[Echo]Attention, citizens of Bellwood, Illinois![/echo]
Sunday, April 3rd, 2005It’s time to move somewhere else.
Pretty soon, if you’re tossing a paper napkin on the ground, making an illegal U-turn or even letting Fido relieve himself on the streets of Bellwood, be forewarned: Somebody could be watching.
In the hopes of eliminating crime, village officials say they’ll have all the public ways in the 3.5-square mile town under camera surveillance within two years.
Though other cities like Chicago have set up cameras in high-crime neighborhoods, Bellwood will be the first town in Illinois, and possibly the first in the country, to have every public thoroughfare, sidewalk and alley under the watchful digitized eye of the Bellwood Police Department.
Civil libertarians question Bellwood’s approach and wonder how much surveillance is too much.
“Where is the conversation about what kind of society we want and whether we think it’s appropriate to do this?” asked Ed Yohnka, spokesman for the Illinois ACLU.
Bellwood’s mayor said he welcomed the suggestion that his town might be considered something akin to a Big Brother-land.
“I wish we could create that image. I would love that,” Mayor Frank Pasquale said with a chuckle.
Mayor Pasquale needs to read more. Idiot. Almost as bad as the British ad agency behind this monstrosity.
(Via CrimProf Blog via InstaPundit)
