Sinatra strolled here. So did Einstein and Elvis. Starting in the 1930s, celebrities found they could bask in the relative anonymity of laid-back Palm Springs.

Now, police want to aim surveillance cameras at the millions of people who visit the downtown each year.

Many merchants support the idea as a new way to fight street crime in the world-renown resort. Others see a more sinister side. They fear city leaders are going to play Big Brother. And instead of luring movie stars and tourists, these cameras will drive them away.

"We're losing our freedoms enough as it is," says Jim Stewart, a longtime Palm Springs resident who runs a commercial real estate company. "I don't think it's a good idea for the tourist image and it's definitely not a good idea for the celebrity image."

City leaders say personal intrusion is the last thing on anyone's mind.

"It's not going to be Big Brother as much as it's going to be a little friend," says Palm Springs City Manager David H. Ready. "This is not a tool to spy on people."

A $65,000 state grant would pay for the high-tech system. It would include up to 16 video cameras, perhaps more if merchants sponsored their own. It could be ready by summer pending city council approval, Ready says. Cameras in public view would help everyone feel more secure, he says, and criminals would think twice before they act. Exact camera locations have not been decided.

Some area cities have put cameras on traffic signals to nab drivers who go through red lights. It appears the proposed system in Palm Springs would be the first of its kind in the Inland region.

Police already use surveillance cameras on the East Coast, including New York City, and Ready says they have proven effective in Europe. Huntington Park police say a system of 34 video cameras has helped deter crime in a shopping distict there since 1999.

The American Civil Liberties Union condemns the spread of these systems as an erosion of liberty and privacy.

"If we permit this there will be no legal impediment to putting cameras everywhere," says Michael Klein, an attorney who heads the First Amendment Committee of the ACLU of Southern California.

Surveillance cameras let government track people's personal habits in a public place -- where they shop, who they meet -- and all without a warrant, he says.

"A guy wrote a book about it called `1984,' and that's exactly where we're headed," Klein says, referring to George Orwell's 1949 novel about a society under totalitarian control.

In Palm Springs, the camera system would monitor a half-mile of Palm Canyon Drive made famous in films and postcards. Bob Hope used to walk his poodle on Palm Canyon, and it was featured in the 1963 teen film, "Palm Springs Weekend," starring Troy Donahue and Connie Stevens. The village has seen a revival of late, with steakhouses, outdoor cafes and live entertainment replacing empty storefronts. Last month a sold-out k.d. Lang concert drew Madonna and Brad Pitt to a Palm Canyon supper club.

Palm Springs Police Sgt. Dennis Graham, who supervises bicycle patrols downtown, says officers have seen a dramatic increase in tourism but little change in the crime rate there. Citywide, crime rose 8 percent last year after several years of decline, police say.

Graham sympathizes with merchants who have been victims of smash-and-grab burglaries. Locals remember a 1999 jewelry heist that had some thinking they were watching a scene from a Hollywood movie. Bandits armed with handguns and an automatic rifle entered a Leed's Son outlet in broad daylight across from a Starbucks and a block from the Spa Casino. The gangsters fired shots at a contractor who tried to block their getaway car.

As a crime prevention tool, surveillance cameras might help police spot a rock in a burglar's hand or notice the bulge of a rifle under a trench coat, Graham says. "If you don't keep up with technology you get left in the dust."

Some shop owners and visitors complain about foul-mouthed young people wearing baggy pants and nose earrings in the downtown. Police enforce loitering laws, but wearing baggy pants alone doesn't make someone a criminal, Graham says.

Police could direct the cameras to pan crowds or zoom in on people. And the video quality would meet courtroom standards for evidence, said police Sgt. Jim Seablom. Police dispatchers would monitor screens as time allows and focus on a specific camera if a problem arises, Ready says. The public will not have access to videotape, he says.

The plan has won support from the president of a downtown merchants group called Main Street Palm Springs, though she had early doubts.

"My first response was shock that our town would require such equipment," says Joy Meredith, who runs a New Age gift store called Crystal Fantasy in the village. "But after a lot of thought regarding the vandalism and the break-ins downtown, I thought it certainly could be a powerful tool for the police."

At the '60s-style gift shop Fit To Be Tyed, manager John Freedberg says he doesn't like the idea of cameras but sees no other choice. The shop, featuring tye-dyed clothing and body piercing, has had three burglaries in the last six months, he said.

"It's like, what's worse?" Freedberg asked. "The cameras or coming in and sweeping out a thousand-dollar window every couple months?"

Former Palm Springs City Manager Rob Parkins said Miami Beach ran a similar program when he served as city manager there in the late 1980s. It basically failed because Miami Beach didn't have enough staff to monitor the cameras, says Parkins, now the general manager of the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway.

Critics include watchdogs Dick Sroda and Darrell Meeks. Their online newspaper, Palm Springs News, claims the "spy cameras will hear as well as see."

Jim Stewart says he might launch a ballot drive to stop one of the dumbest ideas he's ever heard.

It's one thing to put cameras inside 7-Elevens and outside prison walls, says Stewart, a Republican who serves on the state parole board. It's another to put them on Palm Canyon, he says. It sends the wrong message to Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Goldie Hawn and other celebrities who want to blend in when they come downtown, Stewart says.

But 91-year-old city pioneer Frank Bogert doesn't see a big problem. Bogert came to town in 1927 as a horse wrangler and soon found himself promoting tourism and taking pictures of all the stars of the day, from comedian Bing Crosby to child actress Shirley Temple.

"I don't think it would bother any picture people or celebrities because there aren't too many of them wandering around these days," Bogert says. "This is only to catch the bad guys."