Surveillance Creep

When Chicago started to install the police cameras - those with the flashing blue lights - about 5 years ago they said they were going into high crime areas to deter drug and gang crime. Clearly this has been a roaring success. Today drunk, 20-somethings pissing in the alleys must be the biggest problem the CPD now faces. I know this because there are now blue light cameras at Clark and Addison, Sheffield and Addison, Belmont and Sheffield, Fullerton and Sheffield, and I think at Belmont and Clark. And they are coming to Halsted too.

Not that this wasn't predicted.

"You put the cameras up today, then you start adding facial recognition technology, then you start recording it, then you don't just use them in high-crime areas," says Ed Yohnka of the American Civil Liberties Union.