Boston bombing highlights surveillance expansion.

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http://news.yahoo.com/bombing-probe-hig ... 37563.html

Am I glad that surveillance cameras helped identify these sociopaths? Yes.

However, as someone who values their privacy, I find the increasing presence of cameras, online tracking scripts, and other techniques (the surveillance state if you will) somewhat unsettling.

With surveillance, there is a fine line between promoting safety and paranoia of dissent, and various governments and business organizations inch closer to that line daily. Some organizations have crossed that line to the point of no return.

I'm sorry if this qualifies as "too soon".

There is no fine line. Nothing will please everybody.

I'd say on public property cameras are okay, as long as they arent in private property.

CCTV has its uses. It produced two suspects one of whom is now dead. He put up armed resistance to arrest.

What I still can't figure out is why the perps planted a bomb on the street when they could have planted it down in the Green Line station or trains.

The city used to have a surveillance camera on top of our office building. Most of the people in the town knew exactly where the surveillance camera was located. The high school kids would often wave at the camera as they drove by.

One evening I went up on the roof and waited by the camera. Sure enough, within about five minutes, a pickup drove by with a high school kid leaning out the window waving at the camera. So I waved back at them. From where they were, I doubt that they saw me barely over the edge and pretty much just saw an arm come out from nowhere and wave at them. The driver just about climbed out of the vehicle to look back over the roof of the pickup while the two passengers were both hanging out the window looking up and laughing.

Shortly after that, the city moved the camera to the area at the bottom of the city water tower.

People who go out in public should not expect to keep anything private.

If you want privacy, go home, draw the curtains, get in the closet, and close the door.

A camera in a public place is no different from a police officer standing there. Do you get nervous and think we're becoming a police state if you walk by a cop performing his duty?

What we have for "internal security" would be the envy of the East German Stasi.

For my part, I don't think that this is too soo, at all. The presence of CCTV's and other surveillance technology in public areas has been a significant public policy question for years, and I think the conversation is highly relevant precisely now.

Using the identification of the Boston Marathon bombers creates a very strong "ends justify the means" argument for surveillance. The public demanded, and the President promised a speedy identification of the perpetrators, and accountability for their crimes. And, Lo and Behold! Surveillance has delivered the goods.

I am of mixed views on government surveillance in public space. While I take the legal view that a person has no privacy interest in conduct that is undertaken in public (or in a space into which the public can see without effort), there is a leap from what a police officer can see and take not of on the street, and what a network of cameras and computers equipped with facial recognition software can compile.

I honestly don't know where the line is drawn. The use of surveillance techology for a legitimate purpose here does not serve to persuade me that the entire framework is ipso facto legitimated but I have yet to conceive of how to distinguish between use and abuse of this technology.

Good for CCTV! It help nail those bastards in under 48 hours.

You are always being watched.

Think you have privacy in your home, with the curtains drawn??

Think again. Try to get help for your kid-- only to find out that you must apply for Medicaid (regardless of income or private insurance-- they do not accept private insurance) and thus consent to allow the state to walk into your home at any time they see fit. Try, then, to tell them that you want some time to think it over-- and listen to the phone ring left and right as they harass you to fill out this paperwork and that paperwork and get the process moving.

From the moment you are born, you are the property of the State. You are always, always being watched.

You don't say.

the people of the united states actually cheered for marshall law

whats the point of elected officials swearing the follow the constitution when they just ignore it or actively look for ways to get around it

the founding fathers are rolling in their graves

... for one person. This is the most ostentatious display of tyranny.