My feeling is that, as cameras get cheaper they will replace virtually all legacy security sensors. The classic passive infrared (PIR) motion detector, especially, will be obsoleted. Since a PIR is essentially a low resolution thermal camera that sees blobs of different temperatures, its replacement by a higher resolution thermal imager, perhaps in tandem with a standard visible imager, is an obvious evolution. A single camera with on-board analysis algorithms can replace not only the motion detectors in a room, but also door contacts, and request-to-exit sensors, and can perform those functions better. A “smart” camera can tell if a door was opened from the inside or from the outside, knows not only if people are in the room but how many there are, and can tell when people move from one specific area to another. I suspect that in the near future, camera analysis (again, contained in the camera itself) will be able to identify a person brandishing a gun, wearing a mask, or other security-relevant activities.

Security is one of the more obvious uses of video analysis, but I believe that cameras will be used in many more applications than just alarm systems. What does that mean for privacy? I think the sheer proliferation of cameras will actually work to improve privacy, because the affordability of smart cameras will outstrip both network bandwidth and storage capability. That means most cameras will not be monitored by humans or even recorded. Even today, up to 97% of images captured by cameras are discarded before ever reaching a monitor or recording device, and maybe 1 in 10,000 images are kept for more than a few days. I expect the viewing and recording rates to fall even farther, not only because the technology will not keep pace with camera proliferation, but also because as cameras are able to perform analysis on their own and relay only pertinent information, the need to watch and record those images will be drastically diminished. So I think the prospects for privacy are actually very good.

Now, how can a bright, young engineer take advantage of these opportunities? I for one have started studying digital signal processing and want to delve into video analysis algorithms. It would also be smart to keep abreast of microprocessor technology and watch as embedded computers, like the Gumstix, keep improving and coming down in price. The combination of imager quality, dense processing power, and creative algorithms will change the whole security industry.

Dear Dr. Broun,

I just looked you up today to write to you, and was happy to find that you are on both the Homeland Security and Science, Space, and Technology committees. However, I was not happy to find that you are a co-sponsor of the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act (CISPA). I do hope you will reconsider, as that bill poses a serious threat to the privacy and liberty of Americans. Under the language of security, it authorizes as-yet-unnamed agencies to gather unspecified information from Internet service providers in exchange for those providers receiving threat information from government- (and therefore taxpayer-) funded intelligence gathering.

While I support the sharing of government and military intelligence with private network operators to enhance the networks that consumers use every day, the requirement for these companies to share information on ambiguous “threats”, information which can be used in any sort of criminal prosecution, leaves this bill vulnerable to exploitation by zealous law enforcers and politically powerful companies who wish to protect their monopolies on ideas and technologies.

I hope that you will drop your support for CISPA until at the very least, the language is clearly defined and the scope of the information that is to be shared and the agency which is to collect that information are spelled out and not open to bureaucratic interpretation. Ambiguous laws do nothing to protect Americans, and are all too often used to advantage a select few. Giving a blank check to an unidentified agency to spy on Americans through private network operators may help to protect the intellectual monopolies of large corporations, but it certainly does not protect Americans from an increasingly-intrusive central government.

Thank you for your time.

Sincerely,
Kevin LeCureux

My point is that these two explanations approach the problem from different ends. The common perception is that the “right” policy changes will bring about the desired results. This seems to be a prevalent line of thought in American culture. But more careful thinkers will see that, as with any desired outcome, the change must first be internalized with some critical mass of the citizenry. In the case of libertarian outcomes, a sufficient number of people must come to believe that the use of government force to ensure certain groups’ incomes at the expense of the unprotected is morally repugnant. This belief must be so internalized that those who accept it do not take opportunities to enrich themselves and try to instruct others to follow their example.

The other item was a short post from economic and political author Robert Higgs about his observation that throughout modern history it has been people of faith who have taken a principled stand against totalitarianism, while those who rise to the top in totalitarian systems tend to be atheistic. Also, kudos to Higgs for pointing out that the state church in Nazi Germany backing the government did not make Hitler a Christian.

…it becomes the obligation of political economy to seek an explanation of phenomena that controvert all our accepted ideas; for needless to say, science—if it is to be worthy of the name—is but the faithful description and correct explanation of events.

I think he also puts his finger on one of the root issues in our (and probably any) culture when he distinguishes the two classes of science – physical and social – and explains why it is important for the masses to understand economics:

The sciences can be arranged in two categories.

Some can be known, in a strict sense, only by scholars. These are the ones whose practical application is confined to particular professions. Despite his ignorance, the common man benefits from them. Although he knows nothing of mechanics or astronomy, he nonetheless enjoys the utility of a watch; with nothing but his faith in the engineer or the pilot, he is nonetheless transported by the locomotive or the steamship. We walk according to the laws of equilibrium without our being aware of them, just as M. Jourdain produced prose without knowing it.

