The Manhattan Project
Compromise Uncertain on Same-Sex Marriage Law
Morning Roundup: Second Helpings Edition
Go Home Already: Shouts and Murmurs
Fire at 17th and L NW Forces Evacuations
Photo courtesy WMATA
The idea behind the new surveillance equipment is the same rationale as any other crime camera initiative the District has seen over the last few years: officials hope the cameras will deter crime, and also assist in police investigations.
"Riders want to feel safe when they’re using Metro,” said Metro Board Chairman Jim Graham in a statement. “Cameras tend to deter crime and we expect them to add to the security measures Metro already uses."
Of course, whether such cameras actually help at all is up for debate.
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The cameras primary utility will be to provide embarrassing footage to be replayed on the local news channels ad nauseum should a crime actually happen. "purse snatching 7 year old caught on video, are we all monsters? More at 11..."
"...should a crime actually happen..."
Are you serious?! Have you been to some of those Metro stations before?! Metro is a very safe system over all, but there are some black sheep stations in the system that have a lot more crime.
I have nothing sweat over camera's being installed other than the idea that they weren't there already!
No, I was not really serious. But I do wonder how many crimes will be within camera range, the one time I was mugged on Metro, it was at a non-District station, and happened across the bus lanes, well out of camera range if there were cameras, which there weren't (I asked). But yes, I agree, I thought they were already there. I just hope the new ones actually lead to arrests, not just youtube postings.
You mean to tell me that Metro doesn't already have CCTV cameras outside of the stations? I'm all for more CCTV cameras. One can debate the deterent effects of the cameras ad naseum. I'm more interested in them because they are very useful in prosecuting crimes that have already occured.
Example: After the 7/7 bombings in London, CCTV camera footage was instrumental in identifying the bombers.
Before another poster raises a 'breach of privacy' argument, I'll point out that one has no expectation of privacy when one is visible from a public space. If you are walking on a public street, anyone can take your photo and use it for non-commercial purposes.
Given the amount of crime in this city I'm all for more cameras. One has to imagine that thugs will think twice before committing crimes in full view of a camera that is recording their actions.
They who can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.
My point was that you aren't giving up any 'essential liberty' by having CCTV cameras watching you. CCTV cameras don't alter your rights in any legally significant way and don't impinge on your liberties.
Example: Existing law allows me to stand outside a metro station and take a photo of every person entering and exiting the station. I could then post all of the photos online. That right is protected by the First Amendment.
This is why police and other authorities cannot prevent you from taking photos of publicly-viewable buildings. If you are really concerned about not being seen in public then there is a ready solution - you can wear a burqa or abaya to conceal your identity. Of course, I (or anyone else) can still take your photo, as long as you are visible from a public space.
To reiterate, CCTV cameras do not change your liberties at all.
PS: If you have registered your SmarTrip card then WMATA knows the date/time/location of every trip that you take on Metro. Since WMATA has your personal info, this would seem to have a much greater potential for violation of one's privacy rights then camera footage not tied to identifiable (nameable) individuals.
What is the 'essential liberty' being given up?
Yeah, it's only a matter of time before we go "full London" on the CCTVs. The thing I don't like about them is that they are primarily there to help solve crimes, not prevent crimes. I think municipalities get lazy and rely on these things.
Why not go back to more beat patrols? No, I don't mean a cop sitting in his car sucking on a Slurpee. Actually have them walk a beat.
NYC increased this in 90s and I believe it helped in terms of crime prevention.
Why not go back to more beat patrols? No, I don't mean a cop sitting in his car sucking on a Slurpee. Actually have them walk a beat.
I think in DC's case, they'll probably split the difference and have the cop sit and masturbate in his car.
1. I've lived in London and never minded the CCTV cameras. I figure if you're not doing anything illegal then you have nothing to worry about.
2. More foot patrols would be fantastic. Unfortunately, the current DC police 'party line' is that foot patrols don't work. Of course, foot patrols would mean that all of the fat, lazy cops in the area would have to get some exercise, which is something they are apparently allergic to.
I figure if you're not doing anything illegal then you have nothing to worry about.
Please do yourself a favor and pick up a copy of Franz Kafka's "The Trial" from your local library. Or, better yet, rent it on Netflix.
"I figure if you're not doing anything illegal then you have nothing to worry about.”
I can't believe you spit out that drivel. Do you work for the Department of Homeland Security [sic] or did you just forget to go home when GW Bush left office?
