Don't let Big Brother live in Dearborn: Proposed surveillance cameras shrink privacy for little gain

MELANIE ASMAR
Concord Monitor
Apr. 30, 2006

Dearborn should scrap the idea of blanketing the city with surveillance cameras.

The idea has a Big Brother smell about it, destroying privacy for little or no gain.

As a crime stopper, cameras are faulty. At best, a camera can only monitor a determined criminal.

Even dumb crooks can figure out where cameras are located, and where they're not. Or a determined person could borrow a fashion idea from Jesse James and wear a mask when cameras are rolling.

If Dearborn thinks it has a petty crime problem, it should first boost community policing, where local residents volunteer to be part of the solution.

Attacking overall blight also helps reduce crime. When he was mayor of New York City, Rudy Giuliani famously adopted the "broken window" theory. That is, require building owners to fix broken windows on the grounds that the vandalism feeds on itself and fosters a general disregard for law and authority.

Such an idea can establish a forward-looking mood in a community.

But a completely camera-pocked city will feel more like a prison exercise yard than a pleasant place to live. Dearborn would be better off working on the basics rather than buying technology for technology's sake.

After September 11, the federal government launched a major and successful assault against privacy. Under the Patriot Act, U.S. agents acquired enormous powers to poke and pry into private lives, including the warrantless wiretaps authorized by President Bush.

Americans are losing liberty at a frightening pace. Local communities need not contribute to the loss.