Somebody's Watching Me! (DR Other Side column)

Smile, you're on a candid camera
By Kelvin Wade
May 20, 2010

'It always feels like somebody's watching me,' one-hit wonder Rockwell sang in the 1980s. Soon more Fairfielders will get that feeling with the addition of more surveillance cameras thanks to federal grants. We already have cameras on streets and parks, so why not expand the operation in the hopes of getting more bad guys to say cheese?

There's no question that security cameras in business parking lots have been helpful throughout the country in tracking down suspects. With the recent tragic abduction and murder of Phuong Le locally, the usefulness of multiple security cameras in public places seems obvious.

It was a security camera that helped break the Westside Burglar case. The camera from a local business caught the suspect accessing a motel on Holiday Lane through a hole in a fence.

The Westside Burglar case presses the argument that neighborhoods are a great place to have cameras. Cameras in the right locations would make it hard for a serial burglar to plow his trade. How long would a suspect be on the prowl if his photo were in the Daily Republic and on regional television news?

There has been disagreement over the effectiveness of cameras. In December 2008, University of California, Berkeley researchers studied the city of San Francisco's Community Safety Camera program and while they didn't find a drop in violent crime due to cameras, they did find a significant, substantial decline in property crimes.

No, the presence of cameras themselves doesn't necessarily prevent violent crime. That fact is borne out by all the footage of idiotic criminals we've seen on TV for years assaulting people and robbing businesses. Our criminal class isn't full of the brightest folks. But cameras have proved invaluable in identifying suspects and catching bad guys.

Cameras are ubiquitous. In the course of a day, you might go to a gas station and be on camera. Then you could go to the bank and be filmed. Cameras monitoring traffic may photograph you. You might go shopping in a big box store and once again be the star of your own Truman Show.

We're surrounded by businesses that employ cameras. And you'd be hard-pressed to find a fellow citizen around you that isn't armed with a cell phone camera.

We live in an era where privacy seems to be a thing of the past. Both Google and Facebook are facing backlashes over privacy. So surveillance cameras may seem like more Big Brother to those concerned about civil liberties. But no one should have an expectation of privacy on a public street.

Weighing privacy versus security in this instance, the gains to be had by identifying suspects, finding out what happened in an assault or an accident far outweighs concerns over having one's image captured on a public street.

Look, when I was young and dumb, my friends and I would often hang out in parks like Laurel Creek and Allan Witt and booze it up and wreak havoc. We certainly wouldn't have done so if there had been surveillance cameras in the parks. Cameras help keep the riff-raff out so families can enjoy our beautiful parks.

Let's keep applying for grants and keep these programs going. Surveillance cameras are important tools to help keep Fairfield safe. Say cheese, dirtbags. Peace.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
ADDITIONAL NOTES: When I was a youngun, me and my boy Chumly did all kinds of nefarious things around town. I'm not making any excuses. I'm not saying there was nothing to do. We just chose to be jerks and if there had been security cameras in public parks, it would've curtailed our activities. No one except a total moron is going to spray graffiti in front of a camera.

Everyone is concerned about privacy these days but to be honest, the world has shifted dramatically in the last twenty years. I'm not talking about 9/11. I'm talking about technologically. Now, so much formally private information or hard to come by information, is right at our fingertips from the comfort of our living room. The populace are all armed with cameraphones, many with video. Sure there are some people who don't have phones but they're in the minority. We live in a day and age where anyone can be photographed or filmed by anyone else and in moments that picture or video can be posted online and anyone in the world can see it.

If public cameras also recorded sound, then that would be a bridge too far. California requires consent for audio recording. But our image is captured by a camera almost every time we venture out into the public square. And if by doing so, it helps produce leads that result in bad guys getting taken off the streets, it's worth it.