surveillance in vancouver

What I'm watching via the Eyes of Laura website:



This image is from pretty far away - the detail is amazing. It's some street corner near the museum, at the entrance of a small shopping mall. The more one thinks about this, the more disconcerting it becomes.

These people, I presume, have no idea they're being watched -- and by someone in another city, no less. And I may as well be in Australia -- there's virtually no delay. You tell the camera to move, and it moves.

I suppose I tend to think of surveillance as generally taking place locally. For example, if I see a camera near a building I'm passing by, I assume that it's either recording video on site or that someone within is watching the camera's view via a monitor. But I realize now that effective live surveillance could -- and undoubtedly does -- take place remotely.