Comments on: Big Brother, Your Friendly Next-Door Neighbor

By: RLM

RLM — Thu, 13 Jul 2006 19:58:10 +0000

Many thanks for enclosing this City Paper article, Adam! I am wholly agree with you about the nightmarish nanny-state cameras and their behavior modifications. Kinda scary and freakish!

The presence of security guards always bring real humanity like interacting with residents or help out them whether emergency situation occurs. I once ask my former Thomas Circle apartment complex’s security guard to call the ambulance for me because I couldn’t bend down myself to make TTY call (low back sprain). Thank goodness for the presence of security guard! Security guards could be your best friends or worst enemy! They usually help me with the inside information about apartment management or I would not know what is going on with the apartment complex or management. Human presence still is truly part of daily necessity.

Security guards would be more effective about dealing with different personalities (residents) than the “Big Brother” system. Those guards would greet me at the door unlike the impersonable cameras. How can I hear the intercom?

The installation of high-tech survilleances in Great Britian did not prevent last year’s bombings of buses and subway trains. That country done for more than 20 years of high-tech survilleance which could not deter any act of terrorism in the first place! Look at the latest National Mall muggings and sexual assaults! The presence of Park Police officers would prevent this kind of incident in the first place!

Remmy ‘HAL 4500″ the sinister computer survilleance from the “Space Odyssey 2001″ 60s film?? The remaining survivors managed to outfox the so-called perfect artifical survilleance whose was a control freak.

Many people believed that the “HAL 4500″ computer was homosexual! Good riddance for some people imagine about the artifical existence having sexual orientation.

If you watch this 60s film again and look for the ‘HAL 4500″’s panty relationship with the last remaining survivor. It asked the survivor to come closer to the camera eye and want to see what this person look like in a close-up. In the end, ‘HAL 4500″ went beserk.

That would be a perfect warning for the nanny-state cameras! No one could replace humanity with cold and calacuting artificial existence. Humans will find some way to beat the high-tech system anyway! The animal kingdom, too! Animals are not really dumb and have survival instincts!

Robert L. Mason (RLM)

By: Jt

Jt — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 14:40:51 +0000

Jason Bourne, you wrote:
Noelle, people like JT don’t like to think on their own so they need others to tell JT what to think, what to say.

Actually, Noelle may not know it- but I agree with her on many other things- I had seen this as just being one of the few topics on which we didn’t see eye-to-eye. After all, I’ve always had strong feelings about the misguided paranoia regarding privacy issues. Based on my own life experiences, which probably were different from yours. Not that there’s anything wrong with taking a different stand, as long as you know it’s true to your own beliefs. But now that you put it this way, I have but to realize how right you are. My thoughts are indeed dominated by the actions of others; namely, that of my 15-year-old daughter! For the sake of preserving this oft-named-but-rarely-reliable slippery slope argument, I will sign off so that I can go and ask my daughter what she thinks I should wear for work today.

By: I'll miss ya, Bill of Rights.

I'll miss ya, Bill of Rights. — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 05:30:38 +0000

Thank you, Jason, for articulating what is so upsetting about this situation. It’s a slippery slope. Once we say OK to something small, it snowballs. Before much longer, we’ll be in an Orwellian country. The founding fathers are surely turning over in their graves, thanks to people who are so willing to surrender civil liberties all in the name of safety. Who decides what is safe? Who decides what is acceptable? ‘Tis dangerous when we allow the government and big business to draw the lines for us.

By: A Policy Wonk

A Policy Wonk — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 05:25:58 +0000

Thank you, Alli… I was waiting for someone to bring up the notion that a “loiterer” could be deaf. If someone “barks out” a command to leave, and the person is deaf and doesn’t understand, much less hear it… what happens? Red and blue lights come merrily down the street?

*kinda amused* that no one else mentioned this.

By: Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:57:29 +0000

Funny, many people ask the Bush Admin the same question and yet they yelled at top of their lungs: “State Secrets!” “State Secrets!” If they’re doing nothing wrong, why don’t they just quit using those stupid excuses and reveal everything to get over it?

Or are you giving me the same sh**, “State Secrets!” as they did to people? And no, you’re wrong. It’s only conservatvies who decided to be bed-wetters and give up their liberities that the Founding Fathers fought so hard to give us. Many people beside bed-wetters prefer the liberities and refuse to accept that there is no privacy.

Bed-wetters should’ve known better but they choose to not. “Ignorance is strength” is perfect example of bed-wetters, seriously.

Founding Fathers are weeping for you all.

By: Jason Bourne

Jason Bourne — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:44:47 +0000

Noelle, people like JT don’t like to think on their own so they need others to tell JT what to think, what to say.

That’s Orwell’s 1984 for you.

I finally understand why Rome fell and how Germany became fascism under Hitler’s iron hand. America is making the same mistakes as Rome and others did in the past, sadly. Heck, even a well-respected conservative, John Dean, warned about the Bush Admin and far right fascist-like conservatives which is driving Republic America into Fascist/Authoritarian America. To Founding Fathers/Republic/Constitution: farewell and it’s great to know you all.

“Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it” - George Santayana

Indeedy.

By: Alli

Alli — Wed, 12 Jul 2006 01:07:13 +0000

I think Christian has a point that many people here aren’t really absorbing — Big Brother has been around for quite a while, and privacy is only a relative term. (Besides, those are common areas under surveillance, not necessarily individual units.)

But I also think — and correct me if I’m wrong — that Adam isn’t reacting as strongly to the camera as he is to the juxtaposition of that and the one-way system. Seems to me he wouldn’t object as much if it were a two-way system.

On another note… am wondering what good that one-way intercom would do for a deaf resident. ;-)

By: Jt

Jt — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:48:50 +0000

Why should exceptions be made for those who depend on federal housing vouchers? Even those who don’t have such dependency issues would have a hard time finding new places to live for separate reasons.

Point is, some people don’t mind. If they don’t mind, great. If they do mind, then they can move. But don’t use the personal situation of those renters as an excuse; any landlords in any type of commodities can easily make similar decisions.

By: Jt

Jt — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:26:49 +0000

Yes, I would be fine with this, Noelle. I think I already made this clear the first time I responded, anyway.

By: Safe, not sorry

Safe, not sorry — Tue, 11 Jul 2006 20:25:38 +0000

Noelle, in your situation, it’s acceptable for you to sit outside and socialize with the neighbors because drugs and crime aren’t a problem in your area. That’s not the case at the Faircliff at all. It has a history of drugs and crime, and the increased security is necessary. The article mentioned that the cameras and intercoms are used where they are most needed, not everywhere. Certainly it’s great for elderly people to socialize, and the ones at Faircliff can invite people inside, keep their doors open, telephone each other, or go to the community center. They have options, no one is saying they have to stay indoors like a jail. For 99% of other apartment complexes, there is really no problem doing things outside, and that should continue. It’s only a problem at the Faircliff, and just because it’s a problem there does not mean that every other place has a need to install them, or that civil rights are going down the drain.