Safety v. Privacy (page 4 of 4)

Is It a Gun or Just a Cell Phone?

Yet another took note as I bought my morning coffee. From there, I stopped to do some shopping. I knew a camera was watching as I entered the dressing-room area at Nordstrom because I saw myself on a monitor. Finally, I walked into the building where I work to find a man on a ladder adjusting a camera hidden under a small blue bubble. He said he was making sure the lens was focused -- the better to see me.

In the public arena, Chicago officials have no qualms about using so many spying eyes. If you're not doing anything wrong, they say, the presence of cameras should comfort, not disturb, you. But skeptics are not reassured by that. One three-year study by the Scottish Centre for Criminology suggests that Glasgow's camera surveillance did not deter crime. And a 2002 British government study found that surveillance in Britain, Canada and the United States cut crime only slightly, with little or no effect in city centers or public transit settings. Many criminals, some experts say, adapt to the environment -- hiding their faces or sticking to places they think cameras can't follow.

Huberman doesn't dispute those studies but says Chicago's new system will be more effective. And he and other officials contend that the increased surveillance is already paying dividends, citing it as one factor in the city's homicide rate nearing a 40-year low. Huberman reiterates, "What makes Chicago's approach different is the way we have linked the cameras into one centrally monitored system." The site where the network merges is impressive. Tucked away in the city's vast 911 emergency building, about a mile from downtown, the operations center holds a wall-sized video screen that can be divided into sections showing thousands of different images.

The center, built with a $5.1 million Homeland Security grant that's also paying for some of the new cameras, is the key to the system, according to Monique Bond, a spokeswoman for the Office of Emergency Management and Communications. Officials from any agency can spot crimes and identify emergencies in real time, and then quickly communicate and coordinate the resources needed on the scene, she says.

One situation officials believe will put the center to a test: the annual Taste of Chicago, a summer event that draws millions of visitors and shuts down Grant Park for 10 days.

Officials imagine not only being able to monitor the crowds and the traffic, but also to thwart potential crimes by spotting suspicious behavior, Bond says. For example, police could spot someone wearing a heavy parka in the 90-degree heat -- using the jacket perhaps to conceal stolen goods or something even more sinister.

While Chicago continues to put its high-tech system into place, one of the city's highest profile surveillance successes came thanks to a privately owned camera. In August, a tour-bus driver for the Dave Matthews Band was charged with dumping up to 800 pounds of bathroom waste into the Chicago River while crossing a downtown bridge. Much of the waste landed on a tourist boat that was passing below. Some passengers got sick, and five were taken to the hospital after being hit with the liquid.

After first standing by the driver and denying any responsibility, the band began to change its tune -- but only after learning the bus had been captured by a hidden camera.

What Makes Them So Smart? What are some of the key features of the new "smart" cameras Chicago will employ? For one, they can rotate 360 degrees and be pointed up or down from a remote location, such as the city's surveillance operations center. Built-in software is programmed to detect certain suspicious and unusual actions. A camera "reading" such behavior goes into alert mode, allowing dispatchers to choose whether to send police or other emergency workers to a trouble spot. Audio gunshot-detection software, also built in, is activated if shots are fired. Police can then monitor a shooting's aftermath before putting officers in the line of fire. The cameras can also zero in precisely enough to tell whether a suspicious object is a gun or just a cell phone.

From Reader's Digest - February 2005

 

• Election '08
• Better America
• • Security Threats

• Bad Laws Passed on Capital Hill
• Really bad laws are getting a blind vote on Capitol Hill.
• 
• Homeland Insecurity
• Your tax dollars are hard at work fighting terrorists... in all the wrong places.
• 
• Radiofrequency Identification Devices and Privacy
• Do radiofrequency identification devices represent a significant threat to our right to privacy?
• 
• Car Monitoring Systems Threaten Privacy
• From black boxes to GPS devices, your car is recording your every move.
• 

• Be Inspired
• 10 Celebrities Who Give Back
• 7 Amazing Stories, $700,000 to Charity
• Virginia Cervasio: Making It Matter
• PLUS:
• Quiz: What's Your Celebrity Cause IQ?

During a beautiful spring afternoon, I was attending the Cheat River Festival in West Virginia. Just as I stopped to listen to a folk singer, a group of exhibitors, dragging out tools and sawhorses, began setting up their display booth nearby. All their shouting and hammering made it difficult to enjoy the music. The noise they made got louder and even more obnoxious and intrusive as time went on. Finally, to everyone's relief, they completed the construction. As a finishing touch, they hung a sign on their booth. It read "Silent Auction."   

-- Jim Truman