San Francisco Loots Citizen Rights in Name of Safety

The pattern is disturbingly similar. Runaway crime in San Francisco is fueling new infringements on citizen privacy rights, just as public health fears during the coronavirus pandemic sparked unprecedented social curbs on the general public.

Progressive California’s commitment to de-escalating basic policing measures has made it a smash-and-grab sanctuary state over recent years. In 2014, the Golden State passed Proposition 47, which allows thieves to steal up to $950 worth of merchandise without facing felony charges. And with a new invasive initiative to surveil just about everyone, it’s not getting any better.

‘We Have No Sense of Security'

Fast forward eight years and even residents in notoriously leftist San Francisco appear fed up with the everyday disaster that is crime run amok in their city. Fox Business reported Sept. 26 that the toll is having a dramatic effect on simple business practices in the Bay Area:

“Hamid Moghadam, the CEO of the San Francisco-based real estate company Prologis, was robbed outside his home at gunpoint in broad daylight in June. He subsequently sent a letter to city and state officials about the incident. The letter ... called for government leaders to take ‘action around crime in our city.’

‘It is now difficult for me to tell potential candidates that they should move to San Francisco,’ he wrote. ‘We pay some of the highest taxes, local and state, in the nation, yet we have no sense of security.

‘Protecting public safety should be the government's top priority – that is the foundation of a successful city. Only in a community where people feel that they and their families are safe will jobs and culture flourish.’”

Bay Area Council CEO Jim Wunderman believes people think “almost anything can happen anywhere,” according to Fox. “And you can be walking down the street doing your own business, and you can be accosted by someone.”

"I get all kinds of San Francisco jokes when I travel the world," Moghadam told KPIX-TV. "It's almost embarrassing, and that's the perception. And that affects tourism and convention business."

It could be said that routine crime has reached pandemic levels in the once beautiful and thriving town. There appears to be little doubt that what is going on in San Francisco is indeed a manufactured crisis. The current catastrophic state of affairs could be easily ameliorated if the city’s police department were allowed to simply enforce the basics of law and order.

San Francisco Smash-and-Grab on Personal Freedom

Whether they intended to create precisely this crisis or not, progressive governing officials certainly aren’t hesitating to use it as an excuse to advance mass surveillance in their city.

The San Francisco Chronicle reported Sept. 20:

“San Francisco police will be allowed to temporarily monitor live video feeds from privately owned surveillance cameras in certain circumstances under controversial legislation approved by city supervisors.

“The legislation authorizes a new 15-month surveillance policy for the San Francisco Police Department that spells out the conditions in which officers can view real-time security camera video — without first obtaining a warrant — if businesses or homeowners grant permission.”

Let’s look at the big picture here. Looters are allowed to pillage stores without fear of arrest in broad daylight in San Francisco, and because of the social decay that is inevitable in such a toxic public environment, law-abiding citizens will now face more government intrusion into their lives.

“The policy was strongly opposed by various community members and some organizations, including the Bar Association of San Francisco. Critics feared that the policy could allow for unchecked mass surveillance that would trample on the privacy rights of local residents and visitors alike,” the Chronicle noted.

“We’ve collectively made an effort to balance the public realm and civil liberties with the police department’s use of technologies to make our city safer,” Supervisor Aaron Peskin said in defense of the measure.

It’s telling that Peskin not only opposed the successful recall of San Francisco’s radical district attorney, Chesa Boudin, earlier this year but cited the move by fed-up citizens to argue that the process for removing officials from their positions must be made more difficult.

San Francisco government officials allowed crime to spiral out of control, and now they’re using that grotesque negligence to justify expanding the tracking of innocent citizens’ private lives. This is what a country gets when ruling apparatchiks learn that fear can be utilized to curtail freedom to a remarkably effective extent.