Principled advocacy for freedom is difficult, we understand. Many of us find something so off-putting or annoying that all coexisting emotions disappear. For Dana Bazelon, a former criminal defense attorney who is now policy director for reformist Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner and a lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania Carey School of Law, the issue is guns and the violence she attributes to them . She abandoned concerns about government abuse of power in favor of a widespread surveillance state.
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“If the idea of adding police cameras makes you uneasy, I understand: I spent the first ten years of my career as a criminal defense and civil rights attorney, and during that time, I would be skeptical of plans to add police-controlled cameras. and doubt,” Bazelon wrote last week for ” slate. “But six years as policy director for progressive prosecutor and Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner changed my perspective. I saw firsthand the toll of unsolved shootings in Philadelphia, where reluctant witnesses were left in handcuffs and The pain of going to court, and the way witnesses may feel abused and angry after the trial is over.
Bazelon acknowledged that civil liberties groups are staunchly opposed to intrusive surveillance because of its impact on privacy and free speech. Surveillance is often presented as an “emergency” measure that never goes away as government officials find more interesting ways to do with the data they collect about their suffering subjects, in ways that inevitably limit freedoms.
The surveillance state’s horrific record
The Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression (FIRE) warned that “mass surveillance and censorship justified by war become a useful tool for more pervasive surveillance.” FIRE noted that then, as now, “the issues driving mass surveillance and censorship are National Security and Fear of Extremism, Disinformation and Propaganda.”
The Electronic Frontier Foundation is so concerned about the increasing difficulty and falling costs of implementing mass surveillance that it maintains a street-level surveillance center that records the various snooping techniques used by police and a surveillance atlas so travelers know which techniques Used in different places. places on their journey. People can use these tools to avoid prying eyes or take more direct action to eliminate intrusions.
The reasons to object to mass surveillance are many, frightening, and historically well-documented. In the 1970s, the U.S. Senate Church Committee found that the FBI “focused more on domestic dissent than organized crime.” Recently, the New York City Police Department was discovered to be monitoring and tracking worshipers at mosques. Federal and local law enforcement agencies often purchase tracking data from third-party brokers who collect GPS information generated by mobile phone applications.
Bazelon acknowledged this, writing, “Americans are rightly fearful of government surveillance: Our history is replete with stories of law enforcement overreach, from Edgar Hoover’s FBI to Edward Snowden The publication revealed abuses of power by the National Security Agency.
But the gun.
When fear overcomes history
“These potential harms should be weighed against the pain experienced by communities where shootings often go unaddressed, the risks and trauma experienced by witnesses who testify, and the inherent shortcomings of criminal prosecutions surrounding eyewitness testimony, which research shows Probably unreliable,” she insisted.
Therefore, she believes, “more street cameras are not a panacea, but they can help, and they have some advantages over human witnesses.” She noted that cameras are more reliable than witnesses at identifying suspects, and they If you don’t hold grudges and deliberately misidentify people, the recorded images will still be clear, but the memory will fade.
But there is no prosecutor in the country who does not complain about the difficulty of prosecuting cases. Regardless of the crime involved, catching and punishing offenders is difficult due to challenges such as evidence requirements, unreliable witnesses, and neighbors refusing to cooperate with police. Many jurisdictions are willing to implement surveillance cameras, facial recognition, license plate readers, gunshot detection, and more, citing local complaints about drugs, burglaries, sex work, auto thefts, violent crimes, or unlicensed activities. As Miguel Vargas, played by Charlton Heston, touch of evil”, “Police work is only easy in a police state.
Bazelon acknowledged that we have a right to privacy in our homes and businesses, but he argued that “we have no right to privacy in public spaces.” Police cameras in public spaces “are different because they don’t target specific people: they capture everyone and everything, equivalent to having an observant police presence on every block.”
The chorus you hear in the background is the sound of thousands of police officers and prosecutors chanting “Give me, give me.” Such comprehensive surveillance would undoubtedly make the job of enforcing the law easier – with all laws, good and bad, enforcers are subject to the human temptation to abuse their power. Then we would all live in a panopticon hell.
You can have freedom or you can have a surveillance state
It should be emphasized that freedom involves trade-offs. Inevitably some people will abuse their freedoms and take advantage of the lack of Big Brother-style surveillance to harm their neighbors. But we recognize that freedom is a matter of rights, and that abuse by some does not justify oppression or surveillance of the entire world. Solving problems caused by some must respect the rights of others.
What’s interesting is Bazelon Know Laws and the dangers of over-enforcement. She was arrested in 2020 for leaving her daughter alone in a car (a common occurrence when I was a kid). She oversees the District Attorney’s Alternative Felony Disposition Program, which helps people avoid being arrested for carrying a firearm without a license (completely legal in many states and a misdemeanor in most of Pennsylvania, but a felony in Philadelphia) jail.
Still, she wants police to monitor the streets with an unblinking eye to decide when to send officers to save people’s lives? Why?
Too many of us find that our support for freedom ends when something really bothers us. For Dana Bazelon, that means she will implement a surveillance state to reduce violence in Philadelphia.
