What is it About Houston and Surveillance?
I guess I avoided it when I was growing up in Houston, but there sure seems to be something in the water down there as first our Houston-raised president, and now Houston's police chief, seem awfully fond of surveillance. From Tom Kirkendall:
Anne Linehan and Charles Kuffner are two of Houston's best bloggers on local political matters, and they have been covering an emerging story that amazingly appears to be flying below the radar screen of most Houstonians -- i.e., Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt's
plan announced last week proposing to place surveillance cameras in
apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.Building permits should require malls and large apartment
complexes to install surveillance cameras, Hurtt said. And if a
homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to
require camera surveillance of the property, he said.And the Chief's justification for surveillance cameras in private homes?:
"I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother,
but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why
should you worry about it?"H'mm. That is not the kind of reasoning that one would find in, say, The Federalist Papers, now is it?
