Posted on 10/03/2006 7:35:06 AM PDT by Lunatic Fringe
They are meant to reduce crime by helping police spot problems. By the end of the year, 40 cameras will cover 31 locations in the area.
It's part of a plan first announced in January by Dallas Police.
Grant money will cover the 840-thousand dollar price tag for the cameras.
Police will monitor the cameras from their headquarters and City Hall.
Some residents feel apprehensive about the surveillance, seeing it as an invasion of privacy.
But others say the cameras could help curb petty crime and random violence.
If events play out the way they did in London, buy shares in hooded sweaters that conceal the wearer's face from cameras. But since this is Texas, maybe invest in cowboy hats with really, really wide brims. Sombreros?
Every large city is short on law enforcement officers. They cannot possibly be everywhere 24 hours a day. If placing cameras on the streets of crime ridden areas helps curb crime or help convict criminals, so be it.
If I read this article correctly, these cameras would be on public streets. There is no expectation of privacy there.
I've spent a lot of time in Downtown. The only violence I ever saw was on Texas-OU night. The only petty crime was when a guy tried to sell me drugs once. I crossed the street and pointed him out to a cop who told me the guy does that all the time. How are the cameras going to do nearly a million bucks worth of good when the cops won't do anything about crimes that are reported to them?
Orwell's "1984" used to seem like a fantasy nightmare. Decades ago I used to say, due to size and cost of cameras and an army of observers, it can't happen. Now, thanks to computers that employ facial recognition or read license plates, and video cameras that fit on a chip, survellance is possible and affordable beyond Orwell's wildest imaginings. That technology could really be abused by some future government.
"That technology could really be abused by some future government."
That sure does sound rather ominous!
Please don't be so quick to surrender your valuable Fourth Amendment rights as guaranteed by the Constitution.
~ Blue Jays ~
Why should they be "everywhere 24 hours a day"? What is this, the Soviet Union with two armed guards on every street corner? Giving up freedom for a false sense of security is a very bad idea. These cameras will only catch petty crimes, the sort of things we don't need to worry much about anyway. I'm thinking they'd like to place a camera inside everyone's home and workplace. After all, as they tell us: "if you're not doing anything wrong, you don't have anything to worry about".
When my wife was pregnant with our second daughter, she came out of a store, with our first daughter in her arms, and had a man come up behind her and snatch her purse. She fell to the ground, dropping our daughter and landing square on her stomach. The scumbag was never caught.
Is this the kind of "petty crime" that you don't need to worry much about anyway?
http://www.jsonline.com/story/index.aspx?id=508261
Yup. Just as long as it's on a public street.
What about one on your street....with a fish-eye lens, taking in your house?
Piss on that, we have CCW for a reason. I for one do not want to be walking around under the eye of Big Brother ever.
Second Amendment was added in there for a reason. This was part of it.
I seem to recall a quote by a founding father that goes something like; "Whoever sacrifices liberty for security has neither."
That's a lovely quote, one of my favorites. Adams, wasn't it?
The point is, he returned. That smacks of being an agitator. LE has traditionally kept the peace be deterring agitators. Go figure.
It was actually Franklin.
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