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(USGovernment-News.Com, May 07, 2013 ) London, UK -- Both the police and politicians across the U.S. Are citing the example of surveillance video that assisted in the capture of the two Boston Marathon bombing suspects through positive identification.
From the Los Angeles area to Philadelphia, efforts to gain more access to funding that will provide cameras, police personnel, and other network gadgets and gizmos has become a top priority of larger cities that are not on the top of known terrorist lists.
Some within law enforcement acknowledge that the want for more material bring up the age old problem that often faces America when it comes to talks about providing government power of observation of the people. While newer studies are showing younger individuals are not as concerned with online privacy, mainly on social networks, the general want for privacy is still an American value that is held in high regard.
Having a nation filled with cameras constantly concerns a great many Americans for varying reasons, and few of them are nefarious in nature. To that concern, Deputy Chief Michael Downing of Los Angeles says “Look, we don't want an occupied state. We want to be able to walk the good balance between freedom and security,” Downing heads the department's counter-terrorism and special operations bureau.
“If this helps prevent, deter, but also detect and create clues to who did (a crime), I guess the question is can the American public tolerate that type of security,” he said.
Cameras on the streets and the existence of the sheer quantity of mobile cameras has helped catch lawbreakers time and again. But those looking to expand the governmental surveillance could now run up against the necessity of funding to back it. For many cities that is simply not a likely option, at least at the level some want it to be. With it being hard enough to get Americans to hand over privacy for security, it is doubly difficult to do so when a government asks for them to fit the bill via taxes.
“One of the lessons coming out of Boston is it's not just going to be cameras operated by the city, but it's going to be cameras that are in businesses, cameras that citizens use,” said Chuck Wexler, the executive director of the Police Executive Research Forum. “You'll see the use of cameras will skyrocket.”
Many citizens who dislike the concept of the government having the cameras are less turned off by the concept of companies holding the power, nor do they mind other individuals have capability to continually snap pictures. That may because it is harder for either entity to avoid legal ramification, while the government can sit behind the 'protection of national security'.
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