Big Brother expands it's surveillance of you

[billcoe]

Heads up. Via a secret program, the Forest Service has instituted security surveillance monitoring via secret hidden cameras of all of the thousands and thousands of national roads controlled by the Forest Service.

 

Moral? The government has way too much money and power and needs to be defunded, meantime, don't be poaching the Kings lines?

 

[Pilchuck71]

Evidence?

Links?

 

A buddy of mine recently got a summons to appear in court regarding a trespassing charge pertaining to activity near the Lake Champlain (sp) water shed near Granite Falls. He talked to the prosecuting attorneys office and went in for a visit disputing the charge. They showed him a photo of he and his dog walking down the road near the water shed. The case was dropped as the road is within public access rights.

 

The moral of the story - there are cameras out there.

[Crillz]

Just because you pay taxes for public land use, don't actually mean you can use the land .

 

You might be surprised. I'm doing contract work for the Feds in downtown Seattle - some scary shizzle going on. Some big bucks are being spent.

[mountainsloth]

ugh....

WTF!

[tomtom]

That's great news. Now you can go online and check real time road conditions at

 

www.USFS.gov

[tvashtarkatena]

Before you burn your fingertips furiously writing your congressmen...

 

This story grew from a single incident of finding a single surveillance camera used pursuant to a law enforcement investigation in that area. The camera was battery operated and not anchored to anything; it was there for a limited time and for a specific purpose, not as part of the execution of a new policy.

 

This issue appears to be more web myth than reality, but government surveillance and the erosion of privacy remains a very real issue. Here's a link for anyone wanting to know more about or become involved with more vetted issues within our state:

 

Technology and Liberty Project

 

 

[G-spotter]

Why would they place fixed cameras when thy can just fly drones like they are doing along the border?

[tvashtarkatena]

Law enforcement has been trying to fly drones over urban areas for general surveillance for a few years, now. The FAA won't let them. Drones are a huge privacy issue, especially when there are experimental, battery powered, video equipped drones that weigh all of 3 grams now.

[Water]

If you're really worried about surveillance aren't there intelligence satellites that can pretty well track you at will and determine if you've shaved that morning or not?

 

the idea that there is a host or network of cameras throughout forest service roads in the west of ludicrous. I bet there are targeted operations in places where there has been crime/grow ops/poaching. If you think there is some secret backwoods monitoring going on, what nefarious operation do you suspect they are hoping to catch given they can't seem to secure trailheads enough to prevent vehicles from getting broken into (where a single decent resolution camera would be able to record the plates of any vehicle that came to prowl/get shots of the perps).

[tvashtarkatena]

Studies in the UK, which has more surveillance cameras per capita than anywhere else in the world, and the US, reveal that public video surveillance has little to no effect on crime. The reasons are probably not knowable, but it might be that the miscreants correctly assume that no one is watching, and therefore no one will respond. Law enforcement clearly loves video cameras, given the epidemic of installations around the country going on right now, but they are essentially a waste of money. Cutting public budgets to get rid of specific policies is not a very predictable way to stop such policies. Bolstering privacy laws would prove far more effective and long lasting.

[tomtom]

cc.com is a tool of the government.

[G-spotter]

Law enforcement has been trying to fly drones over urban areas for general surveillance for a few years, now. The FAA won't let them. Drones are a huge privacy issue, especially when there are experimental, battery powered, video equipped drones that weigh all of 3 grams now.

 

Which FS roads are not...

 

Drones are pretty cheap now. I read somewhere about a reindeer study on Svalbard where there were 6 teams of scientists from 5 nations and each team had a couple drones on the budget for following the reindeer around. If grad students can afford them, well, they must be pretty fucking cheap.

