Are webcams in the ghetto the new slumming?

Why was there controversy over that art piece DEMONSTATE at Berkeley? http://demonstrate.berkeley.edu
Because the people being surveyed were rich, educated, and digitally empowered. The same outrage should reach to those with less access and money.

Does anyone know if the street tag in the right window feed predates the webcam?

I don’t particularly care for tagging (at least I am an advocate of William Upski Wimsatt’s notion of tagging the suburbs and keeping true art in the inner cities),
but this tag caught my eye. It looks like it is most easily viewed online. Is this intentional? Is this a new dimension of graffiti?

Adam’s Block has gotten a ton of local and national (international?) press in the last week. Now a tagger has meta-tagged the intersection. Whoever did it was painting the ground but is advertising to the web. This totally up’s the ante of post-reality tv and redefines the very notion of space.

This is just the start. Expect more street art, performance theater, protests, and outright corporate advertising to invade the short stretch of Taylor St. Adam’s Block is a hole in the wall between The Cloud and The Street, helping forge that new land where the two are indistinguishable. Fitting that the tag is in the intersection (no idea who or what MKT is).

I fell there’s something really significant happening here…

Yes, I have, however I believe that Cory isn’t the only one who has expressed an annoyance at surveillance cameras.

I do wish someone would answer my question, though.
If anyone is allowed to photograph/record anyone & anything in a public place, then why can’t TV news & programs use images of people’s faces without permission? This isn’t rhetorical, I’m genuinely curious about the law surrounding this.

Also, is it legal for someone to wear a mask at all times when in public? With recorded surveillance getting more widespread (and gaining more widespread acceptance) it would appear that the only way to protect ones image from theft would be to don some form of disguise, but I’m pretty sure that if I wandered around town in a full-face mask I’d get stopped by law enforcement…

I’d hardly call the Tenderloin “the ghetto”. I’ve been there and lived in similar neighborhoods in Chicago. It’s a poor area, especially by San Francisco standards, but there’s also a very active art and theater community.

Speaking for myself, a non-hipster, I’d be curious to see that camera in an affluent neighborhood. More cars, less walking?

I certainly don’t consider myself viewing the less fortunate from afar, not if my tender melon is exposed to them everyday.

Evildoers do exist, and they should never be allowed to feel empowered by others’ inaction. The more that petty criminals and thugs worry about being watched, the less ostentatious their behavior.

Doublethink. Do try to keep up.

I suspect there’s a great deal of this going on, simply not as publicized. A decent webcam is dirt cheap and the lowliest of computers hooked to broadband lets you watch your street all day long. Nanny-cams for the block.

The privacy question, to me, always comes down to who has access to the logs. In this case it’s everyone who can get to the site.

The notion that he’s trying give back to the community he’s broadcasting is quite nice.

Now I live up the hill, and frequently see fights, abuse, drug deals, cop-stops, and other interesting behavior. I’ll be doing something very similar.

There have been three shootings within two blocks since I started living here. I sure wish I had footage of one of the murderers running down the street. I’m sure the timestamp would have proved useful for the nice detective when he came to visit me.

Nobody likes crime, but how to stop it…?

And for those of you who think his fund raising is just to assuage some phantom guilt over doing something wrong I think I can assure you that Adam is not like that. I’ve known him online since he was about 17 and he’s a genuinely nice guy. And I pity you for having to live such a cynical and bitter life that even without knowing someone you assume the worst of them.

“If anyone is allowed to photograph/record anyone & anything in a public place, then why can’t TV news & programs use images of people’s faces without permission?”

I’m not a lawyer, but this seems like more of a cautionary measure than anything. People will sue over all sorts of things, but someone who’s signed a release form is far less likely to do so.

Similarly, when someone submits to medical testing, they have to sign their lives away, promising that they will never sue for any reason, but these documents are often not legally binding. If a drug or procedure is directly responsible for someone’s illness or death, their family can sue and win.

