By L.P. LUPO

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Cathy L. Lanier, the District’s newly selected police chief, has announced that she is in favor of placing more cameras around the city in the name of safety.

Safety is the cause that has no legislative end in the Nanny State.

Smoking is a government safety issue as well.

New York City has banned trans fats from its restaurants after trans fats were introduced not too many years ago at the behest of the food Nazis to replace unsaturated fats for reasons of health and safety.

OBBBEEESSSITTYYY is now recognized as a HHHUUUGE problem requiring government intervention out of concern for public health and safety.

Milan and Madrid have announced that they will apply a body-weight index to fashion models to weed out the anorexic ones out of concern for their health and safety.

If the health/safety principle has been established that government-inspired monitoring of personal conduct is fair game, as it apparently is, why not go to the logical next step?

By the way, when exactly did the citizenry agree to this principle?

When District restaurants go smokeless on January 2, I propose that the city require the installation of a camera in every kitchen, bar and dining room of every establishment in the city.

That way the city could monitor whether:

Its citizens are eating too much; (An obese person who is merely eating would be in violation of the law, whereupon a disembodied voice would say: “Attention, attention. Hey, you, in that velour jogging suit. Yeah, you, in the chair that is too small for you sitting before a double order of fries and onion rings. Cease and desist immediately and leave the premises with your arms up, if you can still get them up.”)

Or eating too little; (If a very thin person is not eating, the city’s roving band of enforcers could swoop into a restaurant and stick a glucose IV into the arm of the offender.)

Drinking too much; (Red wine would be exempted because it promotes longevity; white wine would be exempted because it is sacramental to liberals, while the fines would double for anyone swigging on Miller Light.)

The kitchen is secretly using trans fats or other things that are bad for you; (The Center for Science and the Public Interest could update the prohibited list weekly until most foods are banned, except ketchup– we need to consume Teresa’s ketchup in order to build up the war chest of Senateur Jean Francois Kerry for his next presidential run.)

Anyone who is violating the smoking ban.

The possibilities are endless. With a camera being as cheap and small as a pack of gum, the city could expand the program to a camera in every refrigerator.

I do ask something in return:

That all members of the D.C. Council be equipped with GPS trackers, like the one implanted into the forearm of the new James Bond, and that tiny cameras be placed in the rear-view mirrors of their vehicles; that all private and business calls involving Council members be monitored; and that their GPS locations and phone calls be broadcast on the city’s cable network instead of the self-aggrandizing drivel that is aired now.

Oh, one last thing: I would like a referendum on just how much government intrusion we are willing to accept.