Pressure on U.S. to use more surveillance

"Pressure is building for greater use of video cameras to keep watch over the nation's cities - particularly in transportation systems and other spots vulnerable to terrorism - after the bombings in London."

"The calls have come over the last few weeks as British investigators released surveillance footage of the bombers in the deadly July 7 attacks and then put out frames of suspects in Thursday's failed attacks."

"I do not think that cameras are the big mortal threat to civil liberties that people are painting them to be," Washington, D.C., Mayor Anthony A. Williams said Friday."

"He's not alone. While privacy advocates question their effectiveness, Sen. Hillary Clinton called for New York City subway officials to install more cameras, even though officials said some 5,000 cameras are already in use across all modes of city travel. In Stamford, Conn., Mayor Dan Malloy said it's time to revisit a 1999 ordinance that limited cameras to watching traffic."

"In many other spots around the country, cameras already are in place."

I have one question; Why are you so willing to live under a total surveillance society, when it clearly has little or no effect against terror? As evidenced by the British bombings. London has long been known to have an extensive camera network, yet the bombings still took place, by, it is said, people who lived in that country, so would obviously have know they would be photographed. It didn't prevent those deaths.

Here in the US, where the march towards total surveillance began long before 9/11, and hasn't stopped bank robberies (inside, as well as at the ATMs), shoplifting, car thefts, or anything else where cameras are know to reside. All it does is give you a false sense of security, since the determined don't really care about being seen.

You cannot just continue to allow law after law, regulation after regulation, that does little more more than give more power to the state, over every aspect of your lives. As long as you remain a mortal being, you cannot be "made safe", no matter how much you turn yourselves over to the state.

If this is what you want, you must also stop considering yourself as living in a free country. Being "free", does NOT mean living free to do whatever the state allows you to do, it means living free of government interference in your lives. It means being responsible for ones self, and behaving in a manner that is generally accepted in the society in which you live. It means you will be vulnerable to the forces of nature as well as the forces of evil intent. Do you realize that people are not being "made safe" in countries that have little or no freedoms for their citizens? Do you know that in spite of having lived with constant terror attacks, Israelis are not safe after all this time? Even their own government officials are not safe. Neither were the citizens of London who have previously born the brunt of IRA attacks. Niether are the citizens of repressive countries like Egypt and Saudi Arabia "made safe". And lets not forget the "Evil Empire" itself. The so called Russian Mafia did not suddenly spring up after the collapse of their empire, it existed all along, even in a tightly controlled society such as theirs.

Total surveillance may indeed deter some common criminals, who will just move on to easier pickings, and even make you think twice about running a red light, but it will NOT make you safe, especially from terrorists and determined criminals, because they will find a way to work around any protections you think you may have.

If you want to give up your freedoms, give them up because you have no use for them. Don't give them up for any illusion of safety, because you will be very much disappointed.