Sinatra strolled here. So did Einstein and Elvis. Since the 1930s, celebrities have basked in the relative anonymity of laid-back Palm Springs.

Now, police want to aim surveillance cameras at the millions of people who walk the city's downtown each year, keeping an eye on the video images as time permits.

Many merchants like the idea as a way to fight street crime in the world-famous resort. Others fear police monitoring is like 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."

Knowing cameras are there will help everyone feel more secure, says Ready, and criminals would think twice before they act.

Under a $65,000 state grant, up to 16 mounted cameras could be trained on downtown by this summer, if the City Council approves the plan. Officials haven't decide where to install the cameras.

Some East Coast cities already use cameras to fight crime. Ready says they have proved effective in Europe. In California's Huntington Park, police say a 2-year-old system of 34 video cameras deters crime in a shopping district. Miami Beach tried the system, but Rob Parkins, who served as city manager there as well as in Palm Springs, says it essentially failed by the time he left in 1991 because of lack of staff to watch the monitors.

The American Civil Liberties Union condemns the spread of surveillance 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.

Palm Springs police would monitor a half-mile segment of Palm Canyon Drive.

The village has seen a revival of late, with steakhouses, outdoor cafes and live entertainment replacing empty storefronts. And last month, a sold-out k.d. lang concert drew Madonna and Brad Pitt to a Palm Canyon supper club.

But merchants also have been victims of smash-and-grab burglaries, said Palm Springs police Sgt. Dennis Graham, who supervises bicycle patrols downtown.

Locals remember a 1999 jewelry heist when bandits armed with handguns and an automatic rifle entered a Leed's Son outlet during the day 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.

A surveillance camera 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," he said.

And the videotape would meet courtroom standards for evidence but would not otherwise be available to the public, Ready and police say.

Despite a healthy increase in the number of tourists, Graham has seen little increase in downtown crime. Crime overall rose 8 percent last year in the city.

The plan has won support from the president of a downtown merchants group called Main Street Palm Springs, after 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 tie-dyed clothing and body piercing, has had three burglaries in the last six months, he says.

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

An online newspaper, Palm Springs News, claims "the spy cameras will hear as well as see," a charge authorities deny.

Jim Stewart says he might launch a ballot drive to stop what he says is 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."

Mark Henry can be reached at e-mail at mhenry@pe.com or by phone at (760) 325-1154.