摄像头时代的是与非
Keith Proctor | 2013-05-02 12:58
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[译文]
Video surveillance is big business. Expect it to get bigger. After law enforcement used closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to help identify last week's Boston bombing suspects, lawmakers and surveillance advocates renewed calls for increased numbers of cameras nationwide.
"We need more cameras, and we need them now," ran a Slate headline.
Rep. Peter King (R-NY) agrees. In an interview the day after the bombings with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, he called for more video surveillance so that we can "stay ahead of the terrorists."
"So yes, I do favor more cameras," said King, who sits on the U.S. House Homeland Security and Intelligence committees and has also called for increased monitoring of Muslim Americans."They're a great law enforcement method and device. And again, it keeps us ahead of the terrorists, who are constantly trying to kill us."
Law enforcement officials in New York are almost certain to oblige. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly wants to "increase significantly" the amount of surveillance equipment in Manhattan, which already has one of the country's most robust systems.
The argument for greater surveillance is straightforward. Horrible events in places like Boston remind us that we're vulnerable. The best way to limit events like last week's bombings, the argument goes, is to accept 24-hour surveillance in public spaces. And when you see someone maimed by bomb shrapnel, privacy concerns sound coldly abstract.
No amount of security can completely eliminate risk, so it's difficult to know where to draw the line. Are 10,000 cameras really twice as good as 5,000? In tragedy's aftermath, it can be tough to have a serious conversation about how much to invest. But when the goal is to push risk as close to zero as possible, spending can asymptotically stretch into infinity.
Bigger than TARP and the New Deal
The U.S. is no stranger to this dilemma. In response to security concerns after 9/11, Americans witnessed the growth of a massive domestic security apparatus, fueled by federal largesse. According to Tomdispatch's Mattea Kramer and Chris Heilman, post-9/11 federal spending on homeland security exceeds $790 billion. That's larger than TARP and, when adjusted for inflation, the New Deal.
Exactly how much the U.S. has spent on domestic surveillance is murky. Municipalities aren't particularly keen on sharing how many cameras they've installed. And homeland security grant funding, in many cases, does not require a line-item accounting of how cities have used federal funds.
Nevertheless, U.S. investment has helped fuel the growth of a global video surveillance industry. According to a 2011 report by Electronics.ca Publications, a market research firm, the video surveillance market was slated to grow from $11.5 billion in 2008 to $37.5 billion in 2015.
The post-9/11 investment legacy is apparent in the near-ubiquitous presence of law enforcement CCTV cameras. For instance, New York City has more than 4,000 cameras in Manhattan alone, according to the ACLU. Chicago's linked public and private security cameras number around 10,000. But based on international comparisons, there's still a lot of room for U.S. surveillance to grow. In London -- the Xanadu of winking, digital eyes -- surveillance cameras total an estimated half-million.
In recent years, however, the spigot of U.S. federal funding for state and local security has tightened. Homeland security grants earmarked for states dropped from $2 billion in 2003 to $294 million last year. With federal budget sequestration coming into effect, those funds may be further squeezed.
Rep. King fretted at the lack of federal commitment. The war against terror is not over, he told MSNBC. "And it's foolhardy to be making cuts in Homeland Security...."
Critics say too much of the money has been directed to small states and that grant programs lack suitable oversight. Too much money, they say, has been frittered away.
Indeed, in the years after 9/11, some expenditures were spectacularly brainless. An Indiana county used its $300,000 Electronic Emergency Message Boards -- to be used solely to alert the community of, you know, emergencies -- to advertise the volunteer fire department's fish fry. Western Michigan counties used homeland security dollars to purchase 13 $900 Sno-Cone machines.
Plenty of eyes. What about brains?
Waste aside, the question is whether surveillance investment can actually make Americans safer. When the Boston bombing suspects appeared on CCTV footage, some commentators saw it as evidence of the value of dense surveillance.
Except Boston is not a heavily surveiled city. Compared to New York or Chicago, it's a fly-weight, and lacks the centralized, government-coordinated surveillance systems of other urban areas. As detailed in a December 2011 report released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts, there are at least 55 law-enforcement cameras in Boston, 92 in surrounding cities, and approximately 600 in the metro system. Last year, Massachusetts received only $4 million in state homeland security grants. In per capita terms, it ranked 34th in the country in homeland security grant spending.
