TO BE AS SAFE AS POSSIBLE

Thank goodness for the Register. Your Jan. 15 editorial on the Buena
Park Police Department's decision to conduct random traffic stops to
check registration and insurance was right on target.

Having been raised and educated in the 1950s and 1960s, I find myself
amazed at the freedoms people are willing to give up in order to live
in a "safer" society. Security guards in highrises and "door checkers"
in retail stores demand to search our belongings as if it were their
right. What is more amazing is that most people go along with it. Such
things would have been laughed into the aisles a few years ago.

To be as safe as possible, we simply could give the police complete
freedom to do whatever they deem necessary to deter crime. We would
thereby be as "safe" as it is possible to be. But are we really
prepared for the downside? Are we prepared to live in a society where
privacy and dignity have ultimately been surrendered in order to be
"safe"?

Maximizing safety has obvious benefits, but there is a bigger price to
pay in return.

Mike Watckins
Huntington Beach