The current outdoor camera alarm is exaggerated. The Anchorage Police Department doesn’t use Flock, and Anchorage prohibits municipal facial recognition. Cameras are already common in businesses, homes, parking lots, churches and public areas. Their legitimate use should not automatically be labeled “mass surveillance.”
Camera evidence solves crimes, locates missing or abducted people, recovers stolen vehicles, establishes alibis and protects innocent people.
Anchorage should regulate misuse, require legitimate law enforcement purposes, access logs and audits, set reasonable data retention limits, control information sharing and obtain warrants when constitutionally required. AO 2026-108 (S-1) effectively addresses these concerns. The Assembly will address this Oct. 20.
Parenthetically, Anchorage should expand its on-call judicial system to ensure that a judge is readily available 24 hours a day, seven days a week to promptly review search warrant applications. This protects both public safety and constitutional privacy.
— Linda Kaye Harter, Anchorage
• • •
Have something on your mind? Send to letters@adn.com or click here to submit via any web browser. Please include your contact info. Letters under 200 words will have the best chance of being published. Writers should disclose any personal or professional connections with the subjects of their letters. Letters are edited for accuracy, clarity and length. If you’re citing statistics or published sources, please include citations or links. Read our full opinion guidelines here.
