Give Your Keys to the City: What Could Go Wrong?

Last month, discussing a Justice Department proposal to make ISPs retain information about their customers' Internet use, I noted that opponents of reshaping the world to make life easier for cops "used to ask whether we should all be forced to hand over our house keys to the local police, just in case they need them." Evidently the city fathers of Cedar Falls, Iowa, took that hypothetical as a policy proposal rather than a reductio ad absurdum. On Monday the Cedar Falls City Council, by a vote of 6 to 1, approved an ordinance that requires the owners of all commercial buildings and apartment buildings with three or more units to keep master keys in exterior lock boxes so "first responders" can gain access more easily during an emergency. The legislation expands an ordinance that was approved without controversy seven years ago. But this time around, the Waterloo-Cedar Falls Courier reports, council members "received hundreds of phone calls and e-mails from people all over the country" who were "upset about the issue." Prior to the council's vote on Monday, "a dozen [residents] spoke out against the ordinance, while just one citizen voiced support for it." Most of the critics seem to be concerned that the lock boxes make buildings more vulnerable to criminals. But Fox News reports that at an earlier meeting one resident "cited quotes from Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson while questioning whether ease of access is worth the loss of freedom for property owners."

Is this a sensible fire code provision or an insidious precedent that puts too much trust in local authorities, giving them the ability (though not the legal authority) to enter people's businesses and homes at will? Does it matter that the master key to the lockboxes is kept by the fire department rather than the police? Would including more buildings, such as duplexes and single-family homes, make the ordinance more or less objectionable? (The lone dissenting council member, Nick Taiber, suggests that the ordinance's limited sweep raises equal protection issues.) Fox News reports that "proponents of the measure say expansion of the ordinance to include additional apartment buildings will lead to increased ease of entry during emergencies and a reduction in property damage." But if the lock boxes are an unambiguous boon to landlords and tenants, preserving their property while easing their rescue during fires and other emergencies, why make them mandatory?

[Thanks to Mark Lambert for the tip.]