Free Republic

It’s natural after an attack such as the Boston Marathon bombings to want to ratchet up security, but Americans are starting on a “slippery slope” when they start allowing more cameras in public places, claims Sen. Rand Paul. … Paul clarified that he has no problem with private businesses putting cameras outside their buildings to protect their property. But government, he argued, has enormous power that can be abused. …

Will the civil libertarians please shut up now? If they had had their way, London’s public surveillance cameras would have been unplugged long ago, and the British police would not have quickly identified the 7/7 suicide bombers from their pictures in the King’s Cross and Luton train stations—a breakthrough crucial to tracking down other participants in the plot. The London attacks have exposed the privacy fanatics’ campaign against public cameras as folly; it is just a matter of time before reality crushes other civil libertarian excesses as well, including opposition to data mining and to immigration law enforcement. Few crime-fighting...