Public hearing about surveillance cameras, Tuesday 3/31

[ron_newman]

I got this e-mail from the ACLU today. One of the surveillance cameras described here is next to the traffic light in Davis Square. Another is on the SCAT building in Union Square. (Anyone know of others?)
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In Somerville on Tuesday, March 31, there will be a hearing before the Committee on Public Health and Public Safety about the issue of Department of Homeland Security-funded surveillance cameras. Somerville is part of a nine-city network that got the cameras through a DHS grant, details of which have been kept secret.

Somerville Meeting on Homeland Security Cameras
Committee on Public Health and Public Safety
Somerville City Hall
Aldermen's Chamber (2nd floor)
Tuesday, March 31, 2009 - Starts at 7:00 pm

In two other communities in the network, residents have organized against the cameras. In Cambridge, the cameras were unanimously rejected by the City Councilors in early February. In Brookline, after the Selectmen voted 3-2 to give them a year’s trial, residents are organizing to take the issue to the Town Meeting in May.

The Somerville hearing will give you an opportunity to get information about the cameras and give testimony.

To testify, you do NOT have to sign up in advance. If anyone wants talking points for their testimony, please contact nancy@aclum.org. We hope you can be there -- please spread the word!

Comments

[concrete.livejournal.com]

How about the mobile surveillance cameras the patrol cars have installed? Somerville Police is using them to read and look up the license plate of every parked car they drive by.

[ron_newman]

Please tell us more. That's also worth bringing up at the hearing.

[wallacestreet.livejournal.com]

http://www.wickedlocal.com/somerville/archive/x811435571/Don-t-drive-that-stolen-car-here

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

they've been using the same or similar system at Logan and other airports for years now.

i forsee a trend of people buying car covers or magnetic license plate cozies.

such mobile cameras could be extended to do crowd mapping to.

it's interesting to me how the police tend to freak if you photograph or video tape them (even without audio) ;)

#

[concrete.livejournal.com]

My wife's car was just being towed from a legal parking space on Davis Square when she returned to it. She asked the police officer why they are towing her car, and the answer she got was:

The two boxes you see on the trunk of patrol cars are cameras. While they drive around they scan the license plates of all cars and look them up in the police database to see if there is something outstanding about them (expired registration, expired insurance, etc).

[pushupstairs.livejournal.com]

If I still lived in Somerville, I would drop plans to go to this. Surveillance cameras need to be stopped; England should be fair warning on how effing creepy a surveillance state is.

[lizzielizzie.livejournal.com]

"SCAT building"?

That's an unfortunate name.

[ron_newman]

Somerville Community Access Television has had this name for decades.

[pushupstairs.livejournal.com]

only if you're gross!

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I have mixed feelings about this issue. On the one hand I am a supporter of most things the ACLU stands for, and I do think the public has every right to scrutinize its governments efforts to monitor them.

But that said, these cameras are recording public spaces, and the concept behind them is to provide the same level of police presence that you'd get by having an officer on every corner but without all the added payroll expenses.

If money were no object, I doubt very much that anyone would mind having more police all over the city just keeping an eye on things, so why is this really that much worse?

I might also add that the addition of video cameras to police cars has actually helped maintain the civil liberties of the accused because it cuts down on the number of situations where it is basically their word against the police officer's.

I guess I'm just having a hard time imagining a situation where I'd want to do something in a place as public as Davis Square, but where I still felt like I had a right to prevent someone from putting it on record.

Besides, I am already being video recorded in just about every private establishment I go into, and that isn't even under the pretense of benefiting me in any way. Why should this bother me more?

[cos]

But that said, these cameras are recording public spaces, and the concept behind them is to provide the same level of police presence that you'd get by having an officer on every corner but without all the added payroll expenses.

The fact that they're public spaces does not by itself suggest that law enforcement surveillance is okay, though it does suggest that private citizens (without special authority under the law) can take pictures as much as they want to.

Cameras do *not* provide "the same level of police presence" - that's something that should be evident without too much thought, but given London's experience with surveillance cameras all over the place, there's now research that effectively shows just how little "police presence" cameras are equivalent to. It turns out to be "close to zero". A complete waste of money.

There is, however, a serious cost in privacy.

... but where I still felt like I had a right to prevent someone from putting it on record.

It's very different when the "someone" is the government:
http://www.schneier.com/blog/archives/2008/03/privacy_and_pow.html

[derekp.livejournal.com]

"Seriously loss in privacy?"

I make no assumptions about the privacy I have in a public space. It's impossible to lose something I never had to begin with.

[pushupstairs.livejournal.com]

So you're saying that you'd have no problem with an armed agent of the state stationed on every street corner, watching everything you do?

Especially considering the flagrant abuses of power and complete disregard for personal civil rights by cops in this country that have been publicized in the last few years (and just think of how many are not known about), I'd actually prefer there to be fewer police, thanks -- at least until they show that they can be trusted, as a whole, with the actual public interest instead of their own.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

I think the solution to this problem is not fewer cops. It's better management of existing cops.

[derekp.livejournal.com]

I don't mean to keep sticking up for "the man" but while there have been many publicized abuses of power by police through the years, there have been countless unpublicized cases of good, great, or even above-and-beyond police work.

[m00n.livejournal.com]

Also, right now if a cop decides to violate my civil rights in public and then lie about it, it's really pretty hard for me to hold them accountable. If anything having cameras in public spaces would work in my favor.

[mmouse9799.livejournal.com]

The intersection of Mass Ave and Somerville Ave. is also being monitored because of this same grant.

There was a link to an article about it (with pictures from the cameras) a few months ago on FARK. I can't find it now though.

[intuition-ist.livejournal.com]

as my dear husband pointed out: the temptation to make an eeny-weeny copy of the Bill of Rights and prop it up in front of the lens is nigh-overwhelming.

:)

[ron_newman]

You would need a substantial ladder to do this in Davis Square.

[davelew.livejournal.com]

Or a "public art" piece made of coat hangers (to grab the pole) and raised by a group of helium ballons. Not that I'm advocating the construction of such a contraption, I'm just saying all you need is some wire coathangers and helium ballons.

[tlaad.livejournal.com]

If we can't make it to the meeting, do you know who we could send a letter to with our opinion? And how we could get information after the meeting on what was discussed? Thanks.

[ron_newman]

The public comment period ends on April 15. Send your comments to the city clerk, jlong@somervillema.gov , and mark them to the attention of the Board of Aldermen, Committee on Public Health and Public Safety.

[blinkidybah.livejournal.com]

Those cameras actually make intersections LESS safe, so yeah, bad news all around.

[ron_newman]

If you're talking about 'red-light cameras' that issue traffic tickets -- that's not what these are.

[blinkidybah.livejournal.com]

Ooh well good then?