ABC News: Surveillance Cameras Win Broad Support
Crime-fighting beats privacy in public places: Americans, by nearly a 3-to-1 margin, support the increased use of surveillance cameras — a measure decried by some civil libertarians, but credited in London with helping to catch a variety of perpetrators since the early 1990s.Given the chief arguments, pro and con — a way to help solve crimes vs. too much of a government intrusion on privacy — it isn’t close: 71 percent of Americans favor the increased use of surveillance cameras, while 25 percent oppose it.
Wasn’t it Ben Franklin who said that those who give up liberty for safety deserve neither?
But are you giving up liberty if you are being filmed in a public place?
Hmmm… is it even being “filmed” anymore? Should we call it “digitized?”
5 users commented in " Freedom vs. Security update "
Follow-up comment rss or Leave a TrackbackI have thought this one through for years as I am sure you have. No, you are not giving up liberty if you are being filmed (observed) in a public place. Those who worry about that should avoid Circle K, Banks, Wal-Marts…pretty much should avoid life.
I am not in the conspiracy camp, but one thing does concern me. What concerns me is how easily digital images can be manipulated. Unscrupulous law enforcement COULD make just about anything look like something it is not.
Of course, bad guys in law enforcement have always been able to manipulate evidence to suit their purposes, so it may be a weak point. The public at large needs to do a better job of putting “good guys” in charge regardless.
This is a tough one CC…a tough one for all of us to wrestle with. The overwhelming support is what really surprises me.
It all depends on how the question was asked. If the question was: “Would you support police monitored surveillance cameras in public places to help identify perpetrators of violent crime?” the overwhelming support would not surprise me. If the question was “Would you support government monitoring of your activities in public places such as traffic light intersections?” I’m pretty sure the response would be less overwhelming.
My personal opinion is that if the monitoring is done in public places the SCOTUS (Supreme Court of the United States) has already ruled on this, and their ruling has been that you have no expectation of privacy, and as such this is not a reduction of liberty in the first place. I admit it isn’t the most pleasant thing to contemplate, but I don’t think it is truly a liberty vs. security argument if the monitoring is truly only done in public.
Agreed…The Constitution prohibits the government from doing a lot of things…observing the public in a public place is not one of those things. Some of my Libertarian buddies try to ignore that fact, but you know…facts are stubborn things.
I’ve always included Franklin’s quote among those I call “useless, meaningless pithy quotes.” It sounds nice (and I’ve used it as much as the next guy) but it doesn’t mean a dang thing.
The question isn’t “whether” to give up freedom for securtiy, nor has it EVER been. (See, e.g., the battles over what was included in the Constitution and the Bill of Rights…) The question is HOW MUCH freedom do we NEED to give up in order to ensure safety?
Drax:
Yep, I agree, it’s not a binary choice. As I have pointed out before (probably on this blog even) civilization itself can be described as a decision to give up certain “freedoms” in order to gain “security.” The freedoms we’ve given up include such things as the freedom to kill people we don’t like. So it’s all about degrees of freedom and degrees of security and the balance between the two. And those who study this sort of thing with intellectual rigor and honesty know that the degrees of each ebb and flow with the circumstances. For example, during WWII we were willing to give up more freedom, after WWII we were willing to give up less. And that’s a pretty reasonable way to deal with it. Luckily our system of government has been (up until now) reasonably flexible in responding to those changing circumstances.
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