This week, an overflow-crowd of Green River citizens converged on Tuesday’s City Council meeting to voice their concerns about surveillance cameras on public streets.
To its credit, the Council took them seriously enough to repent. Although last year the council voted to apply for the state grant money, six of the seven council members voted against accepting the award.
Congratulations to the people of Green River for their vigilance. And kudos to the public servants who took their concerns seriously and reversed course. This reversal is a first for Wyoming.
Thanks to a public records request from Cowboy State Daily, Wyomingites are now aware that Jackson, Cheyenne, Glenrock and the Wind River Reservation have already installed the controversial cameras.
Three years ago, I wrote about Jackson’s succumbing to the siren song: “Technocracy, irresistible to politicians, is no longer servant, but master.” What I did not know then is why it was so tempting.
In July 2023 two members of the Jackson City Council voted in favor of installing Automated License Plate Reading (ALPR) cameras even while acknowledging constitutional objections. Councilman Jonathan Schlechter said, “I’m screaming ‘stop’ as I vote yes.” What subterranean force has such power to cause a man to do this?
If Green River’s experience teaches us anything, it is that the lure of free money is difficult to resist. Go back to the grant. The Wyoming Office of Homeland Security wants to give the City of Green River $111,956. Cool, huh? What Luddite, what Neanderthal would be so stupid as to turn down free money?
That’s the power of the purse.
To understand better, let’s do a little thought experiment. Imagine a different motion on the floor of the Green River City Council. What if, instead of free money, it was a motion to allow the FBI to put our town under 24/7 surveillance? Public outrage wouldn’t begin to describe it.
But power-hungry cynics know that they can manipulate the naïve into accepting almost anything if they wrap it in a pretty package and put a bow on it. Inviting the FBI to place you under enhanced video surveillance is more palatable when it is spun as a vote to get free money.
It also helps if the victims don’t know the source of the money. The grant was offered from the “Wyoming Office of Homeland Security.” That’s really a lie. The paperwork clarifies that ,“This grant is 100% federal funds.” The state office is just a pass-through for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
No state lawmaker actually voted to give this money to Green River. Given the cozy relationships between Non-Governmental Organizations, global corporations, and the Swamp, it’s possible that the federal DHS is just a cut-out for yet another entity.
A second familiar tactic of cynics is to use the weak and vulnerable to fiddle with our heartstrings. As if on cue, the local paper announced the surveillance cameras as “ADA [Americans with Disabilities Act] improvements near Truman elementary.” Who would dare to deny improvements to the disabled or to children?
A wiser question is this: Why would you use schoolkids and handicapped citizens as cover for unconstitutional surveillance? There is no apparent reason why these two projects need to be bundled together. Take one vote to build wheelchair ramps and a second vote to nix the cameras.
Finally, a word should be said about false assurances. Green River Police Chief Shawn Sturlaugson told reporter Clair McFarland that “a guardrail policy is in progress,” and that “he had no intention of using the cameras proactively or on things like expired registration.”
That’s nice. And I totally believe him.
But the intentions of a good local cop cannot stop the bad actors who have access to the information elsewhere. Once Motorola - or any other private company - gathers data, it can sell it to anyone, including the FBI. And being exempt from public records laws, nobody would ever know.
Remember how confidently we were assured that the massive FBI database would NEVER be used to conduct warrant-less searches on American citizens? Then, we learned that between April 2020 and March 2021 alone, 278,000 warrant-less searches were carried out on American citizens. Oopsie.
Congratulations to Green River citizens and to the public servants who listened to their concerns. You showed the rest of Wyoming what good government can do. Let’s all learn from them.
As we head into the August primary, citizens should be looking for candidates who will not invite the Swamp into their communities just because it is wrapped in a package of “free money.”
We need candidates who are brave enough to withstand shiny brochures that attack them for “denying wheelchair ramps to the disabled” or “putting children at risk” when they vote against Trojan Horses.
And when you hear candidates accuse their opponents of starving kids by voting against federal largess... Well, you know what to do.
Jonathan Lange is a Lutheran Church—Missouri Synod pastor in Evanston and Kemmerer and serves the Wyoming Pastors Network. Follow his blog at https://jonathanlange.substack.com/. Email: JLange64@protonmail.com
