Future fuzzy for government use of public surveillance cameras

Demian Bulwa / SF Chronicle | July 23 2006

Police Capt. Bob Keyes spent a recent afternoon patrolling this Central Valley city with a keypad rather than a Crown Victoria.

"Can you read that?" Keyes asked. He had swiveled his office chair toward a television displaying the view from one of the more than 100 surveillance cameras in the city of 90,000, and then zoomed in on a small protest sign held by a woman at a downtown rally.

Toggling from a camera that bird-dogs downtown bars to one that scans a Target store parking lot, Keyes said, "This one was used earlier today to catch a theft suspect." Then -- click -- it was over to the skateboard park. "Mom and Dad can see if Johnny is or isn't doing what he should be," Keyes said, adding that the city might put that camera online.

That was only a taste. Extra eyes watch the jail, the schools, a walking trail, an art piece and the wastewater plant. Monitoring screens are in commanders' offices, at dispatch stations and inside each patrol car. Officers even use footage to assign blame in some traffic accidents.

Clovis' 5-year-old camera system, considered cutting edge by some and Orwellian by others, may provide something else: a picture of the Bay Area's future. Such monitoring is rare in the region, but probably not for long.

Thanks in part to money from anti-terrorism grants, San Francisco and several other Bay Area cities have started installing police cameras at high-crime locations, or places that are heavily trafficked or considered to be possible attack targets.

Surveillance technology "will become hand-in-glove to traditional policing," Thomas Nestel III, said in a telephone interview. Nestel is a Philadelphia police inspector who studied camera programs for his master's thesis at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey. "It will change policing like vehicles did."

Surveillance pervades American life -- cameras are in stores and airports, on trains and buses, even in office buildings. But the police cameras have stirred fresh debate between those excited about their potential to cut crime and critics who call them a costly form of Big Brother government that doesn't work.

Police say a camera's mere presence can deter criminals, while a crisp image can win a conviction. Police are asserting that they can catch crooks and respond better to emergencies by watching crime unfold in real time. They stress that the cameras have software that can block out spots where people still expect privacy, such as the windows of homes and hotel rooms.

But critics say there's no evidence to support spending public money on cameras instead of traditional crime-fighting measures such as community policing programs and extra cops and street lighting.

Police cameras "have the potential to eviscerate our privacy rights -- our right to go about our business without being monitored 24 hours a day," said Mark Schlosberg, police policy practices director at the Northern California office of the American Civil Liberties Union. "On a gut level, people think, 'This should work.' But it doesn't."

The debate is complicated by the scattered way in which systems are being implemented. Nestel's study of 20 police agencies using cameras found that few had written policies, formal training for users or methods to collect data revealing success or failure.

"This is moving so quickly that it's moving faster than the controls," Nestel said. "Not too many people are evaluating whether it succeeds. Nobody was able to tell me that. The overwhelming response I got was, 'The public loves it. The public thinks it's great.' "

Even Clovis, after five years, does not have guidelines enacted by its City Council for camera use. "That's happening as we speak," Keyes said. The city does not track data on the system's efficacy, and Keyes could not provide its cost.

Around the country, some police cameras are monitored live, others are not. Some cities link the cameras with those in private businesses. Many agencies have dipped into federal Homeland Security grants to pay for the devices, saying cameras can help shield sensitive sites and aid first-responders to a disaster or attack.

The trend is unmistakable in the Bay Area: San Jose is seeking four cameras downtown, including one on popular Fountain Alley. Oakland recently bought about a dozen and loaned them to International Boulevard merchants, who agreed to give footage to police investigating crimes. Pittsburg has installed 13 cameras, plus a live-monitoring room, which is not yet staffed. Another 13 cameras will soon be hooked up along the delta waterfront.

Albert Seeno Jr., a major developer in eastern Contra Costa County, is placing 32 cameras at four shopping plazas in Pittsburg; his firm will control them, but police can commandeer them in an emergency, said Capt. William Zbacnik.

Zbacnik said cameras have provided evidence in five incidents. Twice, he said, they revealed that teenage girls had fabricated stories about being sexually assaulted, which saved investigative resources.

In Richmond, officials said they have discussed placing cameras along Macdonald Avenue in a partnership with Target, which is building a 150,000-square-foot store on the thoroughfare. Target has also bought cameras in Clovis and Minneapolis and given them to police to monitor.