[magkelly]

Is your TV watching you? Latest models raise concerns - Technology on NBCNews.com

I ask you why would Samsung ever need to watch you watching your TV? I mean how can they even justify a patent for something like this? Now apparently we're supposed to be happy to allow them to snoop in our living room take note of everything maybe even record us so they can supposedly send us more appropriate ad content? I don't think so! Damn, talk about cheek, and yes, I do find this absolutely creepy. I didn't buy a laptop with a web cam nor will I if I can help it. I have an old style web cam but that's something I can control, plug in only when I want it. Now and again I used to use one for work, but I'm definitely not into being monitored 24/7 in my own home, thanks. There's a very fine line between keeping people safe and intruding upon their privacy and I really think some of these new devices do cross that line.

Oh, and btw, it's not just the TV's. They've got fridge units coming out soon that record everything you take in or out of your fridge, that can even connect to the internet and supposedly to your favorite store to order the things you like when you're out of them. Supposedly it's supposed to make shopping that much more convenient but I can just see where that one is really going. One of these days when we open up our freezer to grab some B&J's this nice computerized voice is going to go "This is the second time this week you've had ice cream. According to our body scan you are now 12.8 oz overweight at the present time. May I suggest you have a nice bowl of grapes instead?" :P

[Medium FormatPro]

Be sure to catch Popular Mechanics - January 2013 issue.

The article a bit too brief, but it should give a good foundation on exactly where to go next.

For instance under the cameras section and exactly how it relate to use of cameras throughout the state of Pennyslvania. That numerous law enforcement agences can access (many, many) cameras and then use facial recognition to compare against databases. Ironically that's nothing new; casino's have been doing it for many years. But Pennsylvania does it quite routinely.

The article claims it uses this data against criminal databases. Not quite correct. It also uses it against publlicly posted data (even Facebook) and data such as drivers licenses. It tracks over eighty percent of all state residences on a much more frequent rate than (say) weekly.

And then there's also data on everyone that is for sale. Give me a name of any adult individual in america and throw a small amount of money at it. I could easily pull many hundreds of pages on almost all activites that one does

[borno]

!984 is here already in the US, with the media and public school brainwashing of the population. Humanism is just a byproduct of the real goal of removing any moral convictions from the general population and placing the government as the lawgiver and ultimate authority. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

[Clavius]

One of these days when we open up our freezer to grab some B&J's this nice computerized voice is going to go "This is the second time this week you've had ice cream. According to our body scan you are now 12.8 oz overweight at the present time. May I suggest you have a nice bowl of grapes instead?" :P

Yes, and at the same time it will notify your health insurance company, which in it's turn, can raise your contribution due to a "unhealthy diet".

[MRRiley]

!984 is here already in the US, with the media and public school brainwashing of the population. Humanism is just a byproduct of the real goal of removing any moral convictions from the general population and placing the government as the lawgiver and ultimate authority. I could be wrong, but I don't think so.

Religious people do not have a monopoly upon morals and "good." Those concepts can exist easily outside of the belief in supernatural deities (some may say "more easily" even)...

And there is a difference between a secular society based upon the concept of "no god but Big Brother" found in 1984 and a secular society like ours which permits all religions but embraces none. For a government to embrace any single religion (whether humanistic or deistic) is to make second-class citizens of it's citizens which do not subscribe to the state religion making that government fundamentally flawed.

My allusion to 1984 has more to do with the "surveillence society" embraced by our government since 9/11, and has little if anything to do with any conflict between "humanism" and religion...

[borno]

I didn't mention religion, but since you did, humanism is one they just can't see it.

[MRRiley]

"Humanism" is a religious code word for secularism, atheism or any "ism" that does not include the belief in a supreme deity. And while you didn't say it outright, you were talking about religion.

I'm just callin a fork a fork...

[Medium FormatPro]

allusion to 1984 has more to do with the "surveillence society" embraced by our government since 9/11

Most of the surveillence issues significantly escalated just after 9/11, because Washington realized that they no longer had a way of bringing most of the perps to justice, because most of them just gave themselves up by doing things like flying planes into buildings. Well at least that is the united states governments version. Even though over one third of the original reported highjackers are in fact - still alive

But agencies such as the NSA were going full speed well before 9/11. The infamous splicing rooms at places such as AT&T were reported well before 9/11

[jeffkrol]

TAMPA --

Police will use the security cameras bought for last summer's Republican National Convention to monitor activities downtown for at least the next year.

The Tampa City Council gave its tentative blessing to the cameras this afternoon with a few caveats: no peeping through windows into private dwellings, close supervision by the department's hierarchy, and erasure of the tapes after 120 days unless they contain evidence of a crime.

The guidelines echo the Tampa Police Department's rules governing the use of cameras that already are monitoring Ybor City's party crowds on the weekends, Police Chief Jane Castor told the council.

The camera issue has pitched the council – where some members question whether to keep using the cameras – against Mayor Bob Buckhorn, who has said the cameras fall completely within his authority and he'll use them as he sees fit.
The city charter blocks the council from dictating how the mayor uses his staff or its equipment. It wouldn't ban council members from legislating broadly against surveillance, however.
That could come up next fall, when the city's maintenance contract for the RNC cameras comes up for renewal. Council members plan to review the use of the cameras next August.

Castor assured council members the cameras will be used with discretion.

Well I'm relieved..........
City OKs use of RNC cameras to monitor crime | TBO.com

[grhazelton]

TAMPA --
Well I'm relieved..........
City OKs use of RNC cameras to monitor crime | TBO.com

I would hope that there is an independent review board established to make certain that the tapes or whatever are really erased after 120 days. We've had a great deal of sad experience with recordings being kept indefinitely, "just in case." Richard Nixon found out to his detriment that keeping tapes isn't always a good idea.

It is all too easy for what began as a reasonable project with proper oversight to somehow morph into a monster. Good intentions are often perverted, even if unintentionally or unconsciously.

Anyone else see unhappy similarities to the film The Lives of Others?

[Blue]

The thought of the City of Tampa "self policing" is about as funny as "Tricky Dickie."

[magkelly]

Actually the way people drive down South and with the rising crime level I'm very much in favor of those cameras so long as they are not pointing into someone's house. All you have to do is read the papers for any decently sized town south of the Mason Dixon line to see that things have gone nuts lately in terms of crime and crazy accidents. Too many people yacking on phones while trying to drive and more and more by way of thugs trying to either kill people or at least rip them off and it's been more and more violent. FYI, my parents nearly got carjacked the other day at an eatery at our local mall. Three guys went on a crime spree locally and they very narrowly missed being in the right place and the right time to be carjacked and it was broad daylight on the "good" side of town and it's not the first time it's happened recently either. I have to take the elders to Walmart in the same place today and I'm actually rather nervous and that's just totally stupid, the idea that I have to be wary of everything just to hit the local mall and a Walmart for 20 mins...

[Blue]

Florida Senate Bill to limit use of Drones in Florida

A bill introduced by Florida State Sen. Joe Negron would severely limit the use of unmanned flying surveillance drones by police and other law enforcement agencies.
Negron’s “Freedom from Unwarranted Surveillance Act”, Senate Bill 92, would create rules that would prohibit police from using drones that are capable of taking pictures and video in most situations.
“I am very opposed to making it a standard practice for the government to have drones floating in the sky, monitoring the lawful movements of Florida citizens,”

http://www.infowars.com/florida-bill-to-halt-police-drone-spying/