Council Members - I have read 2012 - 274 - urging the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office (JSO) to purchase high tech surveillance cameras and deploy them in "high crime neighborhoods"    (Hereafter, HCN's).   Supposedly, from 1 1/2 blocks away, these cameras can see what is going on in automobiles.    These HCN's would be peppered with warning signs.     I have several problems with this.

 

(1) Many people do things in cars - adjusting their clothing, kissing, whatever - that they expect will be private to all, or at least all but those within a few feet away.    This is thus a great civil liberties concern.    There is much case law on this issue.      This suggests that City Council study this further, rather than give the JSO a blank check.   (Better yet, withdraw 2012  - 274 or vote it down.)

 

(2) This is a blank check.   If the JSO gets to decide what officially is a HCN, the JSO gets to place a horrible label on whatever neighborhood he wants to.   

 

(3) Would you want to live in a neighborhood that the JSO officially labeled a HCN?   Would you not worry that your property values would plummet, and that your good neighbors would leave, while the "bad" ones would stay?    Will the result be large swaths of abandoned housing in the officially designated HCN's?     Before acting, the City Council should know if other cities have tried this, and what then happened to property values.

 

Your friends - will they still want to visit you if you live in an official HCN?  Your family?

 

(4) If this policy deters crime in those HCN's, will not the crime just migrate to other neighborhoods?    Will JSO then want to eventually label all or most of the City as HCN's?    What will the cost of this be?    

 

(5) What will this policy, if implemented, say about Jacksonville to the rest of the state and nation.    Does Jacksonville need such a black eye right now?   

 

(6) And just what will the cost of this be, and what are the details?   

 

I don't think that I now live in a neighborhood that the JSO will label a HCN, but I do not live in a ritzy neighborhood either.    If that occurred to me, I would be extremely upset.    Think how you would feel - knowing that someone from afar was watching you in your car, getting out of or going into your car, going to your house or apartment, in your yard, etc.

 

Plus, if the JSO could peer into your car from afar, what is to stop JSO from looking into your windows, and seeing you at home?

 

If JSO does what 2012 - 274 asks you to endorse, homeowners and homeowners associations may sue for damages to property values, and I would not blame them.   I see this as just a boon for lawyers and the JSO, and a big loss to everyone else, including the City of Jacksonville's coffers.      Curt Lee