought yesterday we were griping about how home owner's associations were using radar guns on residents?

I missed the part where neighborhoods became private businesses.

|11.7.07 @ 2:40PM|#

VM

like the bar code tatoo Henry Rollins has (back of the neck)?

Exactly! A much better place than the forehead...especially since I usually have my head up my, um. :)

|11.7.07 @ 2:43PM|#

HEY. Haven't I seen that guy before? It looks like... like... DONDEEEERRROOOOOO

|11.7.07 @ 2:54PM|#

Taktix & Jim Bob

You are probably right, but it's fun to imagine what would have happened if either Cory Maye or Kathryn Johnson had had a surveillance camera and either of those raids had made it on to YouTube...

Ska|11.7.07 @ 2:55PM|#

I missed the part where neighborhoods became private businesses.


Actually, in a Homeowners Association organized as a co-op, the individuals own stock in a corporation. The corporation being My Lovely Neighborhood Inc. The HOA has by-laws, a board of directors, audited financial statements, books, records and the like. The HOA imposes fines on its shareholders who violate said bylaws. So I can see how that works, actually, as you have to agree to all the laws before moving into the community and taking ownership in it.

At the same time, I would flip the fuck out if I lived in one where they wanted to put up cameras and give me tickets. It would definitely stop me from moving there.

|11.7.07 @ 3:39PM|#

I'm just curious about a cigar shop that also sells watches.

|11.7.07 @ 4:07PM|#

Ska,

That's why I will never join an HOA. When I buy a house it's going to be on a big plot of land, and my nearest neighbor will need binoculars to see my house. Any skulking busybody who ever tries to tell me I need to mow my lawn is getting a size 12 Timberland up his ass.

Ska|11.7.07 @ 4:18PM|#

I hear ya, I was just trying to be informative, not a spokesman.

I used to audit 25 - 30 co-ops and condos a year in NYC and Long Island. I've read some insane complaints that the BoD would have to address because of what one neighbor would say about another. Some people have no idea what they're truly agreeing to when they buy in to one of these communities.

VM|11.7.07 @ 4:51PM|#

destijl - one is hand dipped, the other has Mickey Mouse on it, of course.