StockPhotoTalk | Special Interest Blog

No Photos, Please: AMERICA, WHEN WILL THIS END? A Guest Comment by Adam Davis, PART II

Update to: "No Photos, Please: AMERICA, WHEN WILL THIS END? A Guest Comment by Adam Davis" (Part I)

"I saw the sun setting to my right in front of some high voltage power lines which I thought may have made an interesting photograph. I pulled into the parking lot across from the power station, the parking lot of the district 18 police station. There were police officers milling around and I stepped out of my car and took two to three shots of the sun behind the power lines. I got back in my car exited out the south side of the parking lot and took a right on Elm St. I crossed one intersection when I saw flashing lights pull up behind me.
I pulled over and asked him if I had made a moving violation and he said no. He asked me what I had been doing. I told him I had been taking photographs. He asked me of what. I told him of those power lines and the sun behind it. He asked me why." (Full story here)

Adam Davis recently mailed the image:

I am obviously dismayed by the experience, but I think the most important thing to come out of it is a discussion of our rights, our freedoms and how we can best protect them.
The process of filing a complaint has been frustrating. I wish I had more news for you, but as you can imagine the police investigation is slow moving and full of resistance. I have found one sympathetic cop in internal affairs, who unfortunately is not officially involved in the investigation right now, but whom asked me to contact me if the investigation goes nowhere. Hopefully, but doubtfully they’ll do some self-policing and I apologize for the lame pun… At this time I want to give them an opportunity to cleanse themselves before I start a more in-depth legal process…

Related story: "YOU ARE NOW ON THE NO-FLY LIST: Photographers, A 90-Pound German Shepherd And The Patriot Act"

This story was also discussed several times in the JAPAN TODAY FORUM.

Questo blog è chiuso per ferie, fino all' 8 Agosto 2004

[© Grace and Katie]

Chiudo, per un circa settimana, questo weblog. Infatti, a mio modesto parere, per scrivere bisogna prima pensare e, i blogs spesso ti tolgono lo spazio per pensare.


(Hint for the person/CEO/BizDeveloper etc. who is constantly looking for "DigitalVision 2003 revenues", ""Image source" 2003 revenues" or "Index stock imagery 2003 revenues" and other good stuff-- Google hits are a tricky thing, especially with your really nice -- and static -- IP! So, no one has to work for Pixlogic, the company ("Visual Search") with Venture Capital from the CIA, just to know who you are...).
=:-)

Senate Upholds Ban on Photos of GI Caskets

Update to the stories in the Categories "Iraq|War|Photography: The Meta Level" and "Iraq|War: Photos + Reports"

We have to report the sad news that

A divided Senate votes to uphold a Pentagon ban on media coverage of the return of war dead. Two months ago, in response to a Freedom of Information Act request, the Air Force released hundreds of photos of flag-draped coffins. The Pentagon says no more will be made public. (June 22, 2004, NPR.org)

Obviously they haven´t learnt a thing at all. The next Tami Silicio is right behind the next corner.

[via Ed/Mira]

The Implications of Cameras Everywhere

Dan Gillmor in "Removing Cameras from Phones a Futile Gesture" (Silicon Valley.com) and "How do we adjust when cameras are everywhere?"
(San Jose Mercury News):

But the ever-growing presence of video cameras in public places, combined with the tendency to put those images in searchable databases, is creating a situation where any rational person may soon have to assume he or she is under surveillance when outside the home.
The government insists that it has the absolute right to know everything about us, but that we have no right to know much of anything any official declares off-limits. Some information is properly shielded, but in an age where officials use terrorism as an excuse to shut off public access even to benign information, the trend is to reveal less and less. This is a perversion of a fundamental tenet of democracy: an informed citizenry.

(All this discussion had only started because "Sprint has announced that it will start selling camera-less Treo 600 smart phones from PalmOne. Why? To satisfy customers fearful of corporate espionage inside their businesses")

[Final Update] Rumsfeld, Moblogging Soldiers, Cameraphones, Dumb Media

Latest update to these stories (1; 2; 3; 4; 5), all covering the topic and media coverage "Did Rumsfeld ban digicams, camera phones and videocams in Iraq for US soldiers YES OR NOT? What about the behaviour of the news services?"

