Topic: Does Mass Surveillance Lower Crime? (Read 633 times)

But think of all the women who wish there would have been mass surveillance cameras all over the public places, when that cop stopped her for speeding, and then raped her.

No it doesn't. It gives government all the fucking power to influence and control its public and also blackmail political rivalries and leads to call of nations amd civilizations. Say no to surveillance and yes to privacy!

Theoretically it can, but it is impossible for all that data to be gathered just for the purpose of fighting crime, it is definitely going to be used for other nefarious purposes...such as to silence opposing voices, etc

While this may be true for some, I don't see it as being true for all criminals. But this is highly dependent on the area of the world that you're in. If you're in a place like Russia, China, North Korea, etc -- where all of your information is being tracked extensively by groups like the NSA (their equivalent in these countries) and is used against common citizens, you're most likely going to stop committing petty crime because you know the government is using their extensive data on everyone.

In the US, this isn't typically the case. Even if the NSA is able to prove that you're committing some sort of crime, lets say Fraud from your encrypted data that they have a backdoor too, this information isn't shared with Federal/State prosecutors so they don't know this. Information isn't shared between this groups for 'everyday' crimes, but they are shared for activities that are classified as Treason, Terrorist Activities, Etc.

In my opinion, it is certainly a possible deterrent for the general population, in order to prevent them from at least doing anything that they might regret doing later if they're aware that big brother is watching.

Also, it could possibly be a deterrent to the common criminal only. But for organized crime syndicates, it would not affect them too much, because these criminal minds are very well planned and sophisticated enough to provide their own measures to avoid mass surveillance.

From my experience of living in an authoritarian state, mass surveillance can partially lower crime rate among citizens, but only by the awful cost of government being able to freely commit all these crimes by itself

Surveillance on common people won't help to decrease the crimes but it is against the human nature, we all need our privacy ad freedom if you are under surveillance for 24/7 then you will be more like a slave and then we can't really enjoy our life.

But the case that I was referring to wasn't where journalists were asking, this was a piece of information that was leaked to (even if unclassified internally) to the intercept talking about terrorist cases from ISIL - https://assets.documentcloud.org/documents/2515184/isil-related-arrests-in-homeland-from-jan2014.pdf

See here:


and


Honestly the whole article is very good - https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-has-no-record-of-thwarting-large-terror-attacks-regardless-of-snowden-leaks/

Yep! Finally we are accepting the thought police. Interesting times. Interesting measures. Not so interesting results?

surveillance does not prevent/stop crime.
other wise thats a plotline for minority report movie.

the psychology is that if a would-be criminal were thinking of doing a crime. but then see's that there are camera's everywhere. they would think twice and maybe not do it.
so many shop owners put up dummy camera's or cheap ones with crappy quality lenses. just as a deterrent

but most criminals just damage a camera/ spraypaint the lens becore the crime. or wear a disguise.

the point of surveillance is not to directly stop crime. but when a crime is committed, police them have a large ware house of possible already gathered evidence to grab onto instantly to speed up the identification/detainment and incarceration of the criminal.

EG say an idiot went to a protest and got in a fight. as his defense 'im innocent i wanted to go for the peaceful protest'.. but the prosecutor finds evidence of email and skype message exchanges that the person planned it and it was pre-meditated fight.

now suddenly a small scuffle that might have just got a police warning. is suddenly a prison term for grieveous bodily harm with intent.

so its not really to stop crime. its to try to lower the number of crimes that dont result in arrest/prison

The government isn't going to release this sort of data for the sake of journalists writing a piece on national security. Divulging the attacks stopped by National Intelligence might cause unrest simply because of the implication of what could have happened, causing irrational fear, or having people question how the government got a hold of the intelligence in the first place.

The U.S. government absolutely spies on its citizens and there isn't any denying that. See the Vault 7 link I posted above. No one can reasonably expect them to come out and admit it or brag about how many terrorist attacks they've stopped. 

I think that most of the terrorist attacks are carried out by governments themselves in order to achieve their dirty goals - to start conflicts, to intimidate people to further allocate funds from the country's budget to fight terrorism.

It is time for us all to open our eyes and understand that nothing has been done for a long time to improve the quality of our lives.

What type of crime?

Because US Survilenace hasn't stopped one single large scale terrorist attack from happening - https://theintercept.com/2015/11/17/u-s-mass-surveillance-has-no-record-of-thwarting-large-terror-attacks-regardless-of-snowden-leaks/ - and this is the literal reason the government uses when people ask why are you spying on us.

Small scale crime? Not really targeted with mass surveilance. If it was we'd know about it pretty quickly. Hard to keep the lid on that one.

There's some truth to it. I read a lot about home security and it appears that there are certain things that discourage burglars and some that attract them. For instance, hidden cameras will not deter them, but visible cameras, even fake ones (but well made) will. Bars in the windows will attract them, but lights will act as a deterrent, especially strong lights activated by motion sensors.
So, it all depends on what crime we're talking about. A drug addict won't care if he's seen, a burglar will. Many murder cases were solved thanks to cctv.

Mass surveillance as it is done in the US has not proven to work. There are very few cases (if any) where authorities were admitting that they caught perpetrators due to NSA surveillance. Turns out that simply having ears everywhere can't do much when you can't even control the data. And the serious criminals find better channels to communicate anyway.

There is however a style of policing, that prevents crime merely by having some authority figure stand by.  Police patrolling for example is a known and effective crime prevention method. Why would anyone comit crimes in front of the people that would catch him anyway?

If you want some more extensive mass surveillance, you should look into China, and more specifically how they are literally oppressing Uyghurs. The government only allows authorized channels of communication and is known to tap phone conversations too. Apps for messages have government personnel in their offices. Everything is officially snooped and there is no alternative. Camwraw are on roads, microphones in mosques etc. People are afraid to speak to each other even. Mass surveillance worms as a preventative method if it is really applied to the masses without exception.

But it's not worth the sacrifice of so much privacy and government control.

Observation is not necessarily bad.
There are many cases that are solved due to the surveillance systems on the roads.
Criminals are found due to them.

There are a lot of fanatic works. in which the lives of the heroes take place in front of everyone. This is terrible, I do not want to read my correspondence, hear what I say. It’s just awful, and yes, it’s not a crime rate. It’s just such a bait to have less objection. Nobody wants to have a high crime rate.

Well if there is something to hide, its definitely something that we are afraid of. Surveillance work as a matter of fact we use it to prevent crimes and save victims.  The only we care though is that if the information we provide goes to the wrong person or government that oppresses you who belong to a certain minority or ethnic group.

Many things can happen if the government knows everything about us like collecting our blood type and medical characteristics which if in the hands of someone, can either hurt us or help us.

I don't think mass surveillance really works, because you will never be able to cover 100% of the area with cameras. There will always be shadows and blind spots. Overall camera might help to reduce crimes in certrain area - for example if you want to make the city centre safer - but in total I don't think crime rates will drop. Crime will simply move it to other locations.

I'm sure it does but nobody wants the government digging through their personal lives to stop a crime they won't ever commit. Post 9/11, most governments began to spy on their citizens.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vault_7