From the Rose Law Group Growlery
By Phil Riske | Managing Editor
What Paradise Valley has lost is its copy of Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four.
And the town council, which approved a $2 million police technology upgrade last year, should be charged with impersonation of saguaro cacti.
Fake cacti, with cameras concealed in them, are being used to alert police to stolen or wanted vehicles. Paradise Valley town manager Kevin Burke said the system concealing the cameras inside the cacti meant they could keep the streets looking pretty.
Pretty silly, don’t you think, for a place named Paradise?
But this doublethink deserves some serious needling.
The issues are not the money spent on this enforcement measure; it’s not the reluctance of city brass to quickly answer residents’ questions about the cameras, and it’s not really about public safety.
Modern technology has become an untamed tiger. Every move made in today’s society seems to end up on video as citizens armed with smart phones and other high-tech are capturing the good and bad of daily life.
The issue is Big Brother.
There is a degree of paranoia in this country about our government. We don’t trust it. We worry about being surveilled for no cause. Spying saguaros only feed into those worries.
I used to spit on the sidewalk (covered under tort law) but not any more . . . for fear of being filmed by a fake parking meter.
Related: Phototorial
