The ADN editorial board’s Sunday opinion on police license plate readers — “What could go wrong?” — laid out exactly my thoughts and feelings when I read about this.
The Anchorage Police Department has failed — there is no other word for it — to follow the mandate that the public has laid out for it for years now with respect to body cameras, then ask to surveil us? More mass surveillance: Isn’t that the very definition of a police state? We already have the federal government illegally spying on us through the National Security Agency; I don’t want another layer of unconstitutional and unnecessary surveillance especially in light of the APD union not wanting us to surveil APD officers “protecting and serving.”
The argument goes like this: “But it will help is catch bad guys.” Yes, so do body cameras. The word “gall” comes to mind.
— Shawn O’Donnell
Anchorage
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