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The Wave of the Future
Kansas City, KS citizens next to be watched, recorded by police.
A big part of my day consists of reading and scanning news items and policy research from all over the country and around the world. Far more often than I would like, I come across a report of something that sounds like it came from the pages of one of my favorite novels, George Orwell's 1984. Plans by Kansas City, KS police to install cameras to record citizens on city streets is one of those reports.
In 2008, we are not too far from that: in many cities all across the country we are recorded nearly everywhere we go by various private and public surveillance systems. In addition to the cameras in office and apartment buildings, gas stations, parking lots, shopping malls, and virtually every other type of private establishment, there is now a growing number of government cameras that monitor activities on public streets. Kansas City is merely following a trend set by New York, Washington, Chicago and other cities.
As one Kansas City official says, "It is just a tool that law enforcement can use to not only locate and identify criminals, but it is the wave of the future." He is right, it is the wave of the future; unfortunately, like the world portrayed in 1984, that future might not be so bright. The cameras are always put in place in the name of public safety and security, but are we really so unsafe as to need our moves monitored by the government? Does such monitoring make us safer or perhaps less safe? One thing is for sure: police monitoring of individual citizens in public space can only be a threat to liberty, not an aid to it.
