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Mayor Daley would like to put a surveillance camera on every street corner by 2016.
Surveillance cams help fight crime, city says
suntimes.com - 39 weeks ago - 379 views
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So we get security cameras but no CTA improvements? That's a massive downgrade in my opinion.
No kidding. No CTA improvements, or any other improvements!
This sort of thing actually frightens me. I have "Big Brother" alarms going off in my head. This is exactly what they did in Eastern Europe just a generation ago (not to exclude other parts of the world where this occured, and still does). In the name of saftey they justified watching anyone at anytime. Where will it end?
I'll admit though, that if this sort of thing means catching criminals, and more importantly, saving lives, then I'm for it. However, I have to think that the city's Office of Emergency Management and Communications could identify other areas needing improvement.
Second City Cop, which is an incredible blog run and populated by anonymous Chicago police officers has a great post up today with their take on the cameras.
http://secondcitycop.blogspot.com/2009/02/cameras-beat-police-to-scene.h...
The gist: The cameras scare the sheep into obedience, but the wolves know the adds are against someone sifting through all the data and plucking out the footage of them breaking the law.
One of the commenters near the end of the comments also points out that cameras are wonderful for assembling evidence for a prosecution, but horrible at actually preventing crimes from occurring.
Chicago's often called "The City That Works." Well that's just another way of saying "The City where the trains run on time," which of course is an allusion no one really wants to make here in the U.S.
I saw bring on the cameras! NYC has cameras everywhere. London, too. If they help put a dent in crime, then I'm all for it.
This POV is assuming some things that are likely not true, however:
1. The city can afford the cameras.
2. The city won't use them to replace actual police officers.
As both of these statements are probably true, my enthusiasm for a more orderly Chicago is somewhat dampened.
It's worse than I thought.
The points about sheep vs. wolves, and assembling evidence vs. crime prevention are right on. Not to belabor the reference to Eastern Europe, but those were exactly the sorts of things that happened there. Needless to say, history repeats itself if we let it, and I'd rather not let it in this area.
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