[Infowarrior] - Under Surveillance: Government spy cameras proliferate

[Richard Forno]

http://www.rocklintoday.com/news/templates/community_news.asp?articleid=3535
&zoneid=4

Under Surveillance: Government spy cameras proliferate

Friday, June 23, 2006 / LISA HOFFMAN (Scripps Howard News Service)

In an unprecedented proliferation of public spying, government is casting
its watchful eye on millions of ordinary Americans through largely
unregulated surveillance cameras trained on public spaces throughout the
nation.

A Scripps Howard News Service tally found that at least 200 towns and cities
in 37 states now employ video cameras _ or are in the process of doing so _
to watch sidewalks, parks, schools, buses, buildings and similar community
locales. That number excludes the approximately 110 other municipalities
that use traffic cameras to catch speeders and red-light runners.

But despite their proliferation and potential for altering the very tenor of
public life in America, virtually no one is keeping track of the use of
these security devices long associated with authoritarian regimes.

In many cases, the increasingly sophisticated general surveillance systems _
a growing number of which are capable of networking to compile and share
information about those under view _ are deployed unaccompanied by written
policies or other strictures to limit abuse.

More troubling to civil liberties and camera-use proponents alike is the
even greater absence of local, state or federal laws that specifically
govern police-video surveillance of Americans, suspected of no crime, as
they go about their daily business.

Equally rare are enforceable regulations on such matters as who or what can
be watched, how long images can be kept, who can see and share them, where a
person's "zone of privacy" begins, and what recourse and punishments exist
if that privacy is abused.

To Philadelphia Police Staff Inspector Thomas Nestel III, who played a major
role in his city's referendum vote last month on the installation of video
cameras, the lack of oversight is an ill-advised invitation to trouble.

"Forging ahead with reckless abandon by providing no written direction, no
supervision, no training and no regulating legislation creates a recipe for
disaster," Nestel wrote in a March research thesis on the phenomenon, one of
the only in-depth, national studies of the subject to have been done.

While headlines and congressional and court hearings are examining the CIA
and other agencies' eavesdropping and Internet snooping programs, the
coast-to-coast spread of public spy cameras is occurring largely on the
periphery of the nation's attention, even though it brings with it a catalog
of "Big Brother" privacy concerns.

The American Civil Liberties Union and a handful of other watchdogs have
occasionally sounded the alarm, but now are largely focused on other issues.

The lack of attention worries former Rep. Dick Armey, who, when he was the
majority leader of the U.S. House of Representatives, was an outspoken
opponent of law-enforcement-by-video camera.

"It seems like we need to be giving surveillance to the surveillance," said
the Texas Republican, now chairman of the Washington-based political
advocacy group Freedom Works. "I would hope somebody in the House or Senate
would raise the privacy issues."

Meanwhile, the presence of government-run cameras is growing by the month,
thanks to technology advances that are cutting the cost of the systems and
to a bountiful spigot of federal anti-terror funds available to pay for
them.

In June alone, for instance, the cities of Spokane, Wash.; Kissimmee, Fla.;
South Bend, Ind.; and Hazelton, Pa., decided either to seek funds for
cameras, gave the formal OK to use them, or began installing a system. In
May, Philadelphia voters by a nearly 4 to 1 margin backed the use of
cameras, and Milwaukee, Wis., joined the city-camera fraternity.

This growth parallels that of the increase in the number of security cameras
being installed by the private sector in America. Now a $9-billion industry,
it is projected to more than double to $20 billion by 2010, according to
security experts.

In all, an estimated 5 million video surveillance devices are in use
nationwide today _ and that number is forecast to double in only five more
years. Oversight of these is similarly sparse.

"The technology is way ahead of the law," said James Ross, assistant
criminal justice professor at the State University of New York-Brockport and
an authority on privacy and security issues.

Banks and bars, convenience stores, churches and cemeteries, shopping malls,
apartment buildings and farms _ all now commonly watch us. An average
department store is estimated to have at least 100 cameras trained on
shoppers and staff. Even the six bridges of Madison County, Iowa are
equipped with them.

"It's just a huge proliferation," said Rajiv Shah, an expert on the security
industry and a communications professor at the University of
Illinois-Chicago.

Also expanding is the capability of the cameras and the increasing sweep of
their focus.

Now available, and being installed in several cities, are devices that can
record in near-total darkness and are so powerful they can read a license
plate up to a mile away or words on a cigarette pack 100 yards distant.

Some also are programmed to automatically alert authorities when they detect
up to a dozen threatening or otherwise suspicious body movements, or
vehicles traveling too slow or too fast. Technology to recognize individual
faces is on the drawing board.

In Chicago, where 2,000 cameras already are in place, Mayor Richard Daley
recently proposed requiring every business open more than 12 hours a day _
about 12,000, including 7,000 restaurants _ to install indoor and outdoor
cameras.

He said he intends to link public and private cameras alike to a central
city government facility, which would provide an unprecedented degree of
coordinated surveillance.

Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt also has plans for a bigger visual
blanket. In February, he said he wants every apartment complex and shopping
mall to have cameras, and said it is worth considering a requirement that
every home that frequently warrants police attention must install them, as
well.

While such suggestions draw howls from civil liberties activists, they so
far have triggered no apparent notice on Capitol Hill, in the Bush
administration or most statehouses.

