Excerpt from article:
http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/07/technology/07ZZAP.html?todaysheadlines Protesting the Big Brother Lens, Little Brother Turns an Eye Blind By JOHN MARKOFF <snip> That is not the view of a group of privacy advocates in Washington, who are suing the Metropolitan Police Department under the Freedom of Information Act to force disclosure of technical information about a network of video cameras that has been established in the city. The value of video cameras to improve safety and detect terrorists has been greatly overrated, according to Marc Rotenberg, the executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, a nonprofit advocacy group based in Washington. Like the Surveillance Camera Players, Mr. Rotenberg said he worries that while Internet-viewable cameras might offer entertainment, there are other networks of private and law enforcement cameras that collect information secretly on behalf of the government. "There has been a reduction in privacy and there has been an expansion in government secrecy," he said. "We give up our privacy, but we don't gain openness in exchange." That view contrasts sharply with that of David Brin, a physicist and author who has argued that universally accessible cameras will increase transparency in modern society without encroaching on traditional civil liberties. "My metaphor is that databases are expansions of human memory and the cameras are the extension of human vision," he said, adding that the challenge is to make certain that new laws have provisions for "watching the watchers." Such a viewpoint upsets other civil libertarians, who see the growing encroachment of video cameras as simply deepening the power of law enforcement and society's elites. "I sometimes wonder if I'm living on the same planet as David Brin," said Philip E. Agre, an associate professor of information studies at the University of California at Los Angeles. "Everyone can watch the common people, but that has nothing to do with the political question of who can watch the powerful." _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
