I turned on the radio to go to work this morning and tuned into the Water Cooler where the DJs awaiting the arrival of Mayor Duffy. I was excited to hear what the mayor would have to say regarding the struggles of our city.

Mayor of Rochester, Robert Duffy went to the WDKX studio and took calls from Rochester listeners who voiced their concerns about the City. Among the issues discussed were surveillance cameras, youth programs, noise ordinances and drugs. Mayor Duffy answered with assertive responses to these concerned listeners. You can listen to the full program here.

I must say that while I was generally impressed by Duffy’s interest  and care in what the callers had to say, he continually referenced the the surveillance cameras that would be placed in many Rochester neighborhoods. I am no stranger to this issue. A while back, I found out about the prominent role of cameras in London — I recently read that there was one camera for every fourteen people! The city may soon add more. Then a couple of months ago, Rochester’s own City reported that surveillance cameras would soon be added to many “high crime areas” in the City of Rochester.

When I told my mother about this her response was, “Good! They need to start catching people that are committing all these crimes…and they need more cops out on the streets!!”

Really?

What has been missing from this discussion about surveillance cameras has been talk of our rights as Americans.  By adding surveillance cameras to our streets, we lose our privacy — we do not gain security. Isn’t anyone a little freaked out about the possibility that one of these cameras could see into our homes? What about the fact that they are in “high crime” areas? I would like to know if citizens in these areas, who are already wary of police presence due to bad experiences in the past, have declared cameras to be the need of their community.

If you knew that taking off your shoes at the airport made you a little safer, would you do it? If you knew that putting metal detectors in public schools and allowing in-school police officers to hand-scan your children would make them safer, would you agree? If you thought a surveillance camera could lower the homicide rate, would you support it? What are the consequences of these seemingly harmless actions.  We give up a little convenience, a little time, a little pride, a little privacy for…freedom? Assurance? Safety?

But little by little we lose our liberty. We lose what makes us Americans;what makes us free; we allow over government to trample over documents like the Constitution and the Bill of Rights but we don’t even notice because they seem to have only changed our lives a little. I could start to reference 1984, Brave New World or even Minority Report because they are important examples in cultural history which which people are familiar, but I think I will leave this blog here and allow you all to think about the pros and cons and the slippery slope beneath the installation of “security cameras” in our city.