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Comment by nemo1618 | Hacker News Reader

Years ago there was a YouTuber, "Surveillance Camera Man," who went around pointing a camera at people with no pretense. Frequently the subjects were upset by this and became aggressive, even violent. I believe the intended message was that this is a natural and justified reaction to being surveilled, and yet there is little outcry because public surveillance is largely invisible and/or faceless (e.g. just a CCTV camera mounted on a building, rather than a stranger invading your personal space).

The YouTube account is no longer around, but you can still watch it on archive.org: https://web.archive.org/web/20190220131525/https://www.youtu...

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My take on that is that they're different situations because a CCTV camera has 1000s of hours of footage to scrub through and will likely only be looked at if/when something bad happens. Whereas the guy pointing a camera at me probably only has a couple hours which means I'm likely relevant to the cameraman (ie, I'll go into that final video) whereas I'm not that relevant to the CCTV.

I know more recent cameras are using AI analysis to constantly track and catalog people which is more worrying but the old school surveillance cameras don't bother me as much.

I like the OP's idea for an art project more because it's showing your what is really happening (rather than convincing people that filming someone on a 4k camera is the same as CCTV surveillance) - CCTV cameras are constantly monitoring and many can be publicly accessed.

If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to hide

I don't even think that is the best defense because it takes a very passive acceptance to it. On the flip side, if someone steal my bike or assaults me in public, I'd like there to be some accountability which would otherwise never happen (and vice versa). In the past, if a white lady were to accuse a black man of some crime, then it was practically impossible to fight it. With CCTV, you can prove innocence and guilt a lot more conclusively.

Don't worry, a random Ring cam will record everything. Hope my neighbor likes keeping track of me checking my mail.

"Arguing that you don't care about the right to privacy because you have nothing to hide is no different than saying you don't care about free speech because you have nothing to say." -Edward Snowden

"Posting quotes that indicate that you didn't successfully identify sarcasm makes your L even worse"

-Me

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