As anti-terrorism hysteria sweeps the globe, otherwise rational people are agreeing to give up ever more of their liberty and privacy in a vain effort to be safe. One of the more perplexing choices is how far to allow
cameras into our lives. The following is just one of many examples of steps our governments are taking or considering that makes this writer nervous:
...Bavarian interior minister Gunther Beckstein has suggested that cameras should be installed in German mosques to enable government agents to monitor and censor inflammatory remarks by Islamic leaders in the fight against terrorism.
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And in our nation's capital, many are wondering what to think about Mayor Williams' eagerness to
putting video cameras widely in public places to stop crime?
"I think they can be used much more widely over more hours and certainly could be used, for example, in many of our neighborhood areas, our parks, our commercial districts [and] our recreation centers," Mr. Williams said during his weekly press briefing.
Stopping crime and terrorism is surely a good thing, noone will argue with that. But what about basic privacy or anonymity in public places? What about freedom of worship? What about liberty? Do you really want the government watching and tracking you when you are praying or playing in the parkt? One cannot help but be more concerned these days, not just because of the proliferation of cameras, but with all of the new technology that makes the cameras useful. These days we have advanced facial pattern recognition software that enables computers to identify you, programs that can monitor you for "suspicious" activities, and an incredibly advanced capacity to analyze, save, and combine all of this data with that in other databases.
Where are we going with this? And how far will we go to try to be safe?