“The use of sophisticated systems by police and other public security officials is particularly troubling in a democratic society.” Yeah, because these cameras might capture someone, I don’t know…BREAKING THE LAW?

“When citizens are being watched by the authorities – or aware they might be watched at any time – they are more self-conscious and less free-wheeling.”
What, as in thinking twice about stealing or vandalizing? Puh-LEASE!

My take is this – Public video surveillance, in public transit stations and major public gathering places, is (for lack of a better word) PUBLIC! Folks should not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in public…I say do those things you are ashamed of (or modest about) in public at your own peril – or wait until you are behind CLOSED DOORS!

You know what strikes me as funny? One of the ACLU’s all-time SHINING MOMENTS was due to public video taping – the police beating of Rodney King! It seems to me the ACLU was singing public video PRAISES back then. Now, we can’t use technology to keep our citizenry safe, because it makes people “less free wheeling?”

You have a problem with perspective.

“As we see here, people seem perfectly willing to take up arms against America if provoked.”

The only thing to see here are people who have sworn an oath to protect this Country from ALL enemies, both foreign AND domestic.
If we are provoked to take up arms, it will not be against America, but the enemies of America.

None. More a county work-house arrangement, really. But the cigarettes came in handy, thanks.

Yeah, people are always concerned with the here-and-now, and it’s always hard to get them to make sacrifices to address some hypothetical future problem.

Bonhoffer warned that granting too much power to Chancellor Hitler would be a bad idea, but the German people were too concerned with the Depression to worry about it. Military exercises demonstrated that Pearl Harbor was vulnerable to a surprise attack, but FDR was too busy with the Depression to worry about it. Clarke wrote a memo labeled “Bin Laden Determined to Attack in US,” but we were too busy with – well, I can’t even remember now, but I’m sure it seemed important at the time. And I’m concerned that in our panic to deal with terrorism, we may surrender liberties that will be hard to reclaim later. And, as you see, people’s concerns for the present problem generally eclipse concern for the future.

That doesn’t make the concerns wrong. But if we can recognize the natural bias to favor today’s concerns at the expense of tomorrow’s, we may gain some perspective. That’s all.

Sure. And during the civil rights struggle many blacks adopted precisely that perspective. I must confess I wasn’t a big supporter of Malcolm X, but his views clearly remain popular.

Maybe members of civil rights organizations had nothing to fear from J. Edgar Hoover and his successors, but the 1975 Church Commission reached the opposite conclusion. At the very least, spying promoted paranoia, paranoia promoted violence. Would video cameras have the same effect? As we see here, people seem perfectly willing to take up arms against America if provoked.

All I’m saying is that there are always trade-offs. The trade-offs may be worth it, but if you don’t see the trade-offs you may not be seeing the whole picture.

Look, I don’t enjoy delays at the airport, but we haven’t, as yet, had any more attacks by jet liners. Before 9/11, would passengers have put up with such delays? I don’t think so.