Will Bunch, citing the L.A. Times story on Lancaster, makes another good point on the surveillance camera issue:

Actually, Mowrer is wrong — nothing could more un-American than preventing people from watching who goes in or out his front door, provided that they are standing on a public street or sidewalk where citizens have the right to travel and assemble freely.

One of the things that I believe most strongly in is the right of a free press, and one of those rights — upheld by our courts — is the right of news photographers to take and publish photos of what can be viewed on a public street, even if that view takes in private property. Thus, when the newspaper does a story on the corruption of a public figure like state Sen. Vince Fumo with your tax dollars, we have the right to stand on the street in front of his opulent mansion in Fairmount, supported by those ill-gotten gains, and take a picture.

What would be Orwellian would be denying that right. Police surveillance cameras — presuming they’re set up legally — show the same thing that a patrol officer now sees when he drives up your block every couple of hours. Do you think police patrolling your street is an invasion of privacy? I doubt it. Preventing views of what happens on a public street? That’s in essence of what the goons on the streets of Tehran are doing right this very minute.