Xeni Jardin, who published "Camera phones in Iraq; digicams and truth in wartime (BoingBoing)", now in "Wartime Wireless Worries Pentagon (Wired News)":

The Defense Department said it hasn't banned the devices [digital cameras, phonecams and wireless gadgets] and doesn't plan to -- as the Business Times of London and two wire services have reported. But the Pentagon is telling commanders in the field to strictly monitor the use of consumer wireless technology through Directive 8100.2 -- Use of Commercial Wireless Devices, Services and Technologies in the Department of Defense Global Information Grid -- issued last month.
[...]
In a nutshell, the directive tells all soldiers, contractors and visitors to Defense Department facilities that they can only carry wireless devices that conform to the military's security standards. These specify that the devices use strong authentication and encryption technologies whenever possible.
[...]
McClellan [Department of Defense spokesman Lt. Col. Ken McClellan] said commanders in the field haven't been told to use the directive to stamp out the use of the gadgets in Iraq. Instead, the directive is "general guidance" passed "along to the theater commanders, and they decide how to implement it in their own commands."
[...]
Chicago Tribune columnist Clarence Page chided the military's concern and called the devices "Weapons of Mass Photography" in a recent editorial , saying he believed every soldier should have a digital camera.
[...]
Mizuko Ito , a cultural anthropologist who researches phonecams, culture and law, said that while authorities can -- and probably will -- attempt to restrict the use of handheld digital-imaging devices in specific facilities, the technology is too ubiquitous for any broad attempts at prohibition to be effective.

"The cat's already out of the bag, but what's striking about what we're seeing now is that it's very unlike the top-down, Big Brother surveillance we normally associate with the idea of other people watching you," he said. "This is a bottom-up, 'little brother,' peer-to-peer type of surveillance [some link].

"My hope is that this will ultimately be a positive development, because powerful top-down institutions, like corporations or governments, won't be the only ones controlling the circulation of information."

Cameraphones... they can be "Weapons of Mass Disruption".

Swiss Surveillance Gadgets: Military Drones watch Citizens helter-skelter

Update to these stories (Sousveillance/Surveillance):

Swiss Army Forces are using military drones ADS 95 (original site; translated site) for the surveillance of their citizens, reported the New Zurich Newspaper (NZZ) from Switzerland in the Sunday Edition (translated).

Casually two men were arrested after smoking pot in a nearby wood. "But neither the darkness nor the forest offered protection to the men; the highly sensitive thermal image camera on board of the small drone saw it nevertheless." NZZ says that the military forces doing the radio control were about 18 miles away from the site of crime.

[via Indymedia in the translated version][Image Copyright here]

Roblogging and Roveillance™

You´re still sticking to moblogging? That was yesterday. Gone. Now we got Roblogging:

pt + "roblog": "Welcome to the world's first and only "roblog". currently, 2 sony aibo robot dogs, an er1 / tablet pc based robot post, and a roomba-tablet pc robot automatically to this site throughout the day, and once and awhile a human - phillip m. torrone - does as well. as always, the best way to predict the future is to invent it." He is mad about his automatic “moblog” picture posting machine.

How would Howard Rheingold call it? Steve Mann? These guys?

Mobveillance, equiveillance theory, coteveillance, coveillance... yesterday´s stuff.

As we see it: it´s related to surveillance, but it´s not a surveillance by third parties, it´s a personal induced surveillance with permission. It´s related to sousveillance, but it´s not watching third parties´ surveillance, it´s watching the people doing sousveillance; it´s some kind of retro activated sousveillance for enhanced surveillance. We call it Roveillance™. We have a new expression! Roveillance is the new medium of your choice for ClappingVeillance.

Phillip has also inventend the iShower: "so, in an effort to maximize my time, i was thinking that if i could waterproof a web cam, send the video and audio to my computer in the batroom and then get the audio back to the shower radio, i might have a good shower video conference system. so in stage one i am testing it out, the web cam is sealed up, and the audio is going okay. when i have time, i'll get the rest going. perhaps you want to tele-shower (shower with someone else across the globe). i'll need to work out the display component, but it's not a big deal. check out the first test."

A late adoptor generously explains: "Sometimes this variation of enhanced liquid reinverted sousveillance has been referred to as Showerveillance or Wetveillance in the literature. Armani Shower Gel Fragrance might sponsor this and Apple has added iShower to the product line." [The link is in your head]

WSD (World {Sousveillance, Subjectrights} Day)

[Click on an image to enlarge; Copyright@WSD]

Who wants to get involved what has been discussed superficially here ("Surveillance" and "Sousveillance": 1; 2; 3; 4) and what is happening practically: The World Sousveillance Day is a website with lots of infos and links.
[We are linked at WSD as "Critique": yes and no. We have a very great sympathy for your movement being absolutely necessary and indespensable, we just like to remind you to be careful with those "ClappingVeillance" and the late adaptors with their "I totally agree with your points and think they are very valuable" to boost their university career]

Again: Surveillance meets Sousveillance

As an Update to the ongoing Sousveillance ("inverted Surveillance") discussion (1; 2; 3) after the IWIS 2004 (International Workshop on Inverse Surveillance, 2004 April 12th) Howard Rheingold comes up with another article: "Inverse Surveillance" -- What We Should Do With All Those Phonecams".

