|
Security Cameras Back in Demand By Adam Karlin 8/3/05 |
It's a scenario out of a sci-fi movie: a
surveillance camera that records your face, transmits the image to a database, and raises an alarm if you're a suspected terrorist, a sex offender, or a missing person.
But what if you're an Al Qaeda Agent in a Groucho Marx mask?
Then it gets a little more complicated, as police in Tampa, FL, discovered a few years ago when
surveillance camera technology was a security trend. Under the FaceIt scanning program, the police scanned 100,000 unknowing fans at Raymond James Stadium during the 2001 Super Bowl. But the project was ultimately shelved, in 2003, partly because anti-surveillance activists discovered the cameras could be fooled by ski masks, bandannas, even sunglasses.
Interest in the technology never wholly faded, and now, in the wake of the London attacks and the widely publicized use of cameras to track down suspects in those incidents, some politicians in the United States are again saying it's time to seriously consider increased video surveillance. Although they eschew Tampa's complicated biometric bells and whistles in favor of simpler recording networks, the cameras are going up in New York, Baltimore, New Orleans, Chicago, and Detroit: in subway tunnels, at bus stops, on downtown promenades, and in low-income neighborhoods. With the programs comes a lively debate on security versus privacy, cost versus effectiveness, and the role of the government when it comes to protecting — and monitoring — citizens.
"People feel safer if they know an area is being watched," says Vincent Morris, a spokesman for Washington Mayor Anthony Williams, who has publicly stated his support for increasing
public surveillance since the 7/7 attacks. Mr. Morris calls the cameras a necessity in a city that has already been a terrorist target and describes them as more of a deterrent than an outright preventive measure: "We've had red-light cameras here, and they cause people to slow down," he says.
Some cities are moving ahead quickly. A week after 7/7, New York announced that its Metropolitan Transit Authority would begin
installing cameras in the underwater tunnels that link Manhattan to outside neighborhoods.
All of this raises the issue: Cameras that discourage drivers from running red lights are one thing. But suicide bombers, experts say, are liable to blow themselves up whether they're being recorded or not.
"I would put cameras in the same category as improved lighting, increased foot patrols, and the use of explosive-detecting dogs — as a potential deterrent."
Some civil liberties activists agree with that assessment. But they also see huge potential for abuse: a looming threat of privacy invasion and hints of a Big Brother-esque state where all public activity is recorded and analyzed.
After all,
surveillance doesn't just happen in subway stations. In June 2004, the libertarian Reason magazine, using public databases, sent some 45,000 subscribers a personalized issue with a satellite image of their residence on the cover. Source: csmonitor.com |
