Only Mom, apple pie and baseball are more American than a cookie store. So it’s fitting that Bill Ross, owner of a local Mrs. Fields Cookies, expressed the feelings of most Americans when he spoke about police surveillance cameras.
“I don’t know about civil rights. That’s not my concern. Safety is,” said Ross, whose store operates at 32 N. Tejon.
In response to recent melees in and near bars on Tejon Street, Colorado Springs police will begin monitoring the street in March, recording public activity with video surveillance. An ABC News poll in July found that 71 percent of Americans favor increased use of surveillance cameras in the interest of safety. From coast to coast, American cities are installing cameras at intersections, on light poles and on buildings. Once controversial, cameras go up with hardly a complaint.
Benjamin Franklin has long been quoted saying: “Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty or safety.”
Historians believe the quote rightfully belongs to Franklin’s fellow diplomat, Richard Jackson, and appeared in a book that Franklin published. The urban legend variant — “He who sacrifices freedom for safety deserves neither” — summarizes the principle. Of what value is safety, or even life itself, without freedom?
“Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God! I know not what course others may take; but as for me, give me liberty or give me death,” said Patrick Henry to the Virginia House of Burgesses.
“Live free or die,” wrote Gen. John Stark, in a letter to fellow Revolutionary War generals.
During the Cold War, Soviet propaganda highlighted crime in the United States — a place where hoodlums had so much freedom that grandmas were mugged in the streets. Communist propaganda was distorted, but somewhat true. The cost of freedom — in the form of privacy, limited law enforcement, and personal autonomy from the state — includes a degree of lawlessness.
If crime control and safety are America’s highest values, rather than freedom, we should eliminate crime. Remove the Fourth Amendment, and allow police unlimited authority to search our bodies and our properties. Eliminate the Second Amendment and begin rounding up guns and knives. And what of this “presumption of innocence” that’s respected in the 5th, 6th and 14th Amendments? Authoritarian regimes have much lower crime rates, in general, because guilt is presumed; innocence must be proved.
If safety is the highest value, by all means we should make a case for government cameras to monitor every person’s every move on each square inch of public turf. Early experience in other cities shows the cameras don’t lower crime, but it might work. In Nazi Germany, communist East Germany, Mussolini’s Italy, and Pol Pot’s Cambodia, police spied on ordinary people “to keep the peace.”
In Texas, police departments have begun using cameras on a broad scale to keep the peace — and increasingly to abuse the public. Writing for National Review Online, Jim Harper explains how Lubbock police shortened the duration of yellow lights at intersections. Doing so caused more people to inadvertently run red lights, which meant the city’s camera system could generate more tickets. Harper quoted Mayor David Miller saying the cameras enhance safety, but “it’s also about the generation of revenue.”
USA Today reported in 2006 that Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt wants surveillance cameras in apartment buildings, shopping malls and even private homes to counter the city’s shortage of police recruits.
“I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?” Hurtt told reporters.
Why should we worry? Because Americans have a right to get lost. We have a right to keep secrets. We have a right be naked in our homes. We have a right to secretly associate with others in private. It’s reasonable, in a free society, to expect that visiting a bar won’t generate a recording for police to review.
Public safety is a legitimate government role, but only within limits. If safety and civility are what we value most, there’s no limit to what government will gladly provide.
Revolutionaries didn’t fight and die so their ancestors would have a place to be safe. They left us this country as one place on earth where humans could live free. To maximize freedom, we must demand privacy and autonomy from the state — which includes local police. It means fewer cameras, not more. It means drunks will sometimes fight on Night Life Street. Don’t sell freedom for safety, much less the false sense of security spy cameras provide.
What Republicans?
The front page of Wednesday’s New York Times asked: “Can anyone bring the Republicans together again?” Following Tuesday’s primary, we’ve yet to see a Republican who expresses the conservative philosophy that Reagan used to coalesce Americans. Only Ron Paul seems to grasp the idea that less is more — that limited government and free markets appeal to the masses yearning to be free. But Paul — who has trounced media darling Rudy Giuliani in the first three primaries — can’t shake the kook label.
Others act like they discovered conservative values last week. They come with big government baggage, such as RomneyCare and Giuliani’s anti-gun, “government solutions” mentality. For this we need a Republican? Can anyone bring the GOP together again? It appears unlikely, at least for now.
http://www.gazette.com/opinion/safety_32055___article.html/cameras_police.html
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