I don’t know the law regarding TV stations’ ability to use uncleared footage, and I would imagine that it varies from state to state, as with damn near anything. Even murder is a state crime, usually.

“Also, is it legal for someone to wear a mask at all times when in public?”

I believe so, but there are a few things that cops love to hold people for. Failure to ID is one. Another is “suspicious behavior.” And again, I think much of it depends on regional specificity.

It’s perfectly legal to carry a loaded shotgun in Austin, Texas, but if you were to walk down the street with one, I can assure you that the police would confiscate your weapon and hold you until they knew more about you.

BTW: We will release a geo-webservice on Google’s App Engine with our entire CCTV database soon.

It’s not really that bad, I routinely drink all up in the middle of it. But it is pretty bad, and I am happy not to live there. People get shot fairly often, robbed etc. Mostly if you don’t go there to scam drugs, don’t flash money around etc and just keep walking you’ll be fine.

Mostly.

I am perfectly fine with putting up some civilian cameras.

http://www.chumby.com/guide/widget/ChumbySpy

More deets and source code are here:

http://gizmoware.net/chumby

My email is wrybread at gmail dot you know what.

Plot: Little boy gets made to do this by his dad and step-mum. They even inject him with purple dye for realistic bruises.

Seriously, just take a look at the trailer:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jn0L_z02oXw

That Oshima certainly knows how to ramp up the melancholy.

http://sfist.com/2008/12/12/adams_block_down.php

http://sfist.com/2008/12/12/12oz_prophet_theatens_adams_block.php

At first, the person who threatened young Adam wanted a video statement. Adam ended up writing the following written statement, as he feared his gf would be attacked. The SFPD has been visiting him regularly to see how he’s doing. The SFPD police chief knows all about this.

Adam’s insincere statement:

“There’s nothing I can do about this other than an issue an apology and reveal my “true intentions” of this camera. My camera was placed in my window to showcase the homeless people of San Francisco and to make fun of them. I like making fun of people who have mental illness, can’t hold a job and piss themselves on the street. My goal was to broadcast every day and night just to raise money for myself and show the world what a racist and ignorant human being that I am. I don’t give a crap about this city and am a yuppie blogger who feels that he’s too good for all of this. I’m sorry to San Francisco and this community for the harm I caused and I’m moving to a place filled with other yuppies so we can make fun of this disgusting neighborhoodknown as the Tenderloin. Glide, good luck with everything cause I’m not ever going to donate to your cause cause I don’t care and I’m embarrassed to have ever lived here.”

I live near the Tenderloin and I understand how much crime goes on there and how dangerous/frightening the neighborhood can be, but I don’t understand how BoingBoing (or any of you) can be AGAINST the government setting up cameras but FOR private individuals doing it.

If these cameras had been set up by the Fed and were being watched by the FBI for “suspicious behavior” we’d all be outraged, especially because these cameras are targeting low-income minority neighborhoods while ignoring crime that might go on in high-income white neighborhoods.

Just because this was set up by a private individual and is available to the public doesn’t make it any less invasive.

This is of course in San Francisco, where the chief of the housing authority was fired and no one bothered to replace him, and HUD workers are fired if they blow the whistle. I think of each camera as one more middle finger pointed at HUD.

It is a sad situation, and it has defied solution for years.

I live barely three blocks from Adam, deep in the Tenderloin. Sure, it’s a little bleak sometimes but I’ve rarely felt unsafe.

It’s easy to get irritated at the panhandlers and the poop, but they’re a reflection of the dire straits many of the TL’s people are in. You don’t poop on the street if you can get to a restroom.

Both Adam and I are tremendously fortunate compared to the rest of the Tenderloin; the response to the sights from Adam’s webcam should be compassion, not shock or titillation.

Hey, that’s the first place I ever saw someone with an ear cut off. I guess it hasn’t been gentrified.