[billcoe]

My personal story is this: Just last month (feb), weeks ago, I was up hiking solo with my 2 dawgs into a remote new climbing area to look around and see what winter looked like up there. (Wanted to see if the ice was phat for John Frieh, there was ice alright but it was thin, mostly just wanted to get out there someplace on an otherwise marginal weather day). I came driving out on the single lane dirt road and bumped into an forest service patrol vehical coming my way....something I find new, strange, unneeded and unwelcome. I pulled over to a pullout and waved the hello greeting and it turns out that I did know one of the guys and we rolled out windows down and did the "hail fellow well met" thing, he gets out, Glock on hip and leans in the window.....just talked bullshit and what was up, happy to see each other. He works for another Federal police agency but was doing a "ride along" thinking he might go work for the Forest Service police.

 

I thought it strange they were patrolling on a dirt road so far into the woods, at a time of year that few folks were out there, I figured they were looking for something specifically. Nope: later I heard from the guy that it was just a routine patrol, but that ALL of the Forest Service roads had these hidden cameras installed. All of them. Evidently it's usually close to where they start. He says "Don't bother looking, you'll never find them, LOL".

 

I did a google search and saw nothing about anything like this, and was wondering if I might have been the subject of a joke by my buddy. I couldn't find anything searching for all kinds of different terms: "Forest Service installing surveillance cameras", or spy cameras on dirt roads", or "hidden police cameras in the woods" kind of thing anywhere.

 

Yesterday I got an e-mail from the Western States lands Coalition http://www.westernslopenofee.org/ with the news story dated Mar 12th 2010 that the first camera was just found, also in February. Check out the location! East Coast. Remember that I'm in Oregon on a Forest Service road having this discussion with my buddy.

 

Full link followed by full text:

http://www.postandcourier.com/news/2010/mar/16/francis-marion-has-hidden-cameras/

 

"Hidden cameras - Forest Service says devices used for law enforcement

By Tony Bartelme

The Post and Courier

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

 

 

Last month, Herman Jacob took his daughter and her friend camping in the Francis Marion National Forest. While poking around for some firewood, Jacob noticed a wire. He pulled the wire and followed it to a video camera and antenna.

 

The camera didn't have any markings identifying its owner, so Jacob took it home and called law enforcement agencies to find out if it was theirs, all the while wondering why someone would station a video camera in an isolated clearing in the woods.

 

Herman Jacob squats next to a stump and log in the Francis Marion National Forest where he found a video camera buried and pointing toward a camping site (background) where he and his daughter were camping. Jacob was looking for firewood when he across the camera that was put there by the Forest Service.

Photo by Brad Nettles

 

Provided/Herman Jacob

Herman Jacob found this motion-activated camera in a primitive campsite in the Francis Marion National Forest.

 

He eventually received a call from Mark Heitzman of the U.S. Forest Service. In a stiff voice, Heitzman ordered Jacob to turn it back over to his agency, explaining that it had been set up to monitor "illicit activities." Jacob returned the camera but felt uneasy.

 

Why, he wondered, would the Forest Service have secret cameras in a relatively remote camping area? What do they do with photos of bystanders? How many hidden cameras are they using, and for what purposes? Is this surveillance in the forest an effective law enforcement tool? And what are our expectations of privacy when we camp on public land?

 

Officials with the Forest Service were hardly forthcoming with answers to these and other questions about their surveillance cameras. When contacted about the incident, Heitzman said "no comment" and referred other questions to Forest Service's public affairs, who he said, "won't know anything about it."

 

Heather Frebe, public affairs officer with the Forest Service in Atlanta, told Watchdog that the camera was part of a law enforcement investigation, but she declined to provide any of the investigation's details.

 

Asked how cameras are used in general, how many are routinely deployed throughout the Forest and about the agency's policies, Frebe also declined to discuss specifics. She said that surveillance cameras have been used for "numerous years" to provide for public safety and to protect the natural resources of the forest. Without elaborating, she said images of people who are not targets of an investigation are "not kept."

 

In addition, when asked whether surveillance cameras had led to any arrests, she did not provide an example, saying in an e-mail statement: "Our officers use a variety of techniques to apprehend individuals who break laws on the national forest."

 

 

Video surveillance, of course, is nothing new, and the courts have addressed the issue numerous times in recent decades. The Fourth Amendment guards against unreasonable searches and seizures, and over time the courts have created a body of law that defines what's reasonable, though this has become more challenging as surveillance cameras became smaller and more advanced.

