BY NICHOLAS TATSIS

Since 2003, the Department of Homeland Security has provided an undisclosed amount of funds to American cities for the installation of extremely sophisticated camera surveillance systems. Though public surveillance began in America over 20 years ago, its recent expansion has prompted a fresh round of legal debates. The general populace’s opinion, however, does not necessarily reflect the intricacies of such expert discussions. According to a 2007 ABC News/Washington Post poll, a solid 71 percent of Americans support increasing public surveillance, while a mere 21 percent oppose it. Although deliberations may persist in academic circles, the lack of popular protest makes it unlikely that public surveillance will be curtailed in the near future.

Are Cameras Effective?
No one knows exactly how effective public surveillance is. Surveillance proponents maintain that while it is difficult to quantitatively illustrate cameras’ efficacy, they deter offenders and provide cities with an overall sense of security. In a statement issued to the HPR, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley explained, “The overall objective of Chicago’s camera network is to make the city safer for its residents, communities, and assets.” Expanding on this point, Kevin Smith, director of media affairs for Chicago’s Office of Emergency Management and Communication, told the HPR, “Cameras in areas prone to gang-related or drug-related activity have helped us solve crimes.”

Skeptics point to a lack of empirical evidence for this assertion. After the 1993 IRA bombings in London, the British Government installed over 200,000 cameras in its capital, hoping to thwart future terrorism or crime. But in 2002 the British Home Office reviewed 22 studies from the United States and the United Kingdom, and eventually concluded that public surveillance “had little effect or no effect on crime in public transport and city centre settings.” In an interview with the HPR, Ed Yohnka, director of communications and public policy for the ACLU of Illinois, said, “The public feels safer with these systems, because they’ve been told so by elected officials. But there’s no data to support this conclusion.”

Nevertheless, as supporters note, cameras have proved helpful, albeit in unintended ways. London uses them to charge traffic taxes, while Chicago’s cameras help the city remain abreast of weather conditions and identify license plate numbers on speeding vehicles. Mayor Michael Bloomberg has discussed using New York’s cameras to implement a commuter tax. Opponents see this as evading the issue. Jeffrey Rosen, a George Washington University law professor and the legal affairs editor of The New Republic, told the HPR, “Essentially, they’re sold as a way of fighting terrorism – something they are very bad at detecting – and used for other purposes.”

The Legal Haze
Since the Supreme Court’s 1967 ruling in Katz v. United States established that a person does not have a reasonable expectation of privacy in “[w]hat a person knowingly exposes to the public,” the government has been permitted to monitor and observe public areas. Yet the legal status of modern public surveillance systems remains unclear because the potential for blanket surveillance is relatively new. As Harvard Law School Professor Bill Stuntz told the HPR, “If [surveillance] becomes ultimately pervasive, it might change the legal equation.”

The first American public surveillance cameras, used in Southern California, were stationary and could only record blurry images; their modern-day counterparts are light-years ahead. Chicago’s Operation Virtual Shield uses analog cameras that are equipped with pan-tilt zoom features, rotate 360 degrees horizontally and 180 degrees laterally, magnify images up to 300 feet away, and detect gunshots. Cameras are not equipped with either infra-red or heat-seeking abilities, but remote heat-detection systems can accomplish that anyway. Police officers can watch camera footage in their vehicles.

Critics contend that the proliferation of advanced cameras might encroach upon civil liberties. “When these systems were first introduced in the late 1980’s, some of the policemen, who monitored the cameras, used them to ogle or follow young women,” said Yohnka.

Responding to such complaints, Commander Jonathan Lewin of the Chicago Police Department told the HPR, “As long as the right accountability mechanisms are in place, there is no risk. Our cameras are operated by sworn, trained, police officers. All usage is monitored.” If citizens complain that they can see a camera from their residence, the police install an electronic shield, preventing the camera from looking anywhere but the public way. Chicago deletes its stored footage after roughly a week.

Still, in 2002, the ACLU successfully sued the City of Denver, where the police department had been keeping footage of public protests indefinitely, often recording the license plate numbers of activists. Similar incidents have occurred occasionally since 9/11, though they are not widespread. Opponents of surveillance networks fear cameras may be abused for political purposes, or will violate individuals’ autonomy and privacy.

What Is At Stake?
Foes of surveillance persistently argue that privacy concerns are all too real, and that civil liberties are discarded in the name of security. Some of the public’s endorsement of surveillance systems can be attributed to the suave marketing of the companies that produce them, and critics argue that the public has not been exposed to a serious debate about local privacy issues. Marc Rotenberg, president of the Electronic Information Privacy Center, told the HPR that the federal government often circumvents local objections. “Because the funding [for cameras] comes from the Department of Homeland Security, there has been very little debate on the local level,” said Rotenberg.

The Chicago Police Department, whose camera system won the Kennedy School of Government’s 2007 Innovation in American Government Award, stresses that it works to incorporate the input of the City Council, and that surveillance cameras achieve a clear objective. “We’ve discussed it at the Public Building Commission, and the [city council] has generally supported it,” said Smith.

What’s Next?
America’s camera system is still growing. Mayors in New York and Chicago recently proposed augmenting their surveillance networks, which already comprise thousands of cameras.

As cities in the United States continue their deliberations, they do so against a backdrop of similar international debates. Greece continues to consider when and how to use its extensive camera system, built during the 2004 Olympics. China, which will act as the host for the upcoming Olympics, just installed 20,000 surveillance cameras and another 200,000 are under way. France announced plans to triple the size of its surveillance system, currently 340,000 cameras strong.

It seems that in the face off between safety and privacy, governments are inclined to decide that when it comes to camera surveillance, it’s better safe than sorry. ]]>