Free, at last

Dear You,

Cameras are coming to Rochester's streets. Here in Upstate New York, video policing will begin in a year or so, just as it does in several other big cities around the country. Bad People will be under surveillance . . . and so will I. And you, too. The police have already put audio sensors in the area to pinpoint the location of a gunshot. For years now I've noticed cameras watching me as I withdraw money from my ATM, shop at stores, pump gasoline . . .

No, I don't feel an increased level of safety. And it's because I don't trust "authorities" with the records of my life. The men who wrote the Constitution were justifiably wary of government -- it's why they wrote so many privacy provisions into our laws. Jefferson (was it?) said that a people who wanted to be both safe and free would be neither.

Safety is a chimera. I'm astonished that so many today embrace her. On a radio program recently, caller after caller endorsed recent laws that -- to me -- further weaken our Bill of Rights . . . and I'm not talking about that idiotic Rush Limbaugh show; it was National Public Radio!

Who said that we get the government that we deserve? And if that is true, what does this say about us in the 21st Century of "human progress"?