From Houston:

Houston’s police chief on Wednesday proposed placing surveillance cameras in apartment complexes, downtown streets, shopping malls and even private homes to fight crime during a shortage of police officers.

[...]

Building permits should require malls and large apartment complexes to install surveillance cameras, Hurtt said. And if a homeowner requires repeated police response, it is reasonable to require camera surveillance of the property, he said.

Andy Teas with the Houston Apartment Association said that although some would consider cameras an invasion of privacy, “I think a lot of people would appreciate the thought of extra eyes looking out for them.”

The kicker is the Police Chief’s justification, which is tired cliche when it comes from someone like — oh, I don’t know — Ben Shapiro. But it becomes downright frightening when coming from the police chief a major freakin’ city:

“I know a lot of people are concerned about Big Brother, but my response to that is, if you are not doing anything wrong, why should you worry about it?”

Golly, if only James Madison had thought of that!

In all seriousness? Putting the whole Big Brother thing aside, that response all by itself calls out for this jerk’s termination. It reveals a complete and utter lack of understanding of and respect for the Constitution. And it’s coming from the guy in charge of the police force charged with securing the rights of the people who live in Houston. How could a competent city council keep this guy on the job?

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 19th, 2006 at 7:10 pm by Radley Balko and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.