But there are, on the other hand, sciences that influence the public only in proportion to the understanding of them that the public itself has, and that derive all their efficacy, not from the knowledge accumulated by a few exceptionally learned men, but from that diffused among mankind in general. These include ethics, hygiene, political economy, and, in countries where men are their own masters, politics. It is probably above all these sciences of which Bentham could say: “It is better to disseminate them than to advance them.” What difference does it make that a great man, or even God Himself, has promulgated the rules of ethics, so long as men, imbued with wrong ideas, mistake virtue for vice and vice for virtue? What difference does it make that Smith, Say, and—according to M. de Saint-Chamans—the economists of every school have proclaimed, with respect to business transactions, the superiority of freedom over coercion, if those who make the laws and those for whom they are made are convinced of the contrary? [Economic Sophisms I, chapter 23, emphasis added]

At all events, let no one claim that because an abuse cannot be done away with, without inconvenience to those who profit by it, what has been suffered to exist for a time should be allowed to exist forever.

The last line from Economic Sophisms, Chapter 20.

I propose, if the government insists on propping up industries for the sake of jobs, that it focus its efforts on more practical outlets. My choices would be Starbucks and Trader Joe’s. Think about it. These places pay decent wages and offer health benefits to young adults – the demographic most likely to be seeking work and not finding it. Since these corporations have franchises in practically every urban area in the nation, the effects of the subsidy would be widely realized. Not only would more young people have good jobs, the subsidies would allow Starbucks and Trader Joe’s, retailers of classy coffee and health food, respectively, to undercut budget stores like Walmart and Kroger. They could even open up in the inner cities, where governments constantly bemoan the lack of access to healthy eating options. In addition, cheaper Starbucks coffee would have a positive effect on white collar worker productivity due to increased caffeine consumption.

Who could be harmed by such a subsidy? Snobbish people might say that permeating urban and rural areas alike with traditionally “hip” establishments would dilute their appeal and therefore their value. But who could say that Starbucks is not already ubiquitous? And it has not lost its appeal while becoming mainstream. Would taxpayers be harmed? Certainly less so than under the current system of subsidizing doomed technology companies that gobble up money without producing anything of significance. What about retailers that aren’t subsidized? That could be easily fixed by broadening the subsidy to include any food retailer or quick service restaurant that met standards of wages and benefits and fresh food offerings.

I’m not saying that the unintended consequences of subsidization would be eliminated under this proposal. But at least the intended consequences would have a more immediate impact on the American public.

We must remark, also, that the constant appearance of money in every exchange has overturned and misled all our ideas; men have ended in thinking that money was true riches, and that to multiply it was to multiply services and products. Hence the prohibitory system; hence paper money; hence the celebrated aphorism, “What one gains the other loses”; and all the errors which have ruined the earth, and imbrued it with blood ^[1] After much research it has been found, that in order to make the two services exchanged of equivalent value, and in order to render the exchange equitable, the best means was to allow it to be free. However plausible, at first sight, the intervention of the State might be, it was soon perceived that it is always oppressive to one or other of the contracting parties. When we look into these subjects, we are always compelled to reason upon this maxim, that equal value results from liberty. We have, in fact, no other means of knowing whether, at a given moment, two services are of the same value, but that of examining whether they can be readily and freely exchanged. Allow the State, which is the same thing as force, to interfere on one side or the other, and from that moment all the means of appreciation will be complicated and entangled, instead of becoming clear. It ought to be the part of the State to prevent, and, above all, to repress artifice and fraud; that is, to secure liberty, and not to violate it.

I have an idea for what I think is a more enlightening twist. Consider the same town, where there are debts but no cash. One of the merchants convinces his creditors to accept coupons for his goods which they can transfer to others. These coupons do aid in clearing some of the outstanding debts. The merchant receives some new demand for goods and receives some coupons as payment for goods purchased on credit.

It works so well that this merchant gets offers of goods and services from others in exchange for more coupons. In his enthusiasm, he issues more coupons than he has goods or accounts receivable. He gets away with this for a while, since people are holding onto coupons for later purchases, or transferring them to others as payments. But the townspeople begin to notice that there are quite a lot of his coupons circulating. The merchant’s creditors are first to get the coupons that exceed the goods stock, so they bid up prices at other places that accept the coupons. Other folks then beg the merchant to lend them some coupons since they haven’t enough to get by on.

Meanwhile, the merchant realizes that if people start trying to spend their coupons on his goods, his stocks will be depleted and he will be found out and probably punished for not redeeming his obligations. He knows his creditors will demand more and more coupons for their services. Under great duress, he strikes on a brilliant idea. He goes to the sheriff and proposes his idea: the sheriff will force everyone in town to accept his coupons on pain of imprisonment, but the merchant himself will not be required to redeem his coupons for goods. He warns the sheriff that if his scheme isn’t implemented, chaos and lawlessness will reign when everyone realizes their coupons are no good. And besides, the sheriff himself owes the merchant on his newly-built office building.

The sheriff agrees with the merchant’s reasoning, and makes the pronouncement. The merchant soon sells off most of his goods without bothering to restock, and he keeps making some coupons – just enough to cover his costs and an occasional loan to the sheriff, but no one else knows quite how many coupons he makes every day. The merchant continues to live comfortably, even if he’s looked upon with suspicion by others. The townspeople, fearing being considered criminals, continue to pay and accept payments in coupons. The sheriff continues to enforce the merchant’s scheme, in part because he knows he could be implicated if it came crashing down, and in part because he tells himself it is for the good of the town.

Questions: Is this a fair system for the townspeople? What are the weaknesses of this scheme?  Who gets the most benefit from it? What are some possible events that could cause the scheme to fail? If the merchant lost his monopoly privilege, who would be most damaged?