None of those claims (“better tools”, “helps out a lot”, “inherently flawed”) are even close to being a given. There are members of intelligence communities on both sides of these issues, and it’s a vibrant debate within that community.
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Just so you know, “human intel” falls under “surveillance” in many cases.
I’m aware. And you’re moving the goalposts, because that’s not the comparison you yourself made a scant hour or so ago:
Regarding the wisdom of even your stated goal, “preventing crime”, I refer you to an insightful book that explains why moving closer to the goal of preventing all crime may not be what you want at all:
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Felonies-Day-Target-Innocent/dp/1594035229
You’re welcome to your opinion, but I’d encourage you to research the ripple effects of the things you’re proposing. 
That’s absolutely crazy - that song was written over 50 years ago. Other than maybe the musical style, could’ve been yesterday.
The quickest way I can think of to spin up an effective surveillance system is to constantly track everyone’s smartphone location. That way when a crime occurs the authorities will immediately know who was in the area and can then narrow down the suspects by reading all texts and emails of those citizens and by searching through their entire digital life.
While they are digging through all that data chances are they may find evidence of all kinds of other offenses which would be a very efficient use of their technology. Traffic cops wouldn’t even need to chase down speeders. They could have their computers calculate the time it takes someone to travel from one location to another and automatically deduct the fines from their bank account.
I wonder why no one has thought of this before?
…
I remember watching the mini series “The Last Enemy” back in 2008. Good movie and one which turned out to be very prophetic.
That’ll be so efficient! We’ll have to outlaw Faraday bags. For your own safety. You understand, right?
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All I’m saying is that we shouldn’t let crime happen and continue to use ineffective methods of catching criminals and ongoing criminal activity. In countries like the United States, the amount of crime increases every single year.
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Just clarifying - is it a movie and a TV series? Or just a TV series? I can find the latter, but not the former.
I should have said “story”, it’s a mini-series.
Apparently the link I used only shows an image, I’ve replace it with one from the BBC.
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Actually, per the FBI in the US we’re seeing a downward trend. And the majority of people in the BJS survey shows a massive drop in both property crime and violent crime since the mid 90s. Gallup even reports that a majority of the people in the US believe crime in their area is down, although they think it’s up “elsewhere”.
So…no. We’re not dealing with crime rising every year.
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Crime in the United States is up significantly in the last year and a half. US crime rise not letting up in major cities - CNN
That’s true for the last year and a half, but it’s also true that the last year and a half has been downright weird.
It’s the long-term trends that I find of more interest.
Only if you don’t have to deal with crime on a daily basis.
Ah, very true if the concern is individual experience. I was thinking overall societal trends (occupational hazard — I’m a social scientist by training).
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the only years that matter right now are last year, this year, and next year.
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We’ve ventured way, way off topic, but it’s a great discussion!
My view (for what it’s worth) about surveillance is that it’s not a question of yes or no, but one of how much, cost (measured in many ways), and benefit (also measured in many ways). Some amount of surveillance is necessary; many crimes these days would be unpreventable without it,but if you overuse it then the cost to society outweighs the benefit.
An example is TLS inspection (the interception, decryption, and examination of encrypted network traffic (web, VPN, nearly everything really). When used by a state to broadly spy on its citizens it’s a terrible thing. However, within a given organization it’s an increasingly necessary security control if it’s employed with proper oversight, governance, and transparency. Properly used, it results in an overall increase in security and privacy even though it’s likely the most invasive network based security control there is.
Surveillance technologies (IT and other) exist. That genie is out of the bottle and it’s not a question of whether or not they’ll be deployed; they have been and will continue to be. The only question if they’ll be deployed in a way that benefits people or harms them, and the answer to that comes directly from whether the society/organization in which they’re being deployed has good governance and oversight.
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AFAIK official stats aren’t available yet - it’ll be interesting when those come out. But that being said, last year we quite literally had police departments “standing down” in major cities and basically just letting people riot and commit crimes.
As the argument I was primarily dealing with was the claim that we need more surveillance to reduce crime, I would politely suggest that in a situation where the police are literally watching criminal activity and doing nothing, surveillance would’ve had very little benefit - either for deterrence or prosecution.
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Wait, what? During which timeframe last year did that happen? If you could provide more context, that’d be great. I am very curious now… 
Yeah. Here’s a link from an admittedly-slanted publication that discusses what reportedly happened in a major Wisconsin city:
and of course there’s CHAZ/CHOP, where several blocks of Seattle were occupied for about a month. Quite literally, the police were forced out of their building and weren’t allowed inside the zone.
That was after the police station in Minneapolis was burned down by rioters. One article said that it was lit on fire in something like 4 dozen different places.
Also, keep in mind that this entire progression of events happened in the middle of a global pandemic where social distancing was legally required just about everywhere.
But basically the protesters were protesting the police, so there was a rather significant fear that the police doing what they’d normally do in such situations would escalate tensions. Hence, “stand down” orders from many political leaders and very, very lax enforcement of criminal statutes.
It was an absolute mess.
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