We Know Who You Are and We Know What You Did
The local news reported last night that an electronic law enforcement equipment company made presentations about its latest "gotcha" camera for monitoring your behavior. This gizmo is a traffic control radar device that can monitor 3 lanes of traffic simultaneously, take pictures, and then issue appropriate citations and fines to speeders and do the collection to boot. All of this is done at "no expense" to the governing authority. One can assume that the company is paid by either keeping all of the fine or a percentage thereof. The selling point is that this "frees" law enforcement officials to do serious police work. In our area, local news is reporting that Youngstown, Warren, and of course, Girard, are considering this system.
The Ohio State Legislature has a different view of things, and has recently passed legislation that would make it illegal to operate a "red light running camera" without the presence of a law enforcement officer on the scene. Common sense would dictate that this would also apply to the speed radar cameras.
The bigger issue is Big Brother has arrived. George Orwell missed it by a few years. Nonetheless, we are being watched, and watched, and watched some more. Granted that this is for our "protection", and if I were to be mugged in a parking lot I would be thrilled if the assailant could be identified on tape. But something more sinister is happening here. The monitoring cameras are rapidly preventing us from being human. We are being watched in hallways, elevators, and in our offices. We are monitored in stores and in parking lots. Cities want to have us watched at traffic lights and on the road. School buses are monitored. School hallways are monitored. Our courts are monitored. This doesn't begin to describe how we are watched in airports, right down to the x-ray machine that allows us to be viewed naked.
When will all of this monitoring cease to be a safety measure and begin to be a control measure? Do we really want the government watching us pick our noses or scratching our rears? Are too many cameras already beginning to force imperfect human beings into a cage of perfection of behavior in which no one can survive? Can anyone stand to be monitored 24/7?
Loss of freedom happens in small increments, not by leaps and bounds. American society is locking itself into a cage of cameras from which there is no escape. Cameras on 4 sides of the cage, and a top and bottom made of computer information. If I remember my psychology courses, when rats are locked into a cage from which there is no escape, one of two things happens. They either become docile or violent. Think about it when you go 37 miles/hour in a
35 mile/hour zone and you get a picture of your car and a ticket from some faraway corporation telling you to send in a $100.00 fine or your insurance will be cancelled. They know who you are, and they know what you did. Will you quietly acquiesce, or will you revolt?
The Ohio State Legislature has a different view of things, and has recently passed legislation that would make it illegal to operate a "red light running camera" without the presence of a law enforcement officer on the scene. Common sense would dictate that this would also apply to the speed radar cameras.
The bigger issue is Big Brother has arrived. George Orwell missed it by a few years. Nonetheless, we are being watched, and watched, and watched some more. Granted that this is for our "protection", and if I were to be mugged in a parking lot I would be thrilled if the assailant could be identified on tape. But something more sinister is happening here. The monitoring cameras are rapidly preventing us from being human. We are being watched in hallways, elevators, and in our offices. We are monitored in stores and in parking lots. Cities want to have us watched at traffic lights and on the road. School buses are monitored. School hallways are monitored. Our courts are monitored. This doesn't begin to describe how we are watched in airports, right down to the x-ray machine that allows us to be viewed naked.
When will all of this monitoring cease to be a safety measure and begin to be a control measure? Do we really want the government watching us pick our noses or scratching our rears? Are too many cameras already beginning to force imperfect human beings into a cage of perfection of behavior in which no one can survive? Can anyone stand to be monitored 24/7?
Loss of freedom happens in small increments, not by leaps and bounds. American society is locking itself into a cage of cameras from which there is no escape. Cameras on 4 sides of the cage, and a top and bottom made of computer information. If I remember my psychology courses, when rats are locked into a cage from which there is no escape, one of two things happens. They either become docile or violent. Think about it when you go 37 miles/hour in a
35 mile/hour zone and you get a picture of your car and a ticket from some faraway corporation telling you to send in a $100.00 fine or your insurance will be cancelled. They know who you are, and they know what you did. Will you quietly acquiesce, or will you revolt?
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