Sept. 10, 2009 -- LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) -- Horses drawing buggies regularly clop down the roads approaching Lancaster, a peaceful city in the heart of Amish country that had only three murders last year and relatively low crime.
In this photo taken Tuesday, Aug., 18, 2009, in Lancaster, Pa., a security camera is mounted to a utility pole overlooking Penn Square. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)
But if the community sounds reminiscent of the past, it also has some distinctly modern technology: 165 surveillance cameras that will keep watch over thousands of residents around the clock.
When it is complete, the surveillance system will be bigger than those in large cities such as Philadelphia, San Francisco and Boston. And the fact that it will be monitored by ordinary citizens has raised privacy concerns.
"They are using fear to sell the cameras as much as possible," said Charlie Crystle, a member of a fledgling citizens group that opposes the cameras and is trying to raise public awareness about them. "There's just a huge potential for personal and political abuse."
Officials in the city of 54,000 say the cameras have deterred crimes and helped solve them.
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