Las Vegas becoming a security lab

[EV_Ares]

Privacy experts worry about data mining, high-tech surveillance

LAS VEGAS - This city, famous for being America's playground, has also become its security lab. Like nowhere else in the United States, Las Vegas has embraced the twin trends of data mining and high-tech surveillance, with arguably more cameras per square foot than any airport or sports arena in the country. Even the city's cabs and monorail have cameras. As the U.S. government ramps up its efforts to forestall terrorist attacks, some privacy advocates view the city as a harbinger of things to come.

In secret rooms in casinos across Las Vegas, surveillance specialists are busy analyzing information about players and employees. Relying on thousands of cameras in nearly every cranny of the casino, they evaluate suspicious behavior. They ping names against databases that share information with other casinos, sometimes using facial-recognition software to validate a match. And in the marketing suites, casino staffers track players' every wager, every win or loss, the better to target high-rollers for special treatment and low- and middle-rollers for promotions.

"You could almost look at Vegas as the incubator of a whole host of surveillance technologies," said James X. Dempsey, policy director for the Center for Democracy and Technology. Those technologies, he said, have already spread to other commercial venues: malls, stadiums, amusement parks. And although that is "problematic," he said, "the spread of the techniques to counterterrorism is doubly worrisome. Finding a terrorist is much harder than finding a card counter, and the consequences of being wrongly labeled a terrorist are much more severe than being excluded from a casino."

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http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/21411857/

[marmar]

1. What happens in Vegas may or may not stay in Vegas?

:P

[MadHound]

2. Just one more reason I will never step foot in that city

I've never been fond of Vegas, the kitchy glamor, the retro shows, and I'm not a big fan of casino games. Also, feeding money to the Mob was never very attractive to me either. Now this kind of shit, no thank you.

Pretty soon, if this continues we're going to have cameras in the hotel rooms, and then in our homes. It makes me glad that I live out in the country where there isn't a camera at every intersection and in every building. What astounds me is how conditioned people have become to these things, and even welcome them and demand them. I guess 1984 hasn't been required reading in high school for a couple of decades now.

[ladjf]

3. Money, grand pianos and beautiful women are the most

closely guarded entities.