Big Tiburon is watching you

Tiburon, California, is a posh Republican suburb of San Francisco that is now the site of a Big Brother controversy.

Town officials plan to place cameras on the only roads leading into town - to take photos of the license plate of every car that enters.

This unprecedented program is touted as a deterrent to burglars, but privacy advocates are profoundly angered by it - as they should be. Indeed, it won't even work at preventing break-ins.

The cameras are about snootiness and limiting access to the town. Nothing more.

And get this: Despite Tiburon's affluence, it won't even spend its own money on these cameras. Instead it's using grant funds - and asking a neighboring town as well as the surrounding county to pay for the rest.

If it's true that those who have nothing to hide shouldn't have to worry, my response is this: Since I've got nothing to hide, why does the government think it has any business watching me?

(Source: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2009/07/10/MNT6189U0U.DTL)