[cnorman18]

I may have to revise my views on public surveillance cameras. Check out this NYT story from China:

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/12/bu...EM3E13+odYz7Rg

As you can see, it takes a helluva lot more than cameras to make this plan work; still, this not good--except that it's fair warning for us.

I'll still give a tentative OK to the cameras by themselves--but if they start using the immigration crisis to promote a national ID card with all this high-tech capability built in, we should start knocking them off their mounts. And the pols promoting them, too. THAT looks like 1984.

(Admitting I was wrong on 2 different issues in 24 hours--well, nobody can say I don't listen...)

[bkt]

If our paths ever cross, let me to buy you a couple or 12 beers. Many people are more prone to digging in their heels rather than examining an argument and retracting an initial position.

Cameras in and of themselves are arguably pretty innocuous. But putting them up helps expand an infrastructure which lends itself to bringing the Land of the Free much closer to the stuff going on in China.

It sucks that an American-financed company is behind this Chinese effort.

[cnorman18]

Originally Posted by bkt

If our paths ever cross, let me to buy you a couple or 12 beers. Many people are more prone to digging in their heels rather than examining an argument and retracting an initial position.

Cameras in and of themselves are arguably pretty innocuous. But putting them up helps expand an infrastructure which lends itself to bringing the Land of the Free much closer to the stuff going on in China.

It sucks that an American-financed company is behind this Chinese effort.

Thanks. It's always been a core conviction of mine that one ought to believe in and work for that which one actually believes to be true, as opposed to that which one WISHES were true.

That's why I'm not a liberal...

New facts indicate that a shift in one's position might be necessary.

I don't much care for beer, but 12 beers ought to work out to about the same as a couple of rounds of single-malt Scotch... So okay!!

[ScottG]

What's really surprising is that the Times reported it and the tone of the story wasn't approving it as a great thing that should happen here.

As for certain US companies being involved, it's not surprising. They have been helping the communists oppress their people for years.