Caught on Tape
Posted on July 29, 2005
The suicidal otherworldliness of ACLU-style civil libertarianism.
All Quoted Material Written For NRO By Rich Lowry
I found this very well written article, and there was nothing much I could add. So for the most part, I will let it speak for itself.
The four would-be suicide bombers of the botched July 21 attacks in London have a big problem. They were caught on videotape. Their images have been broadcast in Britain and around the world, making their apprehension astronomically more likely than if they had escaped undetected.
For this, we have security cameras to thank. London has half a million of them. According to one estimate, a person wandering around London will be filmed 300 times in a day. The city is a pioneer of a trend toward video surveillance that is also sweeping the United States and provoking howls from civil libertarians whose internal clocks are set to make a reference to 1984 every 15 minutes or so. Given the choice, apparently, they would prefer not to have the video of the July 21 bombers, which is an indication of the suicidal otherworldliness of ACLU-style civil libertarianism.
Opponents of video cameras unroll various arguments about the cameras. They complain that the cameras are intrusive and a violation of privacy. But how is it possible to violate someone’s privacy in a park or a subway car? People have a right to privacy only where they have an expectation of privacy, and that is not in public places where things they do are susceptible to viewing by dozens of pairs of eyes. No one should expect pristine privacy while walking in a subway tunnel, let alone while he is running away after having attempted to kill and maim people.
If they can’t brandish the Fourth Amendment, civil libertarians get down to practical policing and claim that cameras don’t really do anything to prevent crime; they only occasionally help solve crime after the fact. Even if this were true, solving one terror attack alone - and therefore perhaps unraveling networks that would attack in the future - makes the cameras worth it.
Cameras won’t deter suicide bombers - what will? - but they can tamp down other criminal activity. Cameras in Britain are credited with discouraging the IRA bombing campaign in the 1990s. On a less serious front, San Francisco - one of many jurisdictions, including New York, Houston and New Jersey, that have cameras in their train systems - saw vandalism drastically decline on subway cars after the installation of surveillance cameras.
Some cities have turned to cameras in high-crime areas, mounting them to watch activities in parks and on dangerous streets. The Los Angeles Times reported in October 2004, “Earlier this year, police began monitoring seven cameras around MacArthur Park in the city’s Westlake district, watching in amazement as crime plummeted, gangs, drug dealers and pimps disappeared, and families with children began returning to the 40-acre expanse in one of the city’s poorest areas.” Chicago has used cameras to make drug busts in real time.
Then there is the last resort of civil libertarians. When no real harm can be demonstrated, they always discern a subtle “chilling effect.” “When citizens are being watched by the authorities,” says Barry Steinhardt of the American Civil Liberties Union, “they are more self-conscious and less freewheeling.” But urban areas, where the cameras are proliferating, are not notably bastions of inhibited behavior. City Journal’s Heather Mac Donald, who is nation’s foremost critic of the excesses of the ACLU, writes, “The only people whom public cameras inhibit are criminals; they liberate the law-abiding public.” When they move a camera out of a troubled neighborhood, Chicago police now get complaints from neighbors, who want pimps and drug dealers to be decidedly inhibited.
The priority of a certain class of civil libertarians is apparently to protect Americans from nonexistent threats to their liberty at the expense of protecting them from real threats to their safety. The New York Civil Liberties Union is considering a federal lawsuit over New York’s new policy of randomly searching the backpacks of subway passengers. Only if terrorists can get on mass-transit systems without any risk of their bags being searched or their images being recorded will they finally rest easy.
The article really made me think. Thats why I wanted to share it with all of you. While I have my qualms with the whole “random” searches, and think a little more politically incorrect approach would help, I must say that it is better than nothing….which apparently is what the ACLU wants….nothing.
Thank you Outside The Beltway and Mudville Gazette and Indepundit
» Filed Under War On Terror
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19 Responses to “Caught on Tape”
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Well, if this is all totally substantiated, we should have plenty of moonbats come out to play and try to rebut the facts. It’s pointless, but never fear the Ignorant Liberal Moonbats will be here.
