I’ve written occasionally, in horror, about plans by New London police to deploy hidden surveillance cameras — sophisticated equipment capable of close-up zooming — all over the city, even in quiet residential neighborhoods.

You wouldn’t be able to detect the location of these tiny spy cameras, which could be used to watch who comes and goes from your house, even read and record the license plates of visitors’ cars.

It’s civil rights intrusion on steroids, a police dream come true: Secretly spy all you like, no probable cause or court permission needed.

Why, from now on, would police even bother with the burden of asking a judge to approve a wiretap, when they can just fire up a secret camera and peek in your windows, maybe even read the papers on your desk.

Adding to my frustration is that it looks like the Connecticut Freedom of Information Commission could be about to sign off on this police hiding of camera locations. And I thought the commission was supposed to guarantee access to the public’s business, not help hide it.

The commission will be asked anyway, at its Wednesday afternoon meeting, to ratify a decision by one of its hearing officers declining my FOI request for a revealing of locations of spy cameras deployed in a growing new surveillance system in use by New London police.

It would be unusual for commissioners to do much more than routinely approve the hearing officer’s recommendation, which is the panel’s normal practice.

A decision like that from the commission would leave an appeal to Superior Court the only open avenue for contesting permission for police to hide spy cameras.

That would be a costly endeavor for a newspaper like The Day. I’d like to fantasize that someone with deep pockets and an interest in guarding Connecticut civil rights might take an interest in the case.

It is, after all, strange that a small city, with a government with significant representation from its minority community, has taken up this issue so aggressively, waging an expensive FOI fight in an effort to enable police spying and to quash civil rights.

Indeed, it’s incredible to me that the establishment in this blue state is about to unleash these unbridled new Orwellian law enforcement powers, which make old-fashioned police intrusion, such as stop-and-frisk, seem almost quaint.

It’s already become a rallying issue in some forward-thinking communities. San Diego, for instance, recently created a new privacy commission to address a new system putting surveillance cameras on utility poles.

I’m not a lawyer and I do have a dog in this legal fight, but it strikes me that FOI Hearing Officer Kathleen Ross has a very thin basis, in the ruling commissioners will be asked to ratify, for granting police an exemption to abiding by disclosure laws when it comes to the location of their spy cameras.

Ross agrees with an argument from New London Law Director Jeffrey Londregan, the attorney who presented evidence that the state police commissioner has found that revealing the locations would “assist wrongdoers in circumventing police protections.”

This is a long reach for an exemption allowed under FOI law, in instances where “a disclosure may result in a safety risk.” The law allowing this as an exemption is clearly meant to safeguard safety surveillance equipment around a public facility, such as a prison or police station, not spy cameras at the end of someone’s driveway.

Never mind that the commissioner was not asked “promptly” about the safety risk, as the law requires, before a decision on the FOI request was made, but rather many months later, after an appeal of the request’s denial to the FOI Commission already was underway.

It would be almost comical, if it weren’t so sad, that the logic of allowing police to secretly hide cameras to spy on citizens without their knowing should be permitted because the chief law enforcement officer in the state says it is OK.

But don’t take my biased word for it.

In the continuing age of remote Connecticut hearings, the public can tune in and listen to the New London law director argue why police should be able to secretly place spy cameras wherever they want.

You can’t know where they are, is his argument, because the state police commissioner has joined the city’s fight against disclosure by saying that would be a safety risk to someone.

But of course there is nothing on the record about whose safety would be at risk and why.

Anyone wishing to remotely attend the meeting at 2 p.m. Wednesday should call in at 1:50 p.m. to (860) 840-2075. The conference ID is 498 049 512.

This is the opinion of David Collins.

d.collins@theday.com