"You Can Pinky Promise You Won't Abuse It."

and yet, we don't believe you.

NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — Cheers erupted inside Metro Council chambers as councilmembers narrowly defeated a measure that would’ve expanded police surveillance in Nashville.

Councilmembers discussed the Fusus program for hours before taking a final vote just before 10 p.m. Those strongly opposed continued to bring up concerns that the line between safety and privacy could be blurred despite strong support from the Metro Nashville Police Department (MNPD) and the Mayor‘s Office.
…
When a crime happens at a business with Fusus technology, police could access the business’ cameras remotely and in real-time, but only with the owner’s permission. During the early stages of the proposal, the MNPD stressed that the program would have been voluntary and up to each business individually.

'Too many unanswered questions': Metro Council votes down Fusus surveillance contract

Why would anybody grant access to their cameras to Law Enforcement is beyond me. You would not be granting just sole access to an outside camera, but to your whole system because that is where the camera is. Even if they pinky promise they won’t peek, there is truly no way you can be 100% sure a bad actor will not access all your cameras or that suddenly the city council changes its mind and does not care if police surveil the inside of your business and it would be “legal” because you once gave consent to access the system.

Would that be eventually be thrown out in court? A fair chance, but damage is done and probably thousands of hours of video will reside in some Law Enforcement cloud forever. “But what if the judge orders all video deleted? They have to do it!” Please tell me you are not that naive to believe all copies will be deleted and your privacy secured.

“But they promise safeguards!” the defenders say:

“We made a few changes to it the first thing is it creates a kill switch so if it’s misused in any way the contract can be terminated immediately another is an explicit prohibition on any use of facial recognition or AI and those are big things to add to it,” Rosenberg said.

The issue with software is that you cannot be sure what is in it, what a developer has left hidden in a few lines of code that can be used or rather, misused for nefarious purposes. Unless every line of code is vetted by two independent watchdogs, you cannot trust it, only prepare for its misuse against you. And even then, you cannot swear or provide safeguards that it will not be abused by the official users. Who here has not heard or read bout cops illegally accessing people’s data from Police and other governmental databases for non-LEO/Investigative purposes?

They did try to appeal to your sensitivity with the old “But if you really cared…” card.

“You have absolutely no idea unless you’ve been a victim of crime, how important it is to have your crime solved and if it’s a rape or its a murder, you want that crime solved and you want it solved so you can get that person off the street and have justice,” said Verna Wyatt, co-founder of Tennessee Voices for Victims.

Giving up Liberty for pretend safety is not the way to go.

There are enough police cameras all over Nashville, we don’t need private cameras to add to Big Bubba’s power.