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from the can-you-buy-SN-masks-from-the-swag? dept.
If you're going to San Diego Comic-Con, you'll want to pull on your Batman mask or slather on the Sith paint if you're passing any of the marked locations on this new map. You could very well be under surveillance as part of the San Diego Police Department's "Operation Secure San Diego."
Operation Secure San Diego--ostensibly intended so first responders could get a view of a crime as it's happening--encourages private businesses to allow the cops to access their surveillance video cameras. It also gives officers sitting in their squad cars the power to tap directly into live feeds. The first to share its streams was Hotel Indigo, a hotel popular with the Comic-Con set in San Diego's Gaslamp district.
Whether you're a resident or tourist, Operation Secure San Diego should make you a little nervous.
(Score: 2) by morgauxo on Thursday July 24 2014, @07:02PM
I'm kind of divided on this. I hate that government surveilance is becoming so widespread but this is private property owners surveiling their own property voluntarily choosing to share the feed with the local government. It isn't a government secretly tapping a wire or placing cameras on public property. Nor is it courts forcing private companies to share their data on people and keeping it quiet with gag orders. If you are surveiled this way it is because you chose to go somewhere where the owner choses to do this.
On the other hand if such things become widespread it will be difficult NOT to chose to go to such places.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday July 24 2014, @07:23PM
> their own property voluntarily choosing to share the feed with the local government.
It is their private property but it is our government. Our government shouldn't be soliciting or even accepting such feeds in the first place. Of course that leads to bullshit where that stuff just ends up in corporate databases where it is sold anyone with a few bucks.
So the question is more of where do we draw the line. For example, if a property owner put a camera in a bathroom that is open to the public they would go to jail. That principle behind that is we have a reasonable expectation of privacy in a bathroom. We need to extend that principle to recognize that we have a reasonable expectation of not being programmatically identified and databased when in publicly-accessible areas.