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There are many things that are technically illegal but arguably should not be. For example, there's a small local park near me that serves as a handy shortcut between two different neighborhoods, but technically nobody is allowed to enter it between 11pm and 6am. The assumption is that if you're in a park during these hours, it must be for some nefarious purpose. The problem with arguments like yours is the implied premise everyone must be surveilled because they are potential criminals who just haven't been caught yet, the exact opposite of the legal presumption of innocence and the founding values of the US (other countries' mores about the default moral state of humanity vary, of course). It's only a short leap from arguing that if everyone needs to be surveilled for everyone else's safety, then being surveillable by being out and about at the wrong time of day is itself suspicious, and that curfew should be the default. Surprisingly, some 70-80% of US cities have curfew rules of some kind (usually against minors) and they're often ramped up significantly in response emergencies. Most other developed countries just don't have curfews. European countries have business regulations like barring minors from some businesses such as nightclubs, but US-style curfews do not exist. A Swiss town (interlaken) that voted to impose them had to hire private security guards because the police refused to enforce the rule. Curfews are somewhat common in developing nations like the Philippines and Thailand, but again don't really exist in developed nations in Asia. I didn't do an exhaustive global survery, but to my general knowledge the US is an outlier in this regard. The fundamental problem with the curfew mentality is this assumption of malignity, and there's no end to it once you introduce it. Suppose we claim that crime has fallen since security cameras were deployed. And yet, there's still some crime and not all of it appears on our public camera network! It turns out quite a lot of crimes are committed in private. Maybe we should just put cameras inside people's homes - after all, why would anyone object...unless they wanted to commit crime? Maybe we should do away with warrants - they're time-consuming to apply for and create paperwork (we hate bureaucracy, don't we folks). Sure they're in the constitution, but haven't you noticed how people who insist on seeing a warrant always turn out to be the worst sort of people? Obviously innocent people would welcome the police into their home, and take pride in demonstrating their innocence. Why, I think most right-thinking folks would be prepared to sacrifice some of their own liberty if it meant catching just one extra criminal. |