No privacy on city porches

Lancaster City’s 165 street cameras installed by the LCSC (plus 16 installed by F&M College) aren’t just video-taping people walking on public sidewalks. These same cameras are video-taping citizens sitting on the front porches of their houses! Lancaster is a city of row homes, most having front porches that are next to the sidewalk and the street. The only concession to privacy rights made by the LCSC and F&M is that the windows of homes would be masked. The LCSC and F&M insist that they can legally video-tape 24/7 everything else, and that includes homeowners who are minding their own business on their own property, even having a soda with friends on their own front  porch!  If these cameras are making taxpaying citizens feel uncomfortable, not only when they are walking on city streets, but when on their own property, that fact alone is reason enough to take the cameras down.

A citizen of Australia, when being told about Lancaster’s cameras, said, “If you can’t sit on your own front porch without being spied on, that’s disgraceful.”

Please note: What the LCSC and F&M doesn’t reveal is that masking is not permanent. The masking can be removed at any time without the homeowner’s permission or knowledge. If the masking is removed, the cameras can peer into the windows of houses. The owners of all homes within the range of LCSC or F&M cameras are completely at the mercy of these powerful private organizations. Homeowners who value their rights of privacy need to contact their elected officials – now!

[Editor’s note: The following is the letter writer’s response to the editor’s question of how cameras are more invasive of privacy than a police person walking his or her beat:]

For someone to stand and watch for hours someone who is sitting on a porch would be illegal and the homeowner would call the police. These cameras should not be installed on residential streets.