Just because I can go out in public without panicking does not mean that I work for DHS, or support the Bush administration. Of course I do neither.
Why does having your photo taken make you so nervous? What ill has befallen you as a result of a quasi-governmental agency having video footage of you going about your usual business?
Let me just point out that the CCTV footage in question is not linked to any personally-identifying data. That is, unless you are wearing a name tag, they may have footage of you but they have no idea who you are.
There is probably CCTV footage of me going about my business in a dozen or so countries, but I've never even really thought about it. But then, I'm not the kind of person to worry about every little thing.
NB: it used to be illegal in MD to make an audio recording of someone without their permission. So, video would be fine but audio would be out. That was the law a few years back, but I am not licensed to practice in MD and haven't kept up to date with MD law.
While I'm sure many share your faith in faceless government bureaucracies to keep us safe, some of us are slightly more wary. It doesn't take much for Mr. Harold Buttle to be mistaken for Mr. Harold Tuttle and subsequently disappearing without a trace, courtesy the Ministry for Information Retrieval. The benefits of this type of surveillance technology are debatable at best and ripe for abuse at worst, but all this has been bandied about before in the linked CP article. I can't tell you how many times I've been mistaken for turkeyrotica, donkeyrotica, and even piss-cappucine-monkeyrotica, although the latter is understandable since we are both Swiss and sport reverse mohawks.
I really have very little faith in my government, and I don't count on the government to keep me safe. In my experience, the best safety precaution is a little bit of common sense. Sadly, too many people seem to lack this quality.
For the past 700 years, a Habeas motion has been a simple and effective response to a citizen 'disappearing without a trace.' Of course I have to distinguish 'citizens' from 'non-citizens' due to the Bush admin's very interesting interpretation of the law, which is unfortunate. But I'm certainly not worried about the gov't whisking me away to some undisclosed location without due process.
If WMATA wants to record footage of me walking to the escalator as Metro every morning, I say go right ahead. While they're at it, maybe they can put some cameras in Metro parking garage stairwells to keep bums from pissing in there.
I know you feel strongly about the subject, but I resent being called a "bum." The correct term is "son of the rails" and it's nothing to be ashamed of. Besides, you try holding in two forties of Old English 800 for an entire Metro ride. They don't call it "the Yellow Line" for nothing.
Yeah, and hillbillies would like to be called 'sons of the soil,' but it gonna happen.
+! on the Brazil reference, Terry Gilliam's best film.
One has to imagine that thugs will think twice before committing crimes in full view of a camera that is recording their actions.
You seem to have a high opinion of the intellectual capacity of most DC criminals. Quite the contrary: one of the reasons why crime is still relatively low in DC is because the laziness and stupidity of its criminals is matched only by the ineptitude of its law enforcement and the reluctance of its victims to cooperate in the investigations. After several arrests, the perps will merely take their operation ONTO the trains themselves where there are no cameras and even fewer witnesses.
You're definitely right about criminals being stupid. In law school I was routinely blown away by the idiocy of some criminals. There are definitely a subset of offenders who pursue a life of crime simply because they are too 'simple' to handle anything else.
I suppose there are also plenty of criminals who know the potential consequences to their actions but decide to proceed in their criminality anyway. And I guess that no amount of deterent effect is going to stop them.
SO, forget the deterent effect. Also I wasn't aware that WMATA destroys the footage after a few days - in the digital age it is cheap and easy to permanently store all of the digital footage for future use. Of course, doing that would make sense (and WMATA seems to lack any common sense).
One of the reasons frequently given by prosecutors for why they don't bring more charges against criminals is 'lack of evidence'. I should think that a video recording of someone, say, assaulting a victim on WMATA property would be some hella-good evidence.
Did you read the article linked to in the last paragraph?
No one is debating the deterrent effect; the debate is whether or not they do the job they're purported for. I've heard from folks who work for the Public Defender Service who say that the Metro Police delete the camera recordings after a few days, meaning that the defense can't call on a recording to prove or disprove the accused's whereabouts, because by the time you've gotten through the bureaucracy of requesting tape - it's gone.
Funny also that you say you're not interested in debating the deterrent effect, yet you hope that thugs will think twice about committing a crime in front of a camera. That is the "deterrent effect", in case you were unclear.
So what have we learned? 1) The cameras haven't really been a boon to law enforcement. 2) If it's a deterrent effect you're going for, we could save a couple million and put up fake cameras.
Sure, installing these cameras might lead to WMATA to commit gross human rights violations. But that can't be any worse than the crimes against humanity that Michael Bay has inflicted upon us using the exact same technology.
