I keep hearing that one of the weapons that London is using to identify the terrorists who attacked them last Thursday is the almost omnipresent system of video cameras. During lunch today, I listened, briefly, to Tammy Bruce (have I mentioned that I love my Sirius radio?), who was talking about the ubiquitous recording equipment in London and how such things don’t go over so well here. Americans tend to get riled up about traffic cameras; anything more would probably send a large number of people into apoplectic fits.

Even though I have some libertarian tendencies, I wouldn’t be one of those people. I don’t see anything wrong with recordings being made of what people do in public places. (Heck, if I’m being recorded by someone I’m having a conversation with, I don’t see that as any kind of betrayal, either. The betrayal would be if they played it for someone else, and it’s the exact same type of betrayal as it would be if they simply repeated what I said.)

In general, though, if we are going to be recorded in public places, I would want the feeds to be open to the public, not restricted to the government. That provides the citizens of the country their best opportunity for watching the watchers, so to speak.