Complacency

[ThosStew@aol.com]

In a message dated 7/3/01 4:45:26 PM, gojomo@usa.net writes:

<< 

I think the use of cheap cameras and recognition technology to

reduce crime in public places is a net positive, for safety and

liberty.


What abuses do you fear? >>

I fear being a member of Falun Gong in China, caught in the seditious act of 
expressing my religious beliefs. I fear being Hindi in Kabul, seen on camera 
without my yellow armband. I fear being Jeff Bone, photographed on a soapbox 
saying that taxation is theft, and having his tax returns singled out for 
rigorous auditing every year. I fear being gay in Georgia, caught goosing 
another man in a state where sodomy's a felony; or being gay in New York and 
spraypainting Silence = Death to call attention to AIDS. I fear being black 
in apartheid South Africa and caught taking a shortcut along a street that's 
forbidden to me. I fear being a friend of mine who had the misfortune to 
become the love object of an obsessive cop who lived in her neighborhood, who 
stalked her under cover of the law and would have loved surveillance cameras. 
Or another friend, who became the object of the misbegotten affection of a 
techie in my office, who used his access to the network to monitor her every 
keystroke and read her e-mail.  I fear being homeless in Manhattan, 
photographed panhandling; or being normal in Manhattan, caught, gasp, 
jaywalking; or being down and out in Paris and playing the accordian in the 
Metro without a permit. (Listeners should fear my playing the accordian, but 
that's another story, and as Jeff would be quick to point out, the market 
will take care of that problem.) On this Independence Day, I fear being 
Nathan Hale in Boston and  the statement, "the only people who have anything 
to fear are people who have done something wrong."

Tom