I would say (in my opinion) that both are correct, to an extent. Young (and old) programmers with the right mindset and practices improve more quickly, younger perhaps faster at picking up newer technologies, tools, and paradigms. Yong (and old) with bad mindsets and practices only get better at doing things the wrong way, and extend their degree of badness into every new paradigm they encounter, unless they reboot and change the underlying habits and practices with which they started out.

In this sense, an old good programmer can and will outdo and young bad one - which is (plainly) to say in the end, that age is perhaps among the least preferred qualities to use (or should be) when evaluating a programmer's worth to a project or organization, depending on the goals of a project, etc.

Camera's exist in stores and banks, but they still get robbed. Cameras exist at intersections, but people still run red lights or make illegal turns. Surveillance is not about protection of the public and providing safe living for the masses. Its about investigation after the fact. Its about making the job of filling out reports and gaining convictions easier. While this is a worthy goal in and of itself, it is not the same as providing as safety of the public as folks like this person might wish to imply (or more than), and in and of itself is not worth trampling on everyone's privacy and freedoms every minute of the day, in my opinion.