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Comment by im3w1l | Hacker News Reader

I'm not really sure where I stand on this, but I'm starting to fear the "if surveillance is outlawed only outlaws will do surveillance."

The issue I see is that surveillance is because so miniaturized and easy that I'm not sure if it will be possible to enforce these laws against "the bad guys".

Ideally we should deploy technological countermeasures that prevent anyone from doing mass scale facial recognition. But failing that it may really be better to just have a free for all.

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> "if surveillance is outlawed only outlaws will do surveillance."

This is a valid argument when speaking of encryption, but I don't see how it makes any sense in this context.

Really... is it so hard to imagine? Criminal gangs can put tiny cameras everywhere to track the police but the police cant do do the same to them.

This is a complete non sequitur. The problem at hand is the security overreach of monitoring _everyone_.

If I am not under investigation I shouldn't be monitored end of discussion.

If I am under investigation, then if my case has not reviewed by a third party (judiciary power/judge) then I also shouldn't be monitored.

It's basic human nature. Without checks and balances those who can abuse, will abuse. It doesn't matter which side they are on.

Are the police actually difficult to track? They wear uniforms and drive around with flashing lights and sirens.

When this actually becomes a widespread problem we can revisit the ban. Indeed, if mass-surveillance becomes so cheap that ordinary citizens can deploy it it makes sense for police & governments to also have access to it. Until then, don't.

Hate to break it to you: it is that cheap. I an looking at a $99 Intel Compute Stick driving a build of the enterprise FR software I write, connected to a $21 ELP IP camera. Total cost of hardware is less than $150, and the software is of course expensive. There is no reason a button or embedded-in-a-screw camera would not work just fine. Pandora's Box is open kids, and it is not closing.

Deploying and powering all of it at scale, not to mention getting bandwidth (so you'd need to set up a mesh network or get very cheap mobile data) is still out of reach of most. When that is sorted we can revisit.

Hate to break it to you again: the cameras and connection networks are already there. Also any real estate property of note had a traditional camera surveillance network added sometime over the last 30 years, and modern FR systems are designed to piggy back on them. Just add the less than $150 worth of hardware per camera, perhaps you only need 1-2 FR systems and ability to switch camera feeds and you're operational.

The original comment was about criminal gangs setting up their own surveillance systems to keep an eye on the police (among other things) and the argument was that if the bad guys can do it then why not allow the police to do it as well?

Property owners doing so on their own land is a whole different matter.

And criminal gangs can quite easily access these private property surveillance networks for their tracking desires.

[citation needed]

I just don't see it happening at a widespread scale yet. On the other hand if you give police the right to use these technologies you can bet you'll see police (and other government agencies piggybacking off them) deploying this everywhere very fast.

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