Those are the highest crime stations because Maryland stations were excluded. That keeps Prince George's Plaza and a bunch of other green, blue, and orange line stations off the list. Coincidentally, Governing Magazine has a cover story this month about Baltimore City's anti-crime cameras.
What? Most of these crime cameras are located on the east side of town or in PG? As a former resident of DC and PG County, I am shocked and humiliated. Now I know what Jim Graham's first wife must have felt like.
Does that feeling have anything to do with your back door?
another thing to consider ... I worked retail in the tenleytown area for a while and once the north face jackets came to my store for winter time we had a sharp increase in people showing up with garbage bags and filling them and running out witha screwdriver or knife in hand. Sometimes they'd jump in cars and we'd get plates for the cops. Most of the time they just ran to the metro. We could offer a description but if they got on the train they could now be anywhere. Well anywhere metro goes. The cameras might just provide a way to spot these shoplifters and post their pictures up in the area stores, since we often had repeaters. Thats neat. Also it would help since the police often came 25-30 minutes after the person left. this way you have video. you won't even need to respond just look at the tape within a few hours. One year it got so bad I took up calling 911 yelling the address and screaming and hanging up. When I did that two cops were there in about 18 minutes. Not exactly the right thing to do but it almost worked.
I've also worked in retail and we used to have a lot of shrinkage on high-priced items. When we managed to catch the thieves, it was absolutely imperative to have CCTV footage of the criminal act to submit before the court. Eyewitness testimony is unreliable and can be refuted, but it's tough to argue one's innocence when one's face is clearly visible on the tape.
It's about damn time! I was assaulted by some nut job outside the Congress Heights station back in January; right at the top of the escelators! Sure wish they'd had these back then--maybe they'd of also captured the license plate and number of the police car 15 feet away that drove off as I tripped over my cart trying to get away from the guy...
Granted, camera's don't entirely stop crime, but the psychological value of them far outweights the minimal cost to install them. For people worried about prvacy; what the hell are you doing in a Metro station that you wouldn't want someone seeing anyway?!
Maybe I'm just a closet exhibitionist but I'd rather feel safe and be surrounded by camera's when in public than constantly wonder if I get mugged/attacked will I be able to remember the person's face (if I survive at all).
What were you doing at Congress Heights? Sounds suspicious to me.
Speaking of crimes, who makes the decisions on advertising banners on DCist?
Detailed last week was "econ4u" which is a front for the Employment Policies Institute (who lobbies for the restaurant, hotel, alcoholic beverage and tobacco industries).
This week we see "MyWireless.com" using scare tactics to warn us of a seventy-five cent increase in cell phone costs. This organization is a mouthpiece of the Cellular Telecommunications and Internet Association (CTIA) who are a trade association supporting wireless service providers.
At least Campbell Brown was No Bias. No Bull.
Sorry, thirty-nine cent increase.
And it was Campbell Brown. She pretty.
Government video cameras are dangerous for two reasons. (1) They change the nature of policing by taking power away from citizens, and (2) they eliminate the possibility for privacy out of doors.
(1) Video surveillance radically strengthens the power of the state. Without cameras, victims or nearby people who empathize with victims are the ones who report crimes. This is an incredibly important natural safeguard on police power, because people can choose to not report violations of unjust laws. This is why black people could sometimes escape slavery, unions could organize, and people today can do recreational drugs if they so choose.. Video cameras destroy this natural safeguard. When the government records all activities outside of the home, the state can pick and choose which crimes it wants to go after, and it can easily prosecute innocent people who normally would have been protected by their fellow citizens.
That shift is incredibly important. Any governmental abuses will be greatly intensified when the police see everything outside homes. The power to turn in criminals should stay with victims and concerned citizens. Otherwise governmental abuses will become much harder to combat.
(2) Video surveillance makes life worse by eliminating privacy. While misinformed people love to say that we have no expectation of privacy in public, this is not correct. We always have had privacy in public. Public property includes every street, every park, every beach, and nearly every place you spend time when you are not at home. Almost everywhere, it has been possible to be by yourself outdoors without people watching. People have always been able to meet with a group of friends without policemen watching them. Also, being seen on the street by strangers and then forgotten is radically different than having all your waking actions recorded by the police. Even the privacy of the home is in jeopardy, because cameras can record who is entering which dwellings, threatening free association. With widespread video surveillance, being alone out of doors is a thing of the past, and an essential part of human life disappears.