 

In general, the courts have held that people typically have no reasonable level of privacy in public places, such as banks, streets, open fields in plain view, and on public lands, such as National Parks and National Forests. In various cases, judges ruled that a video camera is effectively an extension of a law enforcement officer's eyes and ears. In other words, if an officer can eyeball a campground in person, it's OK to station a video camera in his or her place.

 

Jacob said he understands that law enforcement officials have a job to do but questioned whether stationing hidden cameras outweighed his and his children's privacy rights. He said the camp site they went to -- off a section of the Palmetto Trail on U.S. Highway 52 north of Moncks Corner -- was primitive and marked only by a metal rod and a small wooden stand for brochures. He didn't recall seeing any signs saying that the area was under surveillance.

 

After he found the camera, he plugged the model number, PV-700, into his Blackberry, and his first hit on Google was a Web site offering a "law enforcement grade" motion-activated video camera for about $500. He called law enforcement agencies in the area, looking for its owner, and later got a call from Heitzman, an agent with the National Forest Service.

 

"He sounded all bent out of shape that I had his camera," Jacob recalled. He asked Heitzman about the camera's purpose. When Heitzman told him that illegal activities were taking place in the area, Jacob said he asked whether it was safe to camp there. He said that Heitzman reassured him that it was. Jacob said he later wondered why the Forest Service would set up a camera in an area they considered safe. "Now, I'm wondering how many campsites they're monitoring?" He phoned Charleston attorney Tim Kulp for advice.

 

 

 

 

Kulp said the Forest Service's failure to explain what they're doing in the forest raises important privacy questions. "What's the goal here?" He said the Forest Service also needs to address what they do with images of people who aren't targets of any investigation, particularly of children.

 

Kulp said people generally are willing to give up their privacy if it means protection from harm but not if law enforcement officials are merely cracking down on petty offenses.

 

He added that people's expectations of privacy in a remote area in the National Forest are different than other public spaces. "You're not going to go to the bathroom in the parking lot of Walmart, but you're not going to think twice in the forest." Both are public spaces, he said, but most people likely would expect to have more privacy in the forest."

____________________________________________________________

 

That's the end of the news story. For myself, I'm sadly beginning to feel more like it's an "us against them" thing. I served my county and I'm an honorably discharged veteran. I consider myself hardworking honest and patriotic. Yet I have to tell you, my own government utilizing all these resources to be needlessly spying on me and expanding it's powers for no apparent reason is shockingly unsettling and disturbing. Somehow, we don't have the resources to keep murderers, rapists and thieves in jail, but we have the funds to do this expensive monitoring? We can't keep illegals out from Mexico but we can spend millions or perhaps billions of uncharted and secret dollars to monitor all these dead end dirt roads in the middle of nowhere frequented primarily by honest citizens? It's total bullshit and I find it very, very, disturbing.

 

[needtoclimb]

Correction: Politicians love video cameras. That way they can say, "hey look, we are doing something about crime" without really doing anything about crime.

[tvashtarkatena]

Processing power is pretty cheap now, and, according to Moore's Law, it continues to get cheaper. Today's high end professional work station processor will go for about 4 cents by 2020. You'll have full surveillance capable, wireless, networked Happy Meal toys available for give aways by then.

 

Our government has spent many billions of dollars tracking as many aspects of our lives as it can...soon that will be every aspect of our lives. If people are cool with that, OK. If not, instituting stronger privacy laws and policies to control the use of inevitably more powerful and affordable technologies will need to be enacted. The more expensive the installed base of surveillance equipment, the harder that's going to be to do. We should limit what information can be collected, why (probable cause comes to mind), by whom, and what happens to the information once its in government hands. Right now, we don't in any substantive way.

Edited March 19, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[Hugh Conway]

time for a tinfoil joke?

[G-spotter]

Surveillance technology is not going away. But why not make it equal? Throw a couple hundred cams in the White House, the Pentagon etc with a free public channel visible to all

[rob]

OMG. SEKRET PROGRAMS!!! They must have an army of low-paid employees to install & monitor these hundreds of thousands of cameras. I bet they're deaf mutes, so they can't spill the beans. There is probably an ARMY of deaf-mutes working for this program. Maybe that's where all the missing children are ending up!!!

