by TChris

Although George Orwell warned about government surveillance of the innocent and the loss of privacy in his landmark novel 1984, governments continue their diligent efforts to transform fiction into reality. If you drive through Manalapan, Florida (an exclusive Palm Beach community), be aware that Big Brother is watching you.

Cameras will snap pictures of drivers [as they pass the town's "waterfront mansions"], their cars and their license plates and a computer will run the tag against a criminal database. If anything suspicious is found, a dispatcher is alerted and can call for police.

Assuming that a "criminal database" is simply a list of people who were once accused or convicted of crimes, it doesn't seem "suspicious" that people on the list might travel through Manalapan. Courts consistently hold that the police can't stop or detain drivers simply because they have criminal records.

Another Florida surveillance system proved to be a waste of money.

Tampa police used ... face-recognition technology during the 2001 Super Bowl and in the nearby entertainment district of Ybor City. That system is designed to recognize the facial characteristics of potential terrorists and criminals by matching people on the street with a database of 30,000 mug shots. But Tampa police scrapped the Ybor City program in August, citing its failure over two years to recognize anyone wanted by authorities.

The Manalapan system is likely to equally wasteful, but any system that tracks the movement of innocent people is a frightening proposition.