Hayseeds No. 214

NYC To Start Recording License Plates Coming Downtown.

It looks like New York City is planning on using permanently installed license plate readers on major streets going downtown to track suspected terrorist movements.

By the end of this year, police officials say, more than 100 cameras will have begun monitoring cars moving through Lower Manhattan, the beginning phase of a London-style surveillance system that would be the first in the United States.

The Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, as the plan is called, will resemble London?s so-called Ring of Steel, an extensive web of cameras and roadblocks designed to detect, track and deter terrorists. British officials said images captured by the cameras helped track suspects after the London subway bombings in 2005 and the car bomb plots last month.

If the program is fully financed, it will include not only license plate readers but also 3,000 public and private security cameras below Canal Street, as well as a center staffed by the police and private security officers, and movable roadblocks.

Not only would this system allow for alerts on certain cars to be sent out to police, it would also set up the basis for congestion pricing, should the state legislature later goes for it. This would happen live, unlike the downloadable versions that NYC's 250 cameras already use. There is also places where they want to put up gates to stop suspect cars in an emergency.

Obviously the civil liberties people are very unhappy about this.

Civil liberties advocates said they were worried about misuse of technology that tracks the movement of thousands of cars and people,

Would this mean that every Wall Street broker, every tourist munching a hot dog near the United States Court House and every sightseer at ground zero would constantly be under surveillance?

?This program marks a whole new level of police monitoring of New Yorkers and is being done without any public input, outside oversight, or privacy protections for the hundreds of thousands of people who will end up in N.Y.P.D. computers," Christopher Dunn, a lawyer with the New York Civil Liberties Union, wrote in an e-mail message.

They make a good point. We don't want to live in fear that we are being watched all the time by some police officers in a distant massive command center, for no reason besides personal voyeurism and political surveillance. Technology like this certainly makes those kind of things very possible.

On the other hand, we live in a dangerous society. There are terrorists out there, and more run of the mill people that want to cause us harm. In contrast, cameras don't really harm us, as long as it's not abused or used for harassment. Paranoia can go too far. There has to be clear policies and laws how such technology be use—and serious criminal penalties for it's abuse.

Schenectady's Sex Offenders Moving Out to the Country?

The Republican Leader of the Schenectady County Legislature swears up and down that the county's sex offender policies >are not forcing sex offenders to move out to more remote parts of the county, as there is few places left in the city where they can live.

To a degree he is right – it's simply too expensive for many people as marginalized as sex offenders to move out to rural areas. After all, as noted last week, the entire Hilltowns have only two sex offenders. Yet, that might be the only place they can live without falling out of compliance with the county's restrictions on sex offenders.

The reality is that most sex offenders know their victims and offenders quite well. Sex offenders don't rape random kids on the street for the most part. This information is widely available in on DCJS website. Most likely you will know if your friends are former sex offenders, and if you feel it is necessary, give them extra scrutiny when they are over.

Having a personal connection, knowing your friends, and trusting them when you are sure it is safe, is far more appropriate then worrying about previously convicted sex offenders. Most likely your kids are going to be injured by people they know and not strangers. Those people most likely have not been convicted of sex offenses.

For those very few sex offenders who do hurt strangers, there is a need to ensure that they are not getting out of prison without sufficient treatment. For them there is now civil confinement, which ensures, if properly implemented, that sex offenders receive the necessary treatment before being released to the public where they could injure again.

Conclusions: We have a great fear of the sexual predators. This probably is not due to any rational reasons, but instead is a latent fear based on our own discomfort with sexuality as a society. It in some ways has gotten worst since more of us have become disconnected from our roots – when is the last time you watched a bull on a heifer or tom cat on a female cat?

Like it or not people have sex. People also die, go the bathroom, and do all kinds of other natural activities. In many cases in the animal world sexuality is about dominance – even if those kingdoms don't have the laws to regulate it like we do. Yet, as a humans we have to learn to respect each other, including those who are different from them. One way of respect is only have sex with consent and within a loving married relationship.

Guns and Social Problems.

As you may know, the elected officials in the city council are trying to do their part to look like they are trying to work on Albany's problems by going after gun crime. They want to study the problem further and try to figure out where all the illegal guns (and probably legal guns) are coming from.

That of course has the NRA types less then happy with the city. It also begs interesting civil liberties questions, particularly when this so-called study is focusing only on the result of the problem and not the root of the problem. When people are trying obtaining guns to kill each other, it's too late to stop them – as they will get guns or other weapons – from a frying pan on down.

What the city needs to study is the moral and social decline in so many of its neighborhoods. Why do people so many people feel the need to act in both self-destructive and community-destructive ways? Most of us in more respectable communities don't get up in the morning and shoot our neighbors. Why isn't the city studying what they can do further reduce out of wedlock sex and drugs?

The money the city is planning on using to build the convention center might be better used for blight removal. Why are they so afraid to use eminent domain to eliminate troubled neighborhoods and build desirable housing or commercial development? There clearly is a demand for good quality housing and real estate properties in the city.

Guns and Social Problems.

As you may know, the elected officials in the city council are trying to do their part to look like they are trying to work on Albany's problems by going after gun crime. They want to study the problem further and try to figure out where all the illegal guns (and probably legal guns) are coming from.

That of course has the NRA types less then happy with the city. It also begs interesting civil liberties questions, particularly when this so-called study is focusing only on the result of the problem and not the root of the problem. When people are trying obtaining guns to kill each other, it's too late to stop them – as they will get guns or other weapons – from a frying pan on down.

What the city needs to study is the moral and social decline in so many of its neighborhoods. Why do people so many people feel the need to act in both self-destructive and community-destructive ways? Most of us in more respectable communities don't get up in the morning and shoot our neighbors. Why isn't the city studying what they can do further reduce out of wedlock sex and drugs?

The money the city is planning on using to build the convention center might be better used for blight removal. Why are they so afraid to use eminent domain to eliminate troubled neighborhoods and build desirable housing or commercial development? There clearly is a demand for good quality housing and real estate properties in the city.