A Surveillance Camera On Every Chicago Street Corner?

Mike writes "Chicago Mayor Daley has stated that if his Olympic dreams come true, by 2016 there will be a surveillance camera on 'every street corner in Chicago.' Just like in London, elected officials all over America appear to be happily advancing a 'surveillance society' without regard for civil rights or privacy concerns. Ray Orozco, executive director of Chicago's Office of Emergency Management and Communications is quoted as saying, 'We're going to grow the system until we eventually cover one end of the city to the other.'" Chicago has been developing its surveillance network for some time, but it seems they plