Your trash analogy doesn’t hold up because trash becomes “public” once it’s on the street which isn’t part of your property. “Publicly visible spot on my property” is a meaningless phrase; it’s still my property, and I’m legally (here at least) allowed to raise an objection to the recording of it.
I can’t and wouldn’t object to someone recoding the sidewalk in front of my house. I can, and absolutely will, object to someone recording my yard. You might not see a distinction but there absolutely is one.
> “Publicly visible spot on my property” is a meaningless phrase
Indeed, your property or not, it's still a "publicly visible spot", and the creep is legally (in the US at least) allowed to be creepy in this way over your objections
> I can, and absolutely will, object to someone recording my yard.
The creep can, and absolutely will, object to your objections, and be allowed to continue (in the US at least).
Privacy requires constant vigilance, in terms of electing lawmakers.
I can't ask the people who drop their kids at the school across the street not to look at my yard, so why would I complain about a camera? Because it's always on and recording? Still not convincing to me. My exterior yard (the part not surrounded by a tall fence) is for everybody to look at. In fact lots of people stop by my house to look at our amazing maple tree and start conversations with us.
I think main differentiator is that an individual human is unlikely to stand in one place just watching for an extended period of time. It actually was very expensive to do that kind of surveillance not that long ago, which is why it was not deployed without a good reason. Camera, on the other hand, is cheap. Individual creep is preferable to a panopticon.
Exactly. The high cost of human eyeballs trained on a specific target for long periods of time introduces a negative feedback loop which tames the overreach. Cheap, ubiquitous cameras with virtually unlimited storage eliminates that self-regulating mechanism and degrades the trust between members of a society.
None of these things really bother/worry me. This is mainly a threshold argument- a thing that was hard got easier, but didn't fundamentally change what is possible for a dedicated adversary.
1) Human stands there and watches your property. A description of what happened on your property is subject to whether or not people believe this human, and the fallibility of human memory. This human cannot be there 24/7, and must -- at minimum -- break to sleep, acquire food, and use the bathroom. In reality, they'll have many other demands on their time that mean they can't (or won't want to) spend much time watching your property.
2) A connected, always-on recording device that captures what's happening in high definition, 24/7 (assuming it has an IR light; if not, ok, more like 12/7). This becomes an indisputable, permanent record that can be replayed as often as anyone wants, and that most reasonable people would believe, without question, as reflecting what is truly going on.
How are these two things not fundamentally different? This is approaching "definition of fundamental" territory.
The scale of difference between $25/hr for a human and less than $0.01/day (amortized over the lifespan of the camera/service) changes the economics entirely. The circumstances before and after are paradigmatically different.
I don't think we're arguing with you anymore about whether or not you could be bothered, just that you somehow seem to think that there's no (or only a minor or incremental) difference between a human watching your property and a camera recording it, which is objectively false.
And of course no one can resist trying to correct someone who is Wrong On The Internet.
Also I think it's because it sounds like you're refusing to sympathize with people who might be uncomfortable with this sort of thing. Are you the kind of person who would reflect on this issue and say, "this doesn't bother me, but I can see why it might bother someone else, so I wouldn't point a camera at my neighbor's house"? Or are you the kind of person who would say "this doesn't bother me personally, so I'll just do whatever I want and ignore how other people feel about this"? You are definitely giving off the latter vibe here, which is anti-social and selfish (not the kind of neighbor I'd want to live next to, regardless of this particular issue). Hopefully that's not who you are, though, and we've all just gotten caught up in the argument and are appearing one-dimensional.
I dunno, I think I explained my position, my reasoning, my priors, and came to a reasonable conclusion. I'm certainly not insisting I'm right. But what I know I can do is install a camera in a visible location and be open to people approaching me and asking for changes.
I've also read the relevant california and federal laws (not in detail) and concluded what I'm doing is not a violation, in letter or intent. I'm not looking into people's windows, or their backyards.
[D]idn't Aristarchus and the Pythagoreans propose heliocentrism in ancient times? If only they had prevailed, we might have had Real Science millennia sooner. What was their evidence?
Well, you see, fire is nobler than earth and the center is a nobler position. So fire has to be in the center. QED.
There are many names for this sort of thinking, but "scientific" is not one of them.
Wat? I didn't say scientific, I said reasonable. In the legal meaning of the term ("just, rational, appropriate"). I'm not making a scientific argument.
Would you also be fine with people filming you through your windows? Why not, after all it's visible from a public space with the right angle. And windows are just part of another kind of "fence".
In the end it's private property and that makes it private by default. Nobody can forbid you from looking at it, but imho filming is just as invasive as parking the car there while having greater potential for abuse. Filming has intent that goes farther than just randomly looking around.
