Monday, June 11, 2007

"When you watch everyone, you watch no one."

the title of this post comes from a pretty good article, written by one of the contributors to boing boing. the article is relatively brief, and is worth your time to read.

i'm not really all that worried about being "spied" upon by the government when i'm in public. i figure, "i'm in plain view. if i'm not doing anything wrong i don't need to worry." but, i also know that the more that the government is watching, the more likelihood that they are also collecting info. and for what purpose? this isn't meant to be some sort of conspiracy theory rant, but more a call to sanity. cameras don't deter crime. they only record it and you have a hope that maybe you'll catch someone. but unless it's some extremely gory crime that makes the news, the police aren't, how shall i say, quick enough to catch the person that is on tape.

"Crazy, desperate, violent people don't make rational calculus in regards to their lives. Anyone who becomes a junkie, crack dealer, or cellphone-stealing stickup artist is obviously bad at making life decisions. They're not deterred by surveillance."

it seems that the only thing that the cameras do spread is fear.

1 comment:

Adam said...

You should have pulled this quote. This one is money:

You don't have anything to hide, sure, but there's a reason we close the door to the bathroom before we drop our drawers. Everyone poops, but it takes a special kind of person to want to do it in public.