In general, I am not a big fan of the
Federal government. I consider it a bloated and ill beast that often
causes more loss than gain. However, on rare occasions, there is
something to be said for a few of its departments and one of them is
the Corps of Engineers.
The CoE is a U.S. federal agency under
the Department of Defense and a major Army command made up of some
37,000 civilian and military personnel, making it one of the world's
largest public engineering, design, and construction management
agencies. That government to civilian connect makes it rather unique,
in my view. Unlike the Bureau of Land Management which is a complete
cluster fuck, the CoE actually can get some good things done and one
of them would be to help us all keep an eye on our public forests, parks and
wilderness areas.
The problem that needs addressing are
the small yet growing number of miscreants that like to use our public lands
as their personal dump sites. These are often the same group of individuals who often
pooch game illegally, cook drugs in secluded spots and generally
leave a trail of trash where ever they happen to wander. In their
small minds, they get away with this form of misconduct because
there's nobody around to watch them. I'd like to propose we change
that!
My plan is really quite simple and
would be a great benefit to many groups. What I would propose is that
the CoE embark on a project like 'Operation Lookout' that would allow them
to place surveillance cameras in random areas in select locations
that could be changed from time to time. These cameras would be
linked to the Internet and would be available 24/7 for public view. This
kind of arrangement could benefit all sorts of groups including land
owners, parks, animal lovers, etc. More importantly, such an arrangement would pose a great deterrent
to people who make trashing our landscape a lifestyle.
Such an operation could be funded from
numerous sources form Federal, State and local resources. The cameras could be placed high enough to cover large swaths of ground and,
(just like in a grocery store), would act as a potential deterrent to
evil doers everywhere. The only downside I see in such an endeavor
would be objections by people who might accuse the agencies involved
in spying on them. To that I have no answer other than to say we live
in a far different world than that of our grandparents and must weigh
our privacy issues carefully before we implement any potential
solution.
