Live anywhere long enough and you evolve a few personal rituals. Until yesterday, one of my favorites was to take the T to the center of town, and browse in the shopping mayhem of Downtown Crossing, the most "big city" part of Boston.
At Macy's, normally, you'd see a pretzel stand and a sausage sandwich stand. Not healthy, but tasty.
Yesterday, I found the pretzel and sausage guys. But I also found a Boston Police Dept surveillance truck prominently parked across the sidewalk, with an imposing camera mounted on a tall tower, watching us all.
Can't say I felt too good about that. Matter of fact, I wanted to cry. I'll spare the homily since this tale has been written a thousand times already by others.
Surveillance trucks aren't about security - they can only capture really impressive images of bad things happening. These trucks are about intimidation. The problem is, they don't just intimidate bad guys. They intimidate the rest of us too. Taking pictures of the truck and its camera and antenna against the bright blue sky, I wondered if I'd be arrested for some vague interference with "national security." I wasn't, this time. I'm not sure I won't be, next time.
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I don't want to be watched by cameras, just so I can shop downtown. I don't want to be intimidated. I don't want to have to conform to someone else's decision that to be a good citizen I should keep my mouth shut, buy stuff, cram my face with fast food and then go quietly home to be told what to think from TV news.
Half an hour later, I watched an anti-war march down those streets. The police wrapped the marchers in police vehicles, including several paddy wagons, presumably in anticipation of... of what, I'm not sure. They came through on motorcycles and horses, talking to no one but other police officers. I watched an unmarked police car whip through the Boston Common (a pedestrian area) at high speed. I heard dispatchers say there were "reports of a crowd gathering" and saw officers excitely break away from chatting with each other to take care of that crowd or another.
We continue to trade what's left of our liberties for the illusion of security foisted on us by people who don't seem to know how to deliver real security. Nobody should feel very good about that. I just don't understand how it's come to this, or how we'll ever get our country back from them.
Safety happens at street level, not 30 feet in the air, not in a hidden remote monitoring room. How sad and ironic it is that the city that gave birth to our freedoms is now taking part in destroying them.