 

I wonder why your friend is so willing to spill government secrets with a civilian, and to do so in such a flippant manner? I'm concerned. I feel like I should notify the government that they have security leaks!!!! What's his name?

Edited March 19, 2010 by rob

[tvashtarkatena]

my own government utilizing all these resources to be spying on me is deeply unsettling and disturbing.

 

Duly noted. Now what are you, personally, going to do about it? How will you personally exercise your political power in a focused way? You might consider an appropriate donation to one of the very few organizations who is effectively monitoring and acting upon government surveillance.

[pdk]

I'd like to know my rights if I find one - if it's unmarked like the one that guy found, can I legally keep it? How do I distinguish an unmarked camera owned by the FS from some random pervert's?

 

I'm thinking free cameras are lying in the woods just waiting for us to find them!

[Water]

meh, many americans do a fine job self-reporting all aspects of their lives now that we use computers constantly. I imagine a generation or two and everyone will have their own live video feed going 24/7

 

i think i'll buy a metal detector and get cracking on my new hobby. look for my ebay store with pv-700s for cheap. Personally I think your friend is full of it, there are something like 350k miles of FS roads. hey maybe i'm wrong but these are motion activated battery or solar powered? harvesting and actually organizing/utilizing the data would be interesting.. seems like sending out 10,000 recording probes into every direction in space with no broadcast capabilities.

 

yeah your friend really spilled the beans! hope they don't shut down cc.com. or was this a psy-ops to get some anti-camera people out of the woodwork? does anyone have a tinfoil hat that comes with sedatives..i would be able to fall asleep better that way.

[tvashtarkatena]

meh, many americans do a fine job self-reporting all aspects of their lives now that we use computers constantly. I imagine a generation or two and everyone will have their own live video feed going 24/7

 

 

The same could have been said when the telephone was invented. Using communications technology, a necessary part of modern life, need not equate with sharing our communications with anyone who cares to monitor it, regardless of how often the owners of Google and Facebook tell us otherwise (and they certainly do as often as possible).

 

Your privacy and the privacy of those you communicate with electronically is of little apparent value to you; that's your choice, but you're making a few assumptions and decisions for your social network that I'm not sure they'd agree with unanimously. There's usually more than one party involved in any communication. Some of the rest of us place a bit more value on our privacy. We question why the government, or private entities, should feel that they can invade it anytime and for any reason.

Edited March 19, 2010 by tvashtarkatena

[Water]

no, don't get me wrong. I don't twitter or make facebook updates and i have my whatever privacy settings i can near the maximum restrictions.

 

I was musing about the multitudes who willfully self-report down to the most inane detail. Those who putting a camera on them would be redundant. There are a lot of them!

[billcoe]

I'd like to know my rights if I find one - if it's unmarked like the one that guy found, can I legally keep it? How do I distinguish an unmarked camera owned by the FS from some random pervert's?

 

I'm thinking free cameras are lying in the woods just waiting for us to find them!

 

LOL! Donnie, I suspect that beyond being real difficult to ferret out: much like a cell phone, they may have location chips in them. Unless marked otherwise (like Gov't property), I suppose that it's much like picking up trash, and that's not illegal to do, while littering, like laying this all over the woods. I suppose that if you walked the first half mile of the edge of any branch road, you'd have a high probability being in the vicinity. Not that you could find one of these with some kind of electronic detection device.

 

I was wondering how they transmit the images. Up to a satellite or over a cell network? A quick search of the PV-700 noted in the story doesn't really get to the technology behind this IMO.

[Water]

is there a secret cell network that allows cameras to transmit from low areas under tree cover where no person could hope to get a cell signal?

 

jeeez how deep does this go??? They must have some fancy stuff going to get the cameras to only take pictures of humans and cars! They must have notified the elk, bear, and deer not to loiter around or travel through the surveillance areas.