Oakland County Police State

Apparently the Woodward Dream Cruise is a hotbed of terrorist activity. Why else would police make a power grab to get spy cameras installed (more info and comments here)? A company called GigaTrans set it up for them, who happens to have a visually stunning website.

Undersheriff McCabe also dismissed the privacy concerns. “Quite frankly, given today’s post-9/11 climate, we need all the help we can get in being vigilant,” he said.

Not that I advocate illegal activity, but it seems that there’s enough information online for terrorists to take this down post-haste. From the article:

GigaTrans uses antennas on the Top of Troy office building along I-75 at Big Beaver Road and the Fisher Building in Detroit’s New Center to beam wireless Internet connections to businesses throughout the metropolitan area.

The GigaTrans website also has a wealth of information, including their 100% uptime guarantee, which is better than any of the ISPs I’d heard of as recently as yesterday.
I guess this sort of thing is inevitable, but the police have already shown they can’t be trusted with new technologies. I think we need a little watching the watchers, like the transparent society crowd has been preaching. I think that for a nominal fee you should be able to get a DVD with all the footage that was requested by police officers. That way you can tell if they’re using it to find out about “the commotion is up ahead” or if they’re using it to check out women’s asses.
(Thanks for the heads up Duane!)