San Francisco DA backs police plan for live surveillance using private cameras

https://sfstandard.com/criminal-justice/newly-appointed-da-brooke-jenkins-backs-proposal-to-expand-live-police-surveillance-our-tone-and-approach-matters/

by anigbrowl • 4 years ago

33 19 4 years ago

sfstandard.com

Mountain_Skies• 4 years ago

What good does endless surveillance do if you ignore the crime it sees? No one is going to be intimidated in good behavior by a bunch of cameras if they know nothing will come of what they see.

smt88• 4 years ago

It doesn't matter what "good" endless surveillance does because it is the most potent tool of authoritarianism and should be illegal.

ls15• 4 years ago

Exactly.

It annoys me that people are discussing the benefits, when the cost isn't even remotely acceptable.

anigbrowl2• 4 years ago

Closing arguments in this trial are going on right now. It's worth looking into the record on this one. https://www.courthousenews.com/san-francisco-opioid-trial-op...

bigDinosaur• 4 years ago

It's perfect for selective enforcement though.

throwaway0a5e• 4 years ago

Exactly. This will be used against the unlucky petty criminal who's actions go viral and draw public ire and to facilitate harassment of undesirables who are not sufficiently marginalized.

morelisp2• 4 years ago

What did you expect would happen when you explicitly installed a DA who promised to immediately increase funding to fight a fictional crime wave?

newfriend3• 4 years ago

a fictional crime wave

Do you live here in SF? Because I doubt anyone who lives here would agree about the crime wave being "fictional", unless they live in a sufficiently ritzy neighborhood where they are well-insulated from the obvious effects.

throwawaysf1234• 4 years ago

I live in SF. In the Tenderloin specifically where all this excitement seems to be about. Hence the throwaway.

There is no crime wave. There is a lot of drug use and mental illness visible on the streets in two small neighborhoods in the entire city. The Tenderloin and Soma which wrap the now, post covid, more vacant downtown. The rest of the city is as clean and safe as ever.

Here’s the real thing to consider. I’m sure you, like most people that voted to remove the DA and support this insane surveillance initiative, do not live in the affected neighborhoods. You won’t be now subjected to 24 hour police surveillance just for the crime of living in the wrong zip code like myself and my neighbors will.

We tried broken windows policing for 30 years. And all it did was balloon the criminal records of young males who were unlucky enough to live in the zip codes and neighborhoods that received the majority of police attention in cities throughout the country. Leave my neighborhood alone. If you want to live in a 24 hour police state, enable it for your neighborhood first.

The reality is that once downtown recovers from the office vacancies caused by the covid remote work shift, things will return to normal. With or without putting me under 24 hour surveillance.

morelisp2• 4 years ago

I lived in the Bay Area and spent a decent chunk of time in SF. I left because I wanted to be in SF, not Singapore with extra wildfires that the current ruling party wants.

jzoch• 4 years ago

There is no crime wave. I’m an SF resident and lived in SOMA for much of Covid. This is mostly manufactured BS and does not justify surveillance by an irresponsible police force who can’t solve the crimes they see happen in front of their own faces

nielsbot• 4 years ago

“This policy can help address the existence of open-air drug markets fueling the sale of the deadly drug fentanyl,” she wrote.

As opposed to "good old fashioned police work"? How is this better and how would they even implement this? Seems like a policy just to say something on the subject...

Edit:

From later in the article: “We have since secured the district with the help of the mayor and the police department,” said Rodriguez [head of the Union Square business improvement district], a former prosecutor. “But we don’t know the next time that people will strike—and this will help us prevent that.”

Are cameras really are a deterrent? Seems they can sometimes help catch perpetrators after the act...

f0e4c2f7• 4 years ago

I suspect this mostly refers to ring cameras. It's pretty shocking when you start thinking of just how many square feet of the world are covered by a video feeds now.

I can't remember the details exactly but there is a part in 1984 where they travel out into forest to find a place where they aren't under surveillance. Even then they notice a camera on a tree or something they have to stand just out of range of.

jstarfish• 4 years ago

The US Department of Natural Resources does put cameras in national forests. This is no longer speculative fiction.

AinderS• 4 years ago

Breed introduced an ordinance to approve the police [surveillance] policy last month in response to the high-profile retail thefts that were caught on camera in Union Square last November.

Isn't it strange? If crime drops, the answer is more surveillance. If somewhere, someone used encryption as one small part of a crime, the answer is more surveillance. And if crime is caught on camera, and the police do nothing about it, the answer is, again, more surveillance.

San Francisco DA backs police plan for live surveillance using private cameras

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