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Posted on 04/21/2013 6:48:20 PM PDT by markomalley
"I do think we need more cameras," Republican Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., said the day after the Boston Marathon bombing. "We have to stay ahead of the terrorists."
"We Need More Cameras, and We Need Them Now," blared the headline at Slate magazine.
As with every terrorist attack and high-profile killing, the Boston bombing has prompted calls for Americans to give up civil liberties for the sake of security. Rather than gun control or airport pat-downs, this time the call is for a Big Brother-like network of police cameras allowing authorities to more closely monitor people who move about the streets.
But the story of the Boston bombers -- the details of their crime and their capture -- makes the opposite argument. We don't need more government surveillance. We need to maintain robust civil society and public spiritedness. Sign Up for the Politics Digest newsletter!
Responding to IRA bombings and then going further after 9/11, London has created a "ring of steel," with chokepoints and thousands of closed-circuit television [CCTV] cameras. Wherever you go in London, Big Brother can watch you.
At Slate, Farhad Manjoo wrote, "Thanks to CCTV cameras, the identities of the bombers and their co-conspirators were determined in a few days' time."
But guess who else determined the identities of bombers in a few days' time, without thousands of police surveillance cameras? U.S., Massachusetts and Boston police.
Law enforcement in Boston used cameras to ID the bombing suspects, but not police cameras. Instead, authorities asked the public to submit all photos and videos of the finish-line area to the FBI, just in case any of them had relevant images. The surveillance videos the FBI posted online of the suspects came from private businesses that use surveillance to punish and deter crime on their property.
So it turns out we already have plenty of cameras on the street. They're not government cameras, but rather cameras owned and operated by private individuals and businesses. In a bout of public spiritedness, these pedestrians and businesses willingly shared their videos with law enforcement. Even if the crime had not been so notorious, the police could expect public cooperation -- what merchant wouldn't share his surveillance tapes to aid in a murder investigation?
So what do we gain by having the government run its own cameras? That would mean the police wouldn't need to turn to the public for help. This would create efficiencies, but it seems the public responded pretty efficiently last week.
Here's one big difference between the sort of cooperative surveillance displayed in Boston last week and London's Big Brother approach: The American system requires the willing participation of the public, or maybe warrants from a judge -- or at least subpoenas.
Give the government eyes on every street corner, and you mostly aid the ability of law enforcement to track us without public cooperation, warrants or legal paperwork. In other words, the British system not only gives government more information about the people, it gives the people less control of their government.
Sure it slows down our law enforcement when we require them to obtain cooperation, but so much of our legal system is exactly that: impediments to law enforcement intended to protect individual liberty and prevent abuse of power.
The standard retort to complaints of government surveillance is, "If you have nothing to hide, you shouldn't mind being watched." This mindset is wrong in many ways.
First, it's important to remember that governments and law enforcement agencies often abuse their power. Think of the Jim Crow South. Think of former New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer using state police (including a helicopter) to track political rival Joe Bruno.
But more importantly, the "what are you hiding?" question should be thrown at the government instead. Why would you want to avoid asking the public or a business for video, or asking a judge for a warrant, unless you were seeking information for improper purposes?
Finally, government surveillance at every corner reflects the un-American idea that we ought to leave civil order to the police. At times Americans have abdicated our responsibilities as citizens. But in crises we rise up.
When terrorist attacks in the U.S. have actually been deterred, it's been because of citizens acting. The shoe bomber was beaten by other passengers. The Times Square bomber was noticed by a vendor. And Flight 93 was brought down by hero passengers.
To stay safe we don't need fewer civil liberties. We need more civil society.
Camera’s on every city street corner would make us all safer. Those camera’s will help pin point terrorists, kidnappers, rapists, muggers, holdup perps, and every other crime which occurs in every big city every day.
What do we mean when we say that first of all we seek liberty? I often wonder whether we do not rest our hopes too much upon constitutions, upon laws and upon courts. These are false hopes; believe me, these are false hopes. Liberty lies in the hearts of men and women; when it dies there, no constitution, no law, no court can even do much to help it. While it lies there it needs no constitution, no law, no court to save it. -Judge Hand
What an @sshole. What the Boston Marathon bombing proved is that high-profile events that take place in major urban centers have plenty of cameras already. If anything, the biggest challenge in this case was having too much evidence, not too little. There must have been hundreds of thousands of digital photos and still frames from video cameras that showed the bomb sites at various points in time both before and after the incident.
What the Boston Marathon attack also proved is that a camera is usually only a useful tool after the fact in a case like this, when it's too late to do anything about the incident.
Is this jack@ss actually suggesting that we need more security cameras with police officers constantly watching the video imagery? No thanks.
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It has been said 'An armed society is a civil society'
Too bad the dear leaders are so hell bent on being uncivil.
Yup, they will help AFTER the fact/crime. I would rather not be a victim waiting for justice but a ‘responder’ hopefully preventing an injustice.
NEVER let a crisis go to waste!
Google glasses may change the world, and not in a good way.
No, you jackasses. The 2nd bomber was outside of the perimeter being searched. It was a phone call that focused the search.
There used to be a time in the US where people would contact the authorities because they came across something that violated their common sense--not because they didn't like their neighbors burning leaves or smoking a cigar in the backyard, but because of something very fundamentally wrong. I think this came out of a sense of identity with the American nation, and a personal credo of responsibility. I am beginning to fear that character is disappearing.
Agreed! With 300 million guns in the hands of American public, armed citizenry with concealed carry permits is the best defense against criminals, deranged mass shooters, etc.
But the Boston bombers were sneaky and people with guns in their pockets would not have stopped them. Thank goodness for the Lord & Taylor camera’s and other citizenry sending in their pictures to FBI.
Goes to show you that anyone DETERMINED enough can and will find a method to kill/maim civilians irregardless of our ‘laws’. All I ask is to be given a fighting chance against those not quite as determined or sneaky.
Terrorists : 1 America : 0
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