Papers, bitte

[msmemory_archive]

Eish. They've started checking IDs on the Green Line. Apparently, if you are innocent, you are not supposed to mind.

Comments

Re: Privacy and inconvenience

[herooftheage.livejournal.com]

My objection is not the problem of privacy, per say, but at the extension of police powers, and the requirement that I have to be able to prove who I am at a moment's notice. It is basically a question of where I want to draw the line - and keeping the police as limited as possible is an easier place to draw it than granting them more power - simply because power exists to be used, and if the police have it, they'll use it.

There's a good bit in one of the SPQR books where the protagonist gets asked why Rome doesn't have a police force, and he incredulously wants to know who in their right mind would give someone their own publicly sanctioned private army right in the middle of the city. Now one might think that wouldn't apply here, but remember that Massachusetts is a state where the A.G. indicted John Silbur the day after he lost a gubenatorial election, so far as I can tell, simply for losing it.

Btw, we are close to coming to having cameras on every street corner and every parking lot - it is just that most of them are still privately owned. I do think privacy in the 21st century is a myth - but I still want to limit the government's access to the information.