Excellent post.
I love the layout changes. Your new server is MUCH faster also. Thank you for upgrading! We need your voice out there Jay!
Thanks Ray!
Great find Jay. This guy is absolutely right. People don’t mind being video taped when they walk into a gas station or a video store, why mind being taped walking down the street. If you’re doing nothing wrong, or if nothing happens in your proximity, the video will probably never be seen anyway because it’s not like they can all be monitored 24/7. I may go buy some stock in a surveillance camera company…
Heh … I don’t think the ‘Right to privacy’ was in the bill of rights OR the constitution anywhere … correct me if I’m wrong. That and when you are standing in a line at McDonalds or at an ATM or even in the nether-regions of the local mall, do you think that you are really alone? That first point really hits home: “They complain that the cameras are intrusive and a violation of privacy. But how is it possible to violate someone’s privacy in a park or a subway car? People have a right to privacy only where they have an expectation of privacy, and that is not in public places where things they do are susceptible to viewing by dozens of pairs of eye.” Now let’s talk about camera phones.
This is the point that really hit home for me:
The priority of a certain class of civil libertarians is apparently to protect Americans from nonexistent threats to their liberty at the expense of protecting them from real threats to their safety.
“The priority of a certain class of civil libertarians is apparently to protect Americans from nonexistent threats to their liberty at the expense of protecting them from real threats to their safety.”
On the eve of the next Presidential election, the special prosecutor finally announces that he has secured a confession from Karl Rove to the Valerie Plame situation, and in exchange for a lighter sentence Rove has now testified that he was acting on direct orders from the President. In a Watergate-like wave of revulsion, the voters throw the Republicans out of the White House, House and Senate.
As her first act in office, President Clinton passes a bill to federalize all video surveillance systems, and to establish more systems outside the door of anyone she suspects of voting Republican, all “in the interest of national security.” Gradually conservatives begin reporting losing jobs with any employer who does business with the federal government. The Sparticus Youth League begins physically attacking some conservatives, and there are rumors that they had intelligence from the FBI….
To some this will sound far-fetched. To others, this will sound like what happened when federal agents began spying on civil rights organizations. Now, history may not repeat itself exactly, but it rhymes.
So there’s a risk that public surveillance could be abused. And there’s a chance that it would help deter crime, including terrorism. Is the trade-off worth it? I’m guessing yes, but it’s not a slam-dunk issue for me.
Whenever anyone asks whether you support strengthening the hand of government, imagine the worst person you can think of in charge of that government before you answer. In this world, the only constant is change.
Interesting perspective you have there Nobody Really, How much time did you spend in Prison anyway?
I’m as much pro-freedom as anyone. But I really don’t care if Hillary suspects me of voting republican. If it gets to that point, I will rise up an army myself and take back my freedoms. In the mean time, and back to reality, I say post the cameras, roll the tape, and let the profiling begin. Let’s finish this thing.
The only person who should be afraid to be video taped is someone who is committing a criminal or immoral act. That is why the ACLU is against it, they are afraid of getting caught.
They are against the patriot act because they are afraid the public will find out how much of a scrumbag they really are.
Another country heard from. Subject highjacking is against the rules of engagement here. WARNING WARNING Moonbat about to be destroyed.
If we get hit with an attack similar to the London bombings, the ACLU might look a bit foolish for objecting to security measures.
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.
“If it gets to that point, I will rise up an army myself and take back my freedoms.”
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.
“Before 9/11, would passengers have put up with such delays? I don’t think so.”
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.
Outstanding. Revealing the ACLU for what it is.
“How much time did you spend in Prison anyway?”
None. More a county work-house arrangement, really. But the cigarettes came in handy, thanks.
Another issue is liability. How long after the cameras are installed that people will sue for damages, claiming every camera should be monitored. This is what keeps many private businesses from getting cameras. This could open another money spigot for the trial lawyers.
nobody…
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.
These people are just too much!
“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 are the best. Thank you http://www.bignews.com