Every time I go back to Chicago, I hear a story about the police cameras that are installed on light posts around the city. Usually the story involves someone being arrested for a petty crime as a direct result of the cameras, while serious crime goes on more or less undeterred.
For instance: Last summer when I was visiting, my friend and I talked to his neighbor shortly after he was released following an arrest for drinking in public. The neighbor is a widower, probably about 65 years old, and had been drinking a can of beer on his front step in the middle of the afternoon. An officer in a squad car some distance away used a camera on the block to zoom in on the man. The officer saw that the can was a beer can, watched the man drink some, and drove the squad over to arrest him for drinking in public. Three days prior to the neighbor's release (right around the time of this his arrest), on the same block, an acquaintance from the neighborhood stops a friend and I on the street, produces a sawed-off shotgun from a duffel bag and offers to sell us the gun, used, for $20. (I f-ing love Chicago!)
The cameras seem like an incredibly intrusive and ineffective means to fight crime.
Mayor Daley and his cronies want to install more cameras around Chicago, touting their effectiveness. I’m not going to pretend that I know how to police Chicago, but it seems like a waste of time and money. Here’s a blurb about Daley’s reaction to a call from the ACLU to halt the installation of more cameras:
When I read this article:
…about Christopher Drew and Tiawanda Moore being charged with felonies under the Illinois Eavesdropping Act, I threw up a little in my mouth. The opportunity for flagrant abuse of power that the camera system used in conjunction with this law affords the po-po shouldn’t go unchecked. Here’s my letter to either the Chicago Sun-Times or the Chicago Tribune, or both:
To The Editor:
Mayor Daley ought to heed the ACLU’s call to freeze the installation of more cameras in Chicago. The cameras are an ineffective and highly intrusive means of keeping the citizens of Chicago safe. The city asserts that the PODs security system is effective, but according to the ACLU, arrests generated by the system account for less than 1% of total arrests over the last four years. The security system seems more like a security blanket under which the Mayor’s office and Police department can huddle.
To add insult to the injury the cameras inflict on Chicago, citizens may face felony charges if they record their interactions with law enforcement officials. Currently, two Chicagoans, Tiawanda Moore and Christopher Drew, face felony charges under the Illinois Eavesdropping Act for recording their interactions with Chicago’s finest. Under this seriously outmoded law, citizens are subject to harsh punitive measures for doing exactly what the city has determined will keep them safe.
If Mayor Daley and Co. insist on the installation of more cameras in Chicago to “protect” its citizens, they ought to give the citizens they represent a fair shake by joining the effort to repeal the Illinois Eavesdropping Act and by dropping the related charges against both Moore and Drew.
BIG issues here, largely on the politics / technology axis. You nail it, and all the detail makes this almost a position essay, more than a letter.
ReplyDeleteClear case of the sort of assumed politics (surveilant society) driving the technology.
I agree to some extent with your thesis; however, the fact remains
ReplyDeletewithout knowing which exact neighborhood you speak of your argument
seems a bit misleading and overly bombastic. Firstly, the ACLU is not
necessarily the "moral compass" that we need in order to gauge if this
is indeed a problem or not. What Mayor Daley has done over his 20 plus
year reign is keep the North Side of Chicago safe and booming while
the South and West side crumble. Camera's are a deterrent, not a
solution. People in wealthy areas want video camera's; they feel like
they have nothing to hide, and I would venture to say it makes them
feel safer.
Also, there is a distinct difference between audio recordings and
video recordings; therefore, your argument breaks down and it looses
its seriousness. By conflating audio and video technology, you missed
the larger point which is that these are two fundamentally different
forms of technology, and I would venture to say they are treated
differently by the Supreme Court.
You are arguing under the guise of "Post Hoc Ergo Proctor Hoc", which
any logician knows is faulty and unsound. Most of the time Police
officials are required to have a warrant in order to record a private
citizen and I am almost certain that video recording police matters is
permissible by law. Just look at the case of Rodney King, if there
wasn't a recording of this heinous crime by the officers of L.A., the
public would have never seen this specific act of police brutality.
The problem is for some folks cameras are a problem and for others
it's their answer. The basic function of any police force is to
protect private property; therefore, if you are poor and renting you
might feel differently than the wealthy building owner who wants to
see his property value soar. Mayor Daley has been good for the rich
and terrible for the poor, minus his insistence on keeping the Taste
of Chicago free.
Sarah-
ReplyDeleteFirst, the "post hoc ergo PROPTER hoc" argument might read something like this: "The sun rises because the rooster crows." I'm actually addressing two separate issues here: one being the wasteful addition of new cameras, the second being Illinois' outdated surveillance laws.
Second, why would it matter what neighborhood I was in (Little Village)? Do citizens of different neighborhoods get different treatment under the long arm of the law? The answer is yes, of course they do. The cameras don't actually protect anyone or anything on the South and West sides, but it sure does make the North side feel all warm and fuzzy to know that someone is watching all the trouble-makers on the other side of the city.
Third, if you'd read Daley's response to the ACLU's request, you'd have seen that Daley doesn't seem to think that the police need to follow due process:
"It isn't practical to require probable cause before zooming in, following somebody's movements with a camera or using facial recognition technology, Daley said, because that would require an OK from a judge."
Given the Chicago Police Department's record of spying on its citizens, this should be cause for alarm.
Lastly, what properties of an audio recording make it more threatening to the state than a video recording? What's the difference? What happens when the technology you might use to record some event captures both audio and video? The technology is exactly what's at issue here: The Illinois Eavesdropping Act was drafted long before video technology existed and should be abandoned or updated to reflect today's technological advancements.
Incidentally, many states have laws that forbid the video recording of law enforcement officials. If it happened today, the person who recorded Rodney King's beating might very well be charged with a crime. Many of the same states are experimenting with "officer-mounted" cameras which stream audio and video feeds directly from the officer's perspective.