Do You Begin to See, Then, What Kind of World We Are Creating?

By Prescott Carlson in News on Sep 29, 2008 9:00PM

How fitting for the beginning of Banned Books Week that we come across a story that will have many crying "Big Brother." After Charles Hill became the victim of vandalism at the house he's building in West Chatham, he decided to become the first private citizen to join the city's Private Sector Camera Initiative. The program allows private security cameras to directly beam their images to Chicago's 911 call center, and is already being utilized by various businesses and organizations like Macy's, the CBOE, the Sears Tower and Columbia College. Hill has installed 5 exterior surveillance cameras of his own to monitor his block. But Mr. Hill, don't you think that's a bit, well, ooky?

"Some people talk about the ACLU and all these privacy rights. But if a crime takes place, those individuals had to come from somewhere. I don't care if it's my brother or my mother. If those cameras do what they're supposed to do, whoever suffers will suffer."

Yeah, all these goddamn "privacy rights," fuck 'em! If police want to make random searches of people on the street, do it! If they're not doing anything wrong, they shouldn't worry about it. Check library records, go ahead! Don't read anything suspicious if you don't want to be bothered. Well, maybe one positive thing to come from all the extra cameras is a reduction in PDONP*. [S-T]

* Public display of nose picking