I use drapes and shapes to get privacy for my windows. My intent Here is to prevent school shootings and help investigate crimes that occur on my property or my neighbor's property. Definitely not my intent to stare at my neighbors in their private lives and they understand that completely.
How are cameras supposed to prevent school shootings? The best they can do is let you watch cops do nothing as we could see in Texas. Prevention is much more important and much cheaper but that's not done either.
And I don't know why I'd spend money in anticipation of a potential crime in front of my home, donating data to Amazon in the meantime. The police is already tracking phones and using other methods no single camera can match.
I think it's totally uncalled for to call me a creep. I'm saying other people can point their cameras at my yard. When I point my camera I seriously consider that others don't share my values. And if they came over and asked nicely, I'd move the camera (it currently points at a neighbor's driveway). At least I'm open and honest about it.
>I think it's totally uncalled for to call me a creep. I'm saying other people
No I think it is called for, you clearly aren't getting it. The things you are saying, the behavior you're outlining and the justifications you are giving for it make you a creep.
>can point their cameras at my yard. When I point my camera I seriously consider
>that others don't share my values. And if they came over and asked nicely, I'd
So you perform an act of intimidation[1], and then expect your neighbors to come to you and ask that you stop? This is not the behavior of a good person, no matter what you've convinced yourself. Good people do not intimidate their neighbors and then expect to be given the benefit of the doubt on top of it. This is the kind of thing a creep does to force interaction with them and then escalate their intimidation tactics.
If you truly weren't a creep and you wanted to put a camera up, you'd ask your neighbors for permission first. Get their consent and then proceed only if they give it. So really at best you're a creep who doesn't see a problem with intimidating their neighbors at worst you're someone who doesn't understand or care about consent.
>move the camera (it currently points at a neighbor's driveway). At least I'm
>open and honest about it.
Seriously, nothing about your responses here are showing that you're open and honest. You sound entitled and presumptuous. I'd invite you to please try to view this from a perspective that isn't your own.
[1] You started out saying this, remember? - "The camera may be acting as a deterrent (if they didn't have any additional thefts) without it being obvious."
The camera is acting as a deterrent by being intimidating, so at least you agree that a camera can be intimidating.
I appreciate the principled point you’re trying to make about public recording specifically and anticipatory deference more generally, but you’ve turned it into a very personal attack on another community member and that doesn’t feel very appropriate to this site.
I can only second this. If this were my neighbor I would get a restraining order against them. Recording your neighbors kids in the yard to me sounds borderline problematic.
I just can't find any sane justification for behavior like that.
If you tried to get a restraining order for my camera which incidentally overlooks the neighbor's driveway (no kids playing there), you would be laughed at. I'm not breaking any law, nor do I have any ill intent. The kids I incidentally tape are in a school yard across the street from me, and after Uvalde, both the cops and the school admins would welcome another source of information to help them prevent school killings.
Think of it this way- before any of this happened, the cops came to my door and asked politely if we had a video camera facing our neighbor's yard, which would have provided some useful evidence on a car breakin. They didn't say "oh, hey, it's creepy to videotape your neighbor's front yard which is in plain view and has no fence." Combined with the laws of my state, it's clear that videotaping my yard and the neighbor's front yard is not illegal, and in general, seems to be non-creepy.
Normal, law abiding citizens aren't intimidated by security cameras generally, which is why most people can go out to shops and stores which almost certainly are recording them and not give it a second thought.
Would you label a gate or a lock as "intimidating" as well?
That isn't what's being discussed here, but it's still a type of intimidation. Being law abiding really doesn't matter because pointing a camera at someone's property is a type of intimidation and harassment.
But to answer your question:
>Would you label a gate or a lock as "intimidating" as well?
No I wouldn't, but that isn't to say I couldn't imagine a scenario where it could be used that way. For example, say you move to a new place and you're different from the locals. You notice your neighbor watching you with suspicion when you come home from work everyday and they make a show of watching you while putting a big padlock on their garage door or something. There's nothing illegal or even really wrong about doing that. It's just kind of crappy and not very neighborly. The behavior would be weird and creepy.
>I can, and absolutely will, object to someone recording my yard. You might not see a distinction but there absolutely is one.
You certainly can raise an objection but it has no legal weight behind it. Anything that is in public view can be legally filmed. I think there may be some federal prohibitions against filming sensitive government areas though not sure if these have ever been testing in court. Walk around naked in your front yard or in your house in front of an open window you are eligible to be legally (though maybe creepily) filmed.
I can’t and wouldn’t object to someone recoding the sidewalk in front of my house. I can, and absolutely will, object to someone recording my yard. You might not see a distinction but there absolutely is one.