Part of the reason for the lack of congressional or other government
oversight is the public's general approval of the use of such cameras, and
the lack of attention addressed to the technology's pitfalls, experts say.

A nationwide Harris Poll in February found that 67 percent of respondents
supported expanding video surveillance on streets and public places _a jump
from the 59 percent who felt that way in a June 2005 poll.

Citizens say they like the fact that security cameras can help police catch
criminals and serve as a deterrent to wrongdoers, who know they risk
identification in areas under the lens, according to Shah and others who
study the issue.

"Most recognize the benefits of cameras and say if you're not doing anything
wrong, you don't have anything to hide if a camera is there," Shah said.

And Barry Levine, chief executive officer of surveillance product
manufacturer Sperry West in San Diego, says the camera industry itself is
sensitive to privacy concerns and has developed products that, among other
things, can be programmed not to peer into windows.

"Even covert cameras recognize a zone of privacy," Levine said.

But the effectiveness of the devices as anti-crime weapons is in dispute,
and even those who favor cameras temper their support when presented with a
litany of possible abuses, experts said.

"People often don't see the big picture," said Jay Stanley, a director of
the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Program.

There is no shortage of examples of the cameras aiding police in capturing
culprits. Grainy shots of crooks robbing banks and convenience stores have
become staples of local TV newscasts and are credited with cracking cases.

Last month, security cameras in Philadelphia recorded a gunman just moments
before he shot a police officer investigating an armed robbery. Also in May,
a sharp-eyed city video technician in Wilmington, Del., spotted the main
suspect in the killing of an 84-year-old woman and tracked his movements
until police could arrest him.

Although few long-term studies have been done, several cities say cameras
have contributed to an overall drop in crime.

In Greenville, N.C., the police chief said auto thefts, burglaries and other
offenses dropped by 32 percent in the first six months after the cameras
were installed to watch the public on city streets. Baltimore police
recorded a 20 percent crime decrease in areas monitored by the city's 283
cameras.

In Chicago, the devices are credited with helping to push crime down to the
lowest levels in 40 years. New Orleans police said their system had a
similar effect on downtown crime. (They also note that their camera network
was the only communications link that survived Hurricane Katrina.)

Even privacy hawks such as Jay Stanley, who directs the ACLU's technology
and liberty program, acknowledge cameras can be valuable _ if used in a
restricted way.

"We would never say every camera should be taken down," Stanley said.

But he and other critics contend that the worth of spy camera systems has
not yet been proved.

In Britain, one of the world's most watched countries, a government study
released in February found that the estimated 4.2 million cameras arrayed
across that nation have done little to reduce crime in the decade they have
been in use. As a result, officials there have decided not to install any
more cameras.

In 2000, a University of Cincinnati study came to a similar conclusion,
finding that crime in Cincinnati dropped initially after the eight cameras
were deployed but then rebounded. In Minneapolis, overall crime actually
increased a bit during the 11 months after cameras were installed, according
to a May 10 report by city of St. Paul's mayor's office.

And St. Petersburg, Fla., police officials said images from cameras there
had not "been successfully used in prosecution" of any crime in 15 years,
according to researcher Nestel's study.

If the effect of cameras on crime remains in dispute, experts say there is
no disagreement that, as Nestel put it, "potential abuse lurks at the turn
of every camera."

In Tuscaloosa, Ala., state police have been accused of focusing a camera not
on the intersection it was supposed to be monitoring, but on the breasts and
buttocks of young women walking down the street. In Overton County, Tenn.,
parents have filed suit against school officials for allowing cameras to
film children undressing in middle-school locker rooms.

More troubling to privacy advocates was the graphic police-camera video of
the 2004 gunshot suicide of a young man in New York City housing project
that wound up on a pornographic Web site for the world to see.

Critics also worry that, without sufficient safeguards, unethical police or
city personnel might sell other sensitive or grisly videos to Internet sites
or to the growing number of reality police series cropping up on cable TV.

The cameras also offer far more chilling opportunities for abuse beyond
video voyeurism, such as for racial profiling of minorities or intimidating
political or other protesters. Those who patronize gay bars or strip clubs,
attend Alcoholics Anonymous meetings or are under treatment by a
psychiatrist could be vulnerable to extortion and blackmail.

To forestall problems, a handful of city police departments have adopted
their own written rules, including New York City, Chicago and Honolulu.

But, according to Nestel's survey of some of the largest U.S. police
departments, most haven't. Among those lacking written policies are Atlanta,
Baltimore, Charlotte, N.C., Dallas, Fresno, Calif., Minneapolis, and Tampa,
and St. Petersburg, Fla.

Equally troubling to privacy advocates is the ability government will soon
have to construct dossiers of suspected criminals and innocent individuals
alike, using networked cameras and other databases to document every aspect
of a person's life and track his every move. In Beijing, China, where
260,000 cameras scan the city and thousands more are on the way, authorities
are doing just that.

"Today, every bit of information can be collated, marshaled, can be used,"
said David Keene, head of the American Conservative Union.

With each citizen already under watch by between 10 and 100 cameras a day _
depending on where he or she lives _ America's zone of personal privacy and
public anonymity is in jeopardy of shrinking further, perhaps to just the
confines of a person's residence, and those of public restrooms or locker
rooms.

"The question is: How much of our civil liberties do we want to trade?" New
York professor Ross said. "Are we getting a fair payback (from the video
cameras) for giving up our freedoms?"