About
The purpose of this project is to raise discussion and increase the community's intelligence of the current state of civil surveillance, in relation to criminal activity within Mankato, MN. People have the right to privacy when in a reasonable area to expect it. In Minnesota, the government is allowed to set up surveillance cameras for monitoring citizens while not being required to post a sign designating that they are doing so. So, it's up to you to figure out where your privacy is potentially compromised as where it is not. This site aims to help you easily fix that concern.
This application generates a heatmap of various crimes around the city and displays the relative locations of cameras placed around the city which have been manually collected by myself.
So, you're like, totally against Big Brother recordin' our every move, right?
No
Security Cameras are excellent resources for looking back at criminal activity that has occurred within a location monitored by video coverage. It's a great way to identify hit-and-run criminals, vandals, thiefs and the likes after the crime has occurred and this very project has stemmed from that idea.
In my own personal opinion, the use of public, outdoor security cameras should be limited to their uses. Nobody needs to be wasting their time, and our money by watching our personal lives as we walk down a street.
Hopefully it is through your own exploration of this data that you will see the benefits of responsible CCTV placement within our community.
Contact
Kevin Reinhardt - kevin.reinhardt@mnsu.edu