Yet in the aftermath of the Marathon bombings, residents and law enforcement responded valiantly. A range of surveillance methods were used: public and private CCTV cameras, cell phone cameras, eye witnesses. The suspects were quickly identified, and killed or apprehended. If Boston had twice as many cameras, or 10 times as many, would the suspects have been identified more quickly? Would a larger, more centralized surveillance system have deterred them? Perhaps most importantly, would law enforcement have been able to prevent the bombs from going off in the first place?
According to critics of surveillance, cameras aid investigation and apprehension in the aftermath, not the prevention, of acts of terrorism. In London, which Rudy Giuliani called the "Hollywood studio" of surveillance, cameras played an instrumental role in quickly identifying the 7/7 bombers. Sadly, it was only after the fact.
"What we saw in Boston largely confirmed what we already knew," said Ben Wizner, Director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. "Cameras are ineffective at the prevention and deterrence of serious crime. They can be very effective at solving crime."
'Minority Report,' here we come
Advocates of surveillance point to advancements in technology as proof that cameras will, in the future, enhance response and assist prevention. Leaders of video surveillance -- companies like Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Northrop Grumman (NOC) -- are shifting the industry from analog to digital, and into the uncanny, science-fiction realm of smart cameras.
The future of surveillance is "video analytics," where computers will automatically analyze camera feeds to count people, register temperature changes, and, via statistical algorithms, identify suspicious behavior. No technicians required. Up to this point, surveillance has been limited by personnel: for surveillance to be useful in real-time, someone has to keep an eye on all those CCTV feeds.
And there's growing demand. A ReportsNReports analysis estimated the size of the smart surveillance and video analytics global market at $13.5 billion in 2012; it's expected to reach $39 billion by 2020.
The promise of video analytics has been oversold in the past. And yet the move toward increasingly elaborate -- and concentrated -- urban surveillance seems inevitable.
Don't expect much public opposition, either. While American aversion to the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) blunted efforts to employ surveillance drones domestically, Americans seem less bothered by security cameras. They haven't been used as high-profile tools to kill foreigners on the other side of the world. Domestic drone use feels like the government is pointing its weapons at us. Cameras are permissible because they're banal.
And, in fact, they're already here. By the thousands. There will be thousands more.
视频监控是门大生意，而且还会变得更大。执法部门使用闭路电视（CCTV）摄像机确认了上周波士顿爆炸案的犯罪嫌疑人之后，国会议员和监控措施支持者再次呼吁在全美各地增加摄像头的数量。 “我们需要更多的摄像头，现在就需要，”《石板》杂志（Slate）一篇报道的标题写到。 纽约州共和党众议员彼得•金对此深以为然。他在爆炸案发生后接受MSNBC广播公司记者安德里亚•米切尔采访时强烈呼吁加大视频监控，唯如此，我们才能“比恐怖分子先行一步。” 他说：“是的，我非常赞同增加摄像机的提议。”身为美国众议院国土安全和情报委员会委员的彼得•金还呼吁加强对美国穆斯林的监控力度。“这些装备是了不起的执法手段。我再次强调，视频监控可以让我们掌握先机，比恐怖分子先行一步。这些家伙时时刻刻都在寻思着要我们的命。” 几乎可以肯定的是，纽约市的执法官员非常愿意帮这个忙。纽约市警察局（NYPD）局长雷•凯利希望“显著增加”曼哈顿的监视设备数量。曼哈顿现在已经是美国监控体系最完善的地区之一。 赞成加强监控的观点直截了当，显而易见。波士顿等地发生的恐怖事件警示我们，我们其实很容易受到伤害，非常脆弱。这种观点认为，遏制爆炸案这类恐怖事件的最佳方式就是在公共场所实施24小时监控。看到有人被炸弹弹片致残那一幕时，所谓的隐私问题听起来是那么地冰冷而抽象。 当然，再多的安保措施也无法彻底消除风险，因此我们很难知道合理的界限究竟在哪里。10,000个摄像头的安保效果真的就比5,000个摄像头好两倍吗？