Briefing
Someone's watching you
As part of the effort to defend against terrorism, cities and towns across America are installing high-tech security cameras around streets, parks, and other public venues. Will improvements in security outweigh the loss of privacy?
Don’t most cities already have cameras?
Yes. In addition to private security cameras mounted by banks, stores, and office buildings, many cities have posted surveillance cameras in high-crime areas for years. But thanks to multimillion-dollar grants from the Department of Homeland Security, local governments have recently been installing thousands of new cameras to watch public squares and parks, major monuments and prominent buildings, and bus and train stations. This post-9/11 monitoring campaign, both supporters and opponents agree, is the biggest expansion of government surveillance in American history. “In a big city,” said George Washington University law professor Daniel Solove, “it’s increasingly hard to go through the day without being captured on many surveillance cameras.”
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Which cities have been most aggressive?
Chicago and Baltimore are building massive street-level surveillance systems involving thousands of cameras that will link into existing private security cameras. Boston has installed more than 450 cameras throughout its transit system. Pittsburgh is adding 83 cameras to its downtown area. Madison, Wis., is putting in a 32-camera network. Thanks to a federal grant, Liberty, Kan., (population 95), is installing a camera in its town park. But of all the surveillance initiatives, the most far-reaching is New York City’s.
What is New York’s program?
Authorities are installing some 3,000 cameras throughout the Manhattan financial district, including Wall Street and the World Trade Center site. Known as the Lower Manhattan Security Initiative, the new system will include license plate readers that can check plate numbers against a list of suspected vehicles. If a camera detects someone leaving a bag or package, it will sound an alarm. This elaborate system will also have the capability to transmit images to the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI. When fully implemented by 2010, cameras will be recording millions of ordinary New Yorkers going about their lives.
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Is that legal?
Apparently so. Most constitutional lawyers say that such blanket surveillance does not violate any laws, since the courts have established that nobody has a right to privacy on public streets or in other public areas. Still, both the sheer extent of the monitoring and recent technological breakthroughs could raise some novel issues.
What’s changed?
The new surveillance cameras are digital. Older systems relied on closed-circuit cameras that produced grainy analog feeds that had to be stored on bulky videotape cassettes. The new digital cameras produce clearer, more detailed images—and they’re available on police computer monitors in real time. And because they’re digital, these images can be easily transmitted from one law enforcement agency to another, and stored indefinitely on hard drives. Technicians are also developing new ways to analyze video, including face-recognition scanners and software that detects “anomalous behavior.” Police say such tools help them fight both crime and terrorism. “People are safer,” said Police Chief Steve Williams of the Chicago suburb of Rolling Meadows, which recently installed several cameras. “That’s our goal.”
Who can argue with that?
Civil libertarians, who worry how the government will use the new surveillance technology. “Being able to collect this much data on people is going to be very powerful, and it opens people up for abuses of power,” said University of California at Berkeley professor Jennifer King. King says citizens may attract suspicion simply by walking erratically or dressing in unusual clothes. If you’re deemed suspicious, authorities could create a “profile” that includes your picture and your usual schedule, and other data. Some abuses have already come to light. A San Francisco police officer was suspended last year for using surveillance cameras to focus on women’s breasts and buttocks. During the 2004 Republican National Convention, several New York cops in a helicopter, ostensibly inspecting rooftops for terrorists, were caught videotaping a naked couple making love on their terrace. But there also have been some success stories.
What kinds of successes?
Police in some cities where cameras have been installed report a reduction in crime—partly because criminals are aware they’re being watched and partly because the video helps cops solve crimes. In Chicago, drug trafficking in monitored neighborhoods is down significantly. The camera network in Boston’s transit system, said Sgt. Detective Michael Adamson, “has aided us tremendously in identifying suspects that normally would not have been identified.”
How does this apply to terrorism?
In theory, sophisticated computers could recognize suspected terrorists from images already on file, or detect would-be terrorists “casing” an important building prior to a bombing. Many surveillance experts say it’s more likely that cameras would come into play only after an attack. “Cameras are good for figuring out, after the fact, what happened,” said Jim Harper of the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. But Harper argues that the slim possibility that cameras may help identify terrorists after an attack is not worth subjecting millions of people to intense daily surveillance. Most Americans, though, appear willing to tolerate more government scrutiny as a trade-off for more security. A recent ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 71 percent of Americans favored increased use of surveillance cameras, with only 25 percent opposed. David Wyke, a Chattanooga, Tenn., resident who supported a push for surveillance cameras in his city, expressed a widespread view: “If you don’t plan on doing something wrong,” he said, “you shouldn’t worry about it.”