Mind your digging manners. You may be on camera

[deepskyal]

Just saw on the news last night a local city police department got a grant to install security cameras everywhere. They now have cameras at their parks, schools, and various spots where people congregate.
I live in a small town that spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on a new playground and they too got money to install security cameras.

Seems a pretty cheap solution to patroling an area but I can see the hassels comming when some person is watching you on a moniter miles away and decides you look suspicious and sends a patrol car over.

Al

 

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[Twisted One]

Not sure about other areas, but I know in my areas, those cameras are all over, but they are not manned full time. When a crime is reported in that area, they will pull up footage from that time fram in that location for review.

So more or less I would think that if someone reported you as a vandal, or whatever they could pull up the footage and see. So as long as you are filling your holes, and not bothering anyone they shouldn't bug you.

 

[Tom_in_CA]

Twisted one is right: We can be on cameras till the cows come home, but no one is watching the footage (not live, and not post views), UNLESS something occured there. Ie.: if a dead body is found in a park the next morning, then they'd rewind, watch, etc.... I suppose if someone left craters in a park or historical site/monument, then someone might re-wind and watch. But for typical md'ing, where we're leaving no trace of our presence, these are not a threat.

I work as a docent at a historic monument, where multiple cameras like this are stationed. And as a docent, I have a unique inside look at the manning station, and talk to the over-seer/caretaker. While it is possible to watch the cameras live from their computer, the reality is, no one is doing it, unless they have reason to do so. The reason the ones were set up in this location, is because there had been some theft from the museum in the past. Someone actually un-screwed a glass cabinet face, on a slow day when there were no other visitors in one wing, and helped themselves to a ~200 yr. old violin. And other junk, like someone wading into the fountain, and gathering up all the coins people pitch in, etc.... The curator told me the only time they review footage, is if something were missing, damaged, etc.... Other than that, he told me that he sometimes uses the function of the motion sensor time-stamps, where they can actually scroll forward and backwards to *just* the times when there was motion detected in the area. But even that is generally boring, as it was always a moth that flew in front of the lense to trigger the sensor, or a stray cat walking around, or the wind blows the branches of a tree there, blah blah. So mostly, the cameras are ignored unless there is reason to need to review footage.

 

[RGINN]

From personal knowledge, they're all right about the cameras. When you have some activity goin on you're interested in, they'll watch the cameras in real time. Otherwise, footage is reviewed after an incident takes place.