现在，悲剧的余波还未完全散尽，我们很难就安保投资额度究竟应该有多大这个问题展开一场严肃的讨论。但是，一旦防范目标变成尽可能地把风险降低到趋于零时，相关开支就有可能渐渐扩大到无穷大。 比不良资产救助计划和新政的规模还要大 美国对于这种困境并不陌生。为了响应911事件后美国人对安全的关切，联邦政府慷慨地打开了钱袋，一个庞大的国内安全体系由此产生。根据玛蒂亚•克雷默和克里斯•海尔曼发布在Tomdispatch网的报道，911事件后，联邦政府用于国土安全的开支超过了7,900亿美元，规模比不良资产救助计划（TARP）和剔除通胀因素后的罗斯福新政（New Deal）还要庞大。 我们无法获悉美国国内监控开支的确切数据。市政当局不是特别乐意公开已经安装的摄像头数量。许多情况下，国土安全补助计划并不要求各大城市提供它们各自运用联邦资金的明细开支。 尽管如此，美国的投资已经带动全球视频监控行业强势增长。根据市场研究机构Electronics.ca Publications 于2011年发布的一份报告，到2015年，视频监控市场的规模预计将从2008年的115亿美元增长至375亿美元。 | Video surveillance is big business. Expect it to get bigger. After law enforcement used closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras to help identify last week's Boston bombing suspects, lawmakers and surveillance advocates renewed calls for increased numbers of cameras nationwide. "We need more cameras, and we need them now," ran a Slate headline. Rep. Peter King (R-NY) agrees. In an interview the day after the bombings with MSNBC's Andrea Mitchell, he called for more video surveillance so that we can "stay ahead of the terrorists." "So yes, I do favor more cameras," said King, who sits on the U.S. House Homeland Security and Intelligence committees and has also called for increased monitoring of Muslim Americans."They're a great law enforcement method and device. And again, it keeps us ahead of the terrorists, who are constantly trying to kill us." Law enforcement officials in New York are almost certain to oblige. NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly wants to "increase significantly" the amount of surveillance equipment in Manhattan, which already has one of the country's most robust systems. The argument for greater surveillance is straightforward. Horrible events in places like Boston remind us that we're vulnerable. The best way to limit events like last week's bombings, the argument goes, is to accept 24-hour surveillance in public spaces. And when you see someone maimed by bomb shrapnel, privacy concerns sound coldly abstract. No amount of security can completely eliminate risk, so it's difficult to know where to draw the line. Are 10,000 cameras really twice as good as 5,000? In tragedy's aftermath, it can be tough to have a serious conversation about how much to invest. But when the goal is to push risk as close to zero as possible, spending can asymptotically stretch into infinity. Bigger than TARP and the New Deal The U.S. is no stranger to this dilemma. In response to security concerns after 9/11, Americans witnessed the growth of a massive domestic security apparatus, fueled by federal largesse. According to Tomdispatch's Mattea Kramer and Chris Heilman, post-9/11 federal spending on homeland security exceeds $790 billion. That's larger than TARP and, when adjusted for inflation, the New Deal. Exactly how much the U.S. has spent on domestic surveillance is murky. Municipalities aren't particularly keen on sharing how many cameras they've installed. And homeland security grant funding, in many cases, does not require a line-item accounting of how cities have used federal funds. Nevertheless, U.S. investment has helped fuel the growth of a global video surveillance industry. According to a 2011 report by Electronics.ca Publications, a market research firm, the video surveillance market was slated to grow from $11.5 billion in 2008 to $37.5 billion in 2015. |
