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Camera Scans Give Tyranny a Leg Up
The raccoon is legendary for courageously freeing itself from a trap by gnawing off its leg. But there's another view of his act of desperation. One that's not so complimentary. Many Americans feel trapped in a world beset by crime. But is it time to take a lesson from the raccoon? Like most of the people who visit Ybor City, I do not have a criminal record. I am not wanted by police anywhere as far as I know. And even though I've been told many times that a guy in Pinellas County could be my identical twin, I'm not haunted by the fear that a case of mistaken identity will land me in jail in his stead. In short, I have no reason to fear getting caught on the scanning cameras of Ybor City. Still, the streets of Ybor will not appear on my itinerary any time soon. Not as long as being there means being watched by people other than the ones who have my tacit consent, which I gave when I decided to set foot on public property. They have given the same consent, so we have entered into a mutual contract to respect each other's privacy. Unless we are exceedingly rude, we don't stare at each other to the point of discomfort, we don't walk over to see what's being pulled out of purses or pockets, we don't snap each other's pictures without asking permission. Ybor's cameras violate all of those standards of decorum. They violate our space, they nibble at the crumb of privacy we still have. They insult us. They treat each of us as a suspect whose guilt has to be ruled out. I have done nothing that reasonably should ring me up as a suspect, and I refuse, accordingly, to be treated as one. The simplest way to do that - until Tampa's mayor and council decide to scrap the surveillance cameras - is to keep myself and my money out of the cameras' reach. If other offended people decide to do the same - enough that it shows on the ledgers of businesses there - so be it. Although lawyers are already begging to defend on constitutional grounds someone nabbed by the scanning system, FaceIt, legal issues should not be the point of contention. Not yet anyway. At some point, that probably will change. When scanning the public for wanted criminals in Ybor City becomes old news, there will be searches for new locations. Areas broadly called high-crime areas will be the first targets. That means College Hill in Tampa, south St. Petersburg, Greenwood Avenue in Clearwater and Liberty City in Miami will all be candidates for the expanded use of scanning cameras. There will be those who applaud those moves. Protests from people outside those areas will be muted. Support will be more vocal. Once cameras are in place and applauded in poor, black areas, the search for new locations will shift to a search for new applications, from scanning for wanted criminals to focusing on suspicious activity. A new, high-tech profiling could find root. On a street full of suspects, a friend passing another a stick of foil-wrapped gum looks much like a drug dealer passing dope. On a street full of suspects, bulging pockets look as if they may hold weapons. On a street full of suspects, guilt is presumed until evidence disputes it. On the street full of the suspects FaceIt makes of us all, too many innocent people will have their days, some their lives, disrupted by suspicious police officers. Once public scanning gets a stronghold on the streets, can other public places be far behind? How about highway overpasses to look for, say, unused seat belts? Public restrooms, to look for pedophiles, illegal sexual activity, drug sale and use? And what happens to the images? Will they be preserved? Do they become public records if they are? The problem ultimately is that Tampa is opening a door to much more than an innocuous, and so far ineffective, crime-fighting tool in Ybor City. It is breaching a new area of government intrusion into the lives of ordinary, law-abiding citizens. That intrusion, with recent blessings by the U.S. Supreme Court, is already excessive when compared with the intent of the thoughtful founding fathers, who could not have envisioned the extremes technological advancements allow. Tampa needs to proceed with caution and deliberation, something its council has shown so little of on this issue that some members initially accidentally voted to install the system. In the rush to try anything touted as a crime-fighting tool in an environment hysterical over crime rates, we must make sure that last-resort methods are not prematurely adopted. We cannot afford to be like the desperate raccoon and start chewing off legs. Governmental gains and citizens' losses earn permanence immediately. And freedoms are like that raccoon's leg: Once sacrificed, they don't grow back.
Privacy / Big Brother |