What does Wikipedia tell us about Sousveillance? It says "Even today's personal sousveillance technologies like cameraphones and weblogs tend to build a sense of community, on contrast to surveillance that some have said is corrosive to community."

As we stated on April 24: "Naturally there are other opinions out there, esp. because of the self-perfoming of Mr. Mann. The term "Sousveillance" is on the Wikipedia list for deletion." This isn´t true anymore, meanwhile this entry - 10 days later - has been changed, it has been completely new written. All critical aspects have been removed.

Anyway, we are disappointed. Although all other sources are clapping their hands: what Howard Rheingold is writing in his article is absolutely nothing new. It´s just a repetition of what was published on the wallpaper of IWIS2004. Nothing more. That´s it.

Ridiculous. Steven Mann formerly - in his early years - was sometimes wrongfully treated like a charlatan, but now (in fact he did so the first time in late 2002) that Grandpa Howard Rheingold has said "You are granted to enter my church and religion" the fans and disciples are clapping their hands and cry HURRA - not because of Mann, not because of Rheingold, but because of what Rheingold is reporting about Mann. Kinda metaclapping (they would call it "ClappingVeillance" - we are watching if you´re clapping or not). We don´t blame Rheingold for this.

If you watch the past and discussion list, you´ ll find even more new phrases, terms and expressions: mobveillance by Mr. Moblogg himself, equiveillance theory, coteveillance or coveillance ("Sometimes this variation of sousveillance ("personal sousveillance") has been referred to as coteveillance or coveillance in the literature") and so on and on. Now all the late adoptors appear with "I totally agree with your points and think they are very valuable" advising us to buy their new book and to follow their new "prototype ideas".

It´s becoming an endless discussion. It´s like two pals sitting together. One says, "Let´s invent a new expression, a new term, a new phrase. I´ll invent it. Later I´ll add some content, impact and meaning to it, somehow hazy, blurred, fuzzy. You are the one to write about it. At that point it can´t be ignored anymore. Then, at a certain point, we will have a movement, an agitation. People will start to believe what we say and what you report. It´s a cycle of self referring one to each other. We will have meetings and conferences. You continue to report. Then the cash comes in. In the end inventing an expression is money. The cash cycle starts. We´ve done."

This reminds us of what Schopenhauer said about Hegel and Kant more in general: "Experiences without terms are blind, terms without experiences are empty and blank ("Anschauungen ohne Begriffe sind blind, Begriffe ohne Anschauungen leer ").

Make up your mind yourself, these are some other links: 1; 2, Techdirt Wireless where Mike Masnick adds simple at the end: "The content has already been published. " [The Connected Camera Fights Back: "Every time someone trashes the idea of camera phones because the camera quality sucks, we try to point out that the amazing thing about a camera phone isn't in how it compares to a regular camera, but the fact that camera is connected . Howard Rheingold makes the point especially clear in his latest column for TheFeature, pointing out that one way to fight back against the ubiquitous surveillance cameras all around is to do some "inverse surveillance" with camera phones back at official misdeeds . He makes the point that in the past, when an abuse of power was happening by the police or other authorities, one of the first things they would try to do is to confiscate and/or destroy cameras that witnessed the event. However, if the camera is connected and streaming the images onto the internet in real-time, it doesn't do much good to confiscate the camera. The content has already been published."]; 3; 4; 5.

Personal Surveillance Devices

After talking about Inverse Surveillance (Sousveillance) with camera phones we have a small update by Paul Knight of the North Texas Daily: "Lecture cover camera´s effect on world culture".

[quote]

Thomas Levin, Princeton University professor, lectured on the progression of surveillance and its influence on pop culture. He talked about the proliferation of "personal surveillance devices," or camera phones, and how they are affecting the world. Pictures taken with a soldier's camera phone of Saddam Hussein being captured were shown to illustrate the point.

"It's the fantasy of immediate access to any spot on the globe," Levin said.

He talked about "panopticism," the idea that someone will not do something because of the fear of being watched.
...
Levin showed one artist that took his family to an automatic teller machine, got a printout of the ATM surveillance picture and used it as a family portrait. Another artist used a surveillance photo as a wedding picture.
...
Levin ended with, "At the degree to which public space is being colonized by surveillance, we can not afford to be unaware of the information that is being taken from us and how to control it."

[unquote]

A reader (activist of the Surveillance Camera Players, NYC) responded "Levin's politics are very weak, almost non-existent. Awareness of surveillance isn't enough: political and social action is necessary, and immediately."

[Read the full article]