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Brookline Town Meeting votes against surveillance cameras

E-mail|Link|Comments () June 3, 2009 03:10 PM

By Globe Staff

Civil liberties activists are hailing a vote by Brookline's Town Meeting Tuesday night calling for the shutdown of a dozen surveillance cameras that were installed in town by the police department.

"We are grateful to town meeting members in Brookline who understood that a message needed to be sent, that America should not be a place where the government is watching us as we go about our activities in public," said Sarah Wunsch, a staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union of Massachusetts.

Town Administrator Richard Kelliher said the board of selectmen would "certainly pay close attention" to the resolution.

"Resolutions by Town Meeting carry great weight and they're given great consideration by selectmen," he said.

Nancy Daly, chairwoman of the Board of Selectmen, didn't immediately return a message seeking comment.

Wunsch said the Cambridge City Council earlier this year voted to oppose the installation of eight surveillance cameras there, but some other communities in the Boston area have installed them. The cameras are being funded by a grant from the Department of Homeland Security.