几乎无处不在的闭路电视摄像头是后911时期安保投资的一个显而易见的遗产。根据美国公民自由联盟（ACLU）提供的数据，仅纽约市曼哈顿这一个地区就有超过4,000部摄像头。芝加哥互联互通的公共和私人摄像机大约在10,000部左右。但如果在国际范围内进行比较的话，美国的监控设施依然有很大的增长空间。在堪称电子眼天堂的伦敦市，监控摄像头的总量估计已经高达50万。 但近些年来，美国政府已大幅收紧了划拨给州和地方的安保资金。联邦政府拨付给各州的国土安全专项补助金已经从2003年的20亿美元下降到了去年的2.94亿美元。鉴于联邦预算的自动减支机制已经生效，这些资金可能会受到进一步的挤压。 让众议员彼得•金颇为担心的是，联邦政府似乎已经不那么重视安保事务了。反恐战争还没有结束，“削减国土安全开支是非常鲁莽的行为，”他在接受MSNBC广播公司采访时这样说道。 批评人士指出，太多的资金被拨付给了一些小州，安保专项补助金也缺乏适当的监督。大量的资金被一点点地浪费掉了。 实际上，911事件爆发后的几年中，有些安保开支之愚笨令人叹为观止。印第安纳州有个县竟然用价值30万美元的电子应急留言板——你知道，提醒社区对付各类突发事件是这些设备的唯一用途——为志愿消防队的鱼苗做起了广告。密歇根州西部的某些县动用国土安全专项资金购买了13台制作果味冰霜卷的设备。 电子眼够多了，但脑子呢？ 暂且不论浪费问题。一个至关重要的问题是，监控投资是否真的让美国人更加安全。波士顿爆炸案犯罪嫌疑人出现在闭路电视镜头里的时候，一些批评人士迫不及待地指出，瞧瞧，这就是实施密集监控的价值所在。 只不过波士顿并不是一个受到严密监控的城市。这座城市的监控体系与纽约或芝加哥相差甚远，根本就不是一个级别的。正如马萨诸塞州的美国公民自由联盟2011年12月发布的一份报告所详细列举的，波士顿至少有55部用于执法的摄像头，周围城市有92部，地铁系统大约安装了600部。去年，马萨诸塞州只收到了400万美元的国土安全补助金。按人均计算，马萨诸塞州获得的国土安全补助金数额在全美各州中仅位列第34位。 然而，在马拉松爆炸案发生后，波士顿居民和执法部门做出了英勇的回应。一系列监控手段同时上阵，包括：公共和私人闭路电视摄像头、手机摄像头和目击证人等等。犯罪嫌疑人很快就被锁定，其中一位被警方击毙，另一位则被生擒。倘若波士顿的摄像头是现在的两倍，甚至十倍，是否能够更快地锁定犯罪嫌疑人？一个规模更庞大、更加集中的监控体系是否就一定能对他们产生震慑作用，使他们不敢轻举妄动？或许更为重要的问题是，执法部门是否就因此而具备了阻止炸弹爆炸的能力？ | The post-9/11 investment legacy is apparent in the near-ubiquitous presence of law enforcement CCTV cameras. For instance, New York City has more than 4,000 cameras in Manhattan alone, according to the ACLU. Chicago's linked public and private security cameras number around 10,000. But based on international comparisons, there's still a lot of room for U.S. surveillance to grow. In London -- the Xanadu of winking, digital eyes -- surveillance cameras total an estimated half-million. In recent years, however, the spigot of U.S. federal funding for state and local security has tightened. Homeland security grants earmarked for states dropped from $2 billion in 2003 to $294 million last year. With federal budget sequestration coming into effect, those funds may be further squeezed. Rep. King fretted at the lack of federal commitment. The war against terror is not over, he told MSNBC. "And it's foolhardy to be making cuts in Homeland Security...." Critics say too much of the money has been directed to small states and that grant programs lack suitable oversight. Too much money, they say, has been frittered away. Indeed, in the years after 9/11, some expenditures were spectacularly brainless. An Indiana county used its $300,000 Electronic Emergency Message Boards -- to be used solely to alert the community of, you know, emergencies -- to advertise the volunteer fire department's fish fry. Western Michigan counties used homeland security dollars to purchase 13 $900 Sno-Cone machines. Plenty of eyes. What about brains? Waste aside, the question is whether surveillance investment can actually make Americans safer. When the Boston bombing suspects appeared on CCTV footage, some commentators saw it as evidence of the value of dense surveillance. Except Boston is not a heavily surveiled city. Compared to New York or Chicago, it's a fly-weight, and lacks the centralized, government-coordinated surveillance systems of other urban areas. As detailed in a December 2011 report released by the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Massachusetts, there are at least 55 law-enforcement cameras in Boston, 92 in surrounding cities, and approximately 600 in the metro system. Last year, Massachusetts received only $4 million in state homeland security grants. In per capita terms, it ranked 34th in the country in homeland security grant spending. Yet in the aftermath of the Marathon bombings, residents and law enforcement responded valiantly. A range of surveillance methods were used: public and private CCTV cameras, cell phone cameras, eye witnesses. The suspects were quickly identified, and killed or apprehended. If Boston had twice as many cameras, or 10 times as many, would the suspects have been identified more quickly? Would a larger, more centralized surveillance system have deterred them? Perhaps most importantly, would law enforcement have been able to prevent the bombs from going off in the first place? |
批评监控措施的人认为，事后的摄像机辅助调查和抓捕行动并不能预防恐怖主义行为。纽约市前市长鲁迪•朱利安尼曾经声称，伦敦的监控体系可与“好莱坞影城”相媲美，2005年7月7日伦敦发生系列爆炸案，无所不在的摄像机发挥了重要的作用，帮助警方迅速确认了自杀式袭击者。可悲的是，这些都是爆炸发生之后的事情。 “波士顿爆炸案基本上证实了我们已经知道的一个事实，”美国公民自由联盟隐私与技术项目（Privacy & Technology Project）总监本•维兹奈尔说。“那就是，这些摄像头虽然是非常有效的破案手段，但是根本无法预防和震慑严重犯罪行为。” “少数派报告” 监控措施的支持者指出，技术的进步足以证明，终有一天，摄像头将发挥增强应对机制，协助预防犯罪的作用。视频监控领域的领导者，比如洛克希德•马丁公司（Lockheed Martin）和诺斯罗普•格鲁曼公司（Northrop Grumman），正在实现从模拟到数字的产业转移，开始研发犹如科幻小说一般的智能摄像头。 监控的未来在于“视频分析”——计算机将自动分析摄像讯息，从而能够计算人口数量、记录温度变化，还能够通过统计算法，识别可疑行为。这套体系并不需要技术人员。直到目前为止，监控效果还一直受到人为因素的限制：要想让监控体系及时发挥作用，就必须有人密切留意所有的闭路电视镜头。 而且，相关的需求正在不断增长。根据市场调研网站ReportsNReports的分析估计，2012年，智能监控和视频分析设备的全球市场规模已经高达135亿美元，预计到2020年将达到390亿美元。 过去，视频分析的功能被夸大了。然而，城市监控体系似乎将不可避免地迈入越来越精密，越来越集中的发展阶段。 估计公众也不会强烈反对。尽管美国人非常厌恶在国内使用无人驾驶飞行器从事监控活动，但他们似乎并不太介意摄像头。毕竟，美军远赴世界的另一头消灭外敌的时候，美军一直没有高调地用过摄像头。而在美国国内使用无人驾驶飞行器则不免让人觉得，政府正在把枪口对着自己的同胞。但摄像头是可以使用的，因为它们平淡无奇，不那么引人注目。 实际上，成千上万的摄像头已经对准了我们。而且，它们的数量还会持续增加。（财富中文网） 译者：任文科 | According to critics of surveillance, cameras aid investigation and apprehension in the aftermath, not the prevention, of acts of terrorism. In London, which Rudy Giuliani called the "Hollywood studio" of surveillance, cameras played an instrumental role in quickly identifying the 7/7 bombers. Sadly, it was only after the fact. "What we saw in Boston largely confirmed what we already knew," said Ben Wizner, Director of the ACLU's Speech, Privacy & Technology Project. "Cameras are ineffective at the prevention and deterrence of serious crime. They can be very effective at solving crime." 'Minority Report,' here we come Advocates of surveillance point to advancements in technology as proof that cameras will, in the future, enhance response and assist prevention. Leaders of video surveillance -- companies like Lockheed Martin (LMT) and Northrop Grumman (NOC) -- are shifting the industry from analog to digital, and into the uncanny, science-fiction realm of smart cameras. The future of surveillance is "video analytics," where computers will automatically analyze camera feeds to count people, register temperature changes, and, via statistical algorithms, identify suspicious behavior. No technicians required. Up to this point, surveillance has been limited by personnel: for surveillance to be useful in real-time, someone has to keep an eye on all those CCTV feeds. And there's growing demand. A ReportsNReports analysis estimated the size of the smart surveillance and video analytics global market at $13.5 billion in 2012; it's expected to reach $39 billion by 2020. The promise of video analytics has been oversold in the past. And yet the move toward increasingly elaborate -- and concentrated -- urban surveillance seems inevitable. Don't expect much public opposition, either. While American aversion to the use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) blunted efforts to employ surveillance drones domestically, Americans seem less bothered by security cameras. They haven't been used as high-profile tools to kill foreigners on the other side of the world. Domestic drone use feels like the government is pointing its weapons at us. Cameras are permissible because they're banal. And, in fact, they're already here. By the thousands. There will be thousands more. |
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