1984-Remember, we're watching you for your own good...

Remember, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.......

Hasn't ANYONE in government read George Orwell? Or for that matter, anyone that voted these twits into office in Maryland? Red light cameras. Speeding cameras. Surveillance cameras in "high crime" (as defined by whom?) areas. Now the word crime isn't even mentioned. "Strategic" areas need cameras. Monitored by the local police. All to prevent crime. What happens when someone in power creates a law making something previously legal into an illegal act? Firearms = terror weapons. Opinions = hate speech. Unorthodox sex = sex crime. How intrusive are we going to get? Liberals want to stop conservative talk radio, slandering it. Conservatives want to keep up family values in a changing society. Its not up to the police to prevent crime. Its up to the citizens to prevent crime. Otherwise, there is no reason to not have a police state. Police catch criminals. A crime must be committed. If we subject ourselves to 24 hour monitoring, with continuing increases in surveillance, where does it stop? At the forefront of our thoughts, we must remember that we are a free people. We must stop this insanity before we can't. Because we are being watched......

We need to prevent any of this developing in Virginia.

City passes camera law

Hoping to deter crime by expanding the use of surveillance cameras, Aberdeen passed a measure that empowers the city government and police to require cameras in new developments.

The Police Department, the Department of Planning and Community Development, and the Department of Public Works will decide whether a new residential, commercial or industrial development must install cameras at "strategic locations" before a development permit is issued.
Cameras installed at new developments will be connected to a watch room at the police station, Mayor S. Fred Simmons said.

Simmons said the police chief will work with the other departments to study the feasibility of installation and check whether a camera is "wanted and necessary" at new developments.

But the ordinance does not spell out guidelines for determining whether a new development will be required to have cameras, which concerned the lone dissenter on the council vote, Ruth Elliott.

"We have no internal procedures or policies on this," Elliott said. "It is vague, and you can read in between the lines."
Elliott expressed concern that the two-sentence ordinance gives broad authority to the city without laying out parameters about how the city will determine whether a development should have cameras.

But Simmons said, "The reason why it's left open is that the whole landscape changes all the time." (emphasis mine)

Melissa Ngo, senior counsel of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, also questioned an ordinance that lacked guidelines on determining where cameras would be required.

"How are they going to decide?" said Ngo, whose Washington-based organization studies civil liberty and privacy issues. "If this is going to be low-income development, are they going to watch over the poor people? If this is going to be fancy condos, are they going to decide that they don't need to look over those people?"