[shortstuffsushi]

Usually, I'd say this sort of comment is not really contributing much to the conversation, but in this case I agree with the sentiment. With a lot of these posts about the surveillance tech that's becoming increasingly prominent everywhere in the public, there are a lot of commenters here that seem to be of the opinion that "this is fine, as long as you have nothing to hide, there's nothing lost" - or worse in this case, that perhaps that there's something to be gained by taking the "bizarre and dangerous" off the street. Admittedly, I do not live in one of the cities that have issues with a large homeless population, so the experience is a bit lost on me, but I am surprised to see, especially on this forum, people embrace any form of surveillance state. We evidently have learned nothing by both the performative and actual surveillance adds since the Patriot Act. Perhaps the general populous is in fact on board with this and those of us who aren't are the minority.

[Bratmon]

> I do not live in one of the cities that have issues with a large homeless population, so the experience is a bit lost on me

That's the key experience you're missing. If you've never lived in a high-homeless/drug abuse area, you don't really understand how thoroughly draining it is on every aspect of civic life.

[shortstuffsushi]

I recognize that I'm missing that part of the context, but it still surprises me that the answer to that is relatively global surveillance. In the current state of things, homelessness is perfectly public and observable, right? And so at any point now, the proposed "enforcement" could take place without the need for cameras? I think that part is unclear to me as well, the problem that exists that this solves.

[Bratmon]

Well, there are two ways to reduce homelessness: enforce vagrancy laws directly or wait for homeless people to commit a second crime and arrest them for that.

Some American cities have the state capacity necessary to do the former option, but the rest are stuck with the latter. And the latter only works if you can get evidence for low-level crimes when they happen.

[mixmastamyk]

Yes. It solves the "surveillance tech company needs to make quarterly goals" problem, and the "politician needs to look like they are doing something about crime" problem.

[kxrm]

I live in DC and do not wish for human rights violations against these people because they bother me. I understand how draining it is but IMO forcing us all into a surveillance state because of "undesirables" is the laziest way to solve this problem.

[goatlover]

So the answer to a problem the police and authorities already know about is a surveillance state for everyone? How are ever more cameras going to fix the drug abuse/homlessness problem?

[chadgpt3]

Well why not fix it then?!

Except you don't fix homelessness by charging all the homeless people with felonies for engaging in their hobbies (weed smoking) - you do it by working out why the housing economy is so dogshit that so many people can't get one.

[nilamo]

Full agree. It certainly feels like people are afraid of imagined threats, there just is no way there's so much rampant crime that people's living space is broken into so often, that surveiling everything all the time is a valid solution.

Like, I live in Detroit, and we don't have enough crime to justify it.

[HeWhoLurksLate]

It's all fun and games until you're wrongly in the spotlight for something menial you thought nothing of at the time