BY JAMES RICKMAN
Los Alamos

Editor,

Big Brother is relentlessly watching the citizens of little Los Alamos, but who is watching Big
Brother?

Over the past months, a growing network of surveillance cameras have been mysteriously
installed on lamp posts along Trinity and Diamond drives. These cameras ostensibly are automatic license plate readers, Flock cameras, or some cheaper knock off. Regardless of the brand, these systems are entirely self-contained, never blinking or running out of power—watching every coming and going every minute of every day.

Data about your travels, the configuration of your vehicle, and even, in some cases, the structure of your face and the identification of your traveling companions, are stored for undetermined lengths of time and available for use and scrutiny by any number of legitimate or illegitimate entities nationwide or globally. Most likely, you are paying for these relentless breaches of your privacy with your tax dollars.

But the specifics of who is funding this surveillance is unclear, because no one in our local government has told us about the surveillance, its purpose or cost. And worse, no one in our local government bothered to ask us citizens whether we are okay with being unwitting subjects in an Orwellian surveillance state.

There are arguments on all sides of this issue. Unfortunately, our “transparent” local government never bothered to solicit any input. Other communities have hosted prolonged debates about this issue, but not us. Perhaps our community leaders felt we’d get used to the harsh flavor of authoritarian society if they simply shoved it down our throats.

Fortunately for us, our community is in the midst of an election in which we will elect a majority of County Council members. The Council’s job is to set policy for the community, and to hire or fire the County Manager (who has the sole authority to hire and fire the Police Chief), and to hire and fire the County Attorney, who, in good years, can provide councilors and county officials a reality check about issues like joining the emerging federal Surveillance State.

There’s no time like the present to insist that our community and its current and future leaders join other communities in inviting citizens and leaders to debate whether basic civil liberties such as the right to privacy and the right to be free from oppressive government surveillance in the absence of a writ or warrant are worth preserving. Ordinances banning Flock systems and similar odious 24-7 surveillance systems exist in communities nationwide. It’s time for all of our existing and aspiring community leaders to step up and make their positions known on this important issue, and to determine, definitively, whether the residents of Los Alamos prefer to be free citizens or mere subjects.