NYPD Turns the Camera On

Since we are setting a precendent that anything performed by the government is okay because it's harmless and "they know best," in 20 years or so it'll be completely legal for a leader to arbirarily say something nutty such as "round up and arrest all people who wear red shirts." Sound crazy? The only thing nowadays stopping crazy things like that is our trust, not laws. THAT's crazy.

I would suggest that some of you should go to law school but we don't need any more lawyers. Perhaps instead you could simply pick up a book and learn about privacy laws and the concept of "expectation of privacy". You have the right to privacy in your own home. You do not have the right to privacy when walking down a public street.

what a bunch of bullshit. Ooo, i feel so safe now. This is just further proof of the degradation of our privacy in this country.

I live right by Knickerbocker, and can attest to the fact that the cameras are very conspicuous. And yesterday they caught me red-handed in the middle of my suspicious laundry dealings.

We going down this path to non-privacy, but I think that if public money is going into these cameras then we should all be able to go to the NYPD website and look through the cameras when we want.

stopyourwhining: instead of being rude, you might want to consider reading katz a little more closer, then perhaps read nader v. ge, then perhaps read prosser, and then perhaps think about what you think the role of a democratic government should be. i personally believe that one does not forgo all one's privacy once he steps outside one's home, and many cases support my personal belief. the use of cameras in public places is more complex--both legally and constitutionally--than you suggest.

Headline:

$9 MILLION CAMERAS FOILED BY $4 DUCT TAPE, SPRAY PAINT

ken,

Assuming we're talking about the same case, Katz involved a person in a telephone booth and the court ruled that he had a reasonable expectation of privacy inside a phone booth, at least with regards to his voice. Hardly the same thing as a camera catching a criminal in broad daylight.

And do you mean Nader v. GM? I can't find a case called Nader v. GE. Either way, those are companies, not government. Not seeing the relevence.

SYW: "You have the right to privacy in your own home. You do not have the right to privacy when walking down a public street."

if i'm interpreting your comment correctly, you're arguing that expectation of privacy begins and ends at the home, which is another way of saying "trespass doctrine," which katz, as you know, overruled. 4A rights do not end or begin behind the metaphoric four walls of a home. so katz conflicts with your original statement.

now, re your latest post, ("camera catching a criminal in broad daylight"), i don't see the distinction you are trying to make or are making. katz was making a phone call in "broad daylight" and the govt used a relatively new technology to capture the conversation and use it as evidence against him. court said--that's a no-no. are you making a distinction between voice and image?

but, i'm going to assume that you are making an assumption of risk argument, i.e, once you step onto a public street, you assume that anyone, including the govt, will be able to watch you, store images of you, use those images against you, etc. yes, you would be right then to say that katz did hold that. but that case as you know was ruled in 1967. plenty of cases since then have held that there are limitations to how govt can surveil people. e.g. kyllo. i included the nader case because it shows that courts, rather the law, recognizes that there are limitations on what is too much surveillance in public spaces. sure, gm is a company and 4a doesn't apply to it, but do you find the reasoning to be sound and applicable for the government?

also, your catching criminal sentence is a bit worrisome in that it assumes its conclusion. we are not all criminals and the govt should not (yes, i'm using "should") justify their conduct on the rationale that we are all criminals. also, that also assumes the lines between criminal and noncriminal conduct is clear. also, don't you find it a little worrisome that there is no limitation on what the images can be used for? i'm just going to throw out a crazy e.g.--what happens if one day, nypd decides to prosecute everyone caught jay-walking and use the videos as evidence? would you be comfortable with that? there are little due process concerns here because you, as we all do, know that jay walking is a crime. no problems?

disagree/agree--whatever. my point was that the use of cameras in public spaces is not as simple as you suggested.

Ken,

Well, Katz wasn't just walking down the street. He was in a phone booth. I think the court was applying what is reasonable with respect to technology. If a cop walking past Katz had overheard his conversation I have to believe the court would have accepted this i.e Katz should have been aware of his surroundings. The principle applies to your home. If you leave the windows open and a police officer on the beat (i.e. not taregting one specific person) can see into your home, too bad for you. You obviously didn't expect much privacy if you left the window open. If the cop had to crawl through your bushes and stand on his toes to see in, well, that's a different story. So getting back to the man walking down the street. A beat cop 300 feet away may not be able to hear you but he sure as hell can see you. So maybe the use of a parabolic microphone to hear your conversation should be out but I still fail to see why the camera should too.

You seem to be making this assumption that every single person on camera is going to be watched equally as if everyone is presumed to be a criminal. This simply isn't plausible. The person doing the monitoring is going to look for things that are suspicious.

We could argue this all day and I suspect we'll always disagree.