Thursday, July 31, 2008

NYPD Let You Upload Videos of Crimes. Book It.

I spent the better part of the day traveling to New York City today and I had the chance to flip through Wikinomics, an uneven book about that attempt to lay out the argument for collaborative teams in business.

Unlike traditional business books, though, Wikinomics -- like The World is Flat and The Wisdow of Crowds -- argues that the most successful businesses will ultimately open their doors to their customers. That means giving over control and power.

I bring this up because the New York Police Department has set up a system to allow citizens to upload videos of crimes.

Let's forget for just a second the implications this has for our society (for instance, what if I just decided to follow YOU around for a week, uploading videos; is that harassment? is that legal? what recourse do you have?), the idea of this is amazing. A 24-hour panipticon authorized and run by us to track us.

It's wickedly awesome to think about, which is exactly what our friends at the ACLU do:

Donna Lieberman, executive director of the New York Civil Liberties Union said, "I think that while it's appropriate for the police department to invite video reports of wrong doing both by ordinary people and police officers, the New York Police Department has a long way to go to ensure that police officers who engage in wrongdoing like what was captured in the two video tapes that were recently disclosed are held accountable."

Of course, we live in a YouTube world with mobile phones that have instant upload capabilities. We live in this world already. The fact that the police are using it -- in theory, mind you -- for an instrument to make the streets a little safer, I say more power to them.

Posted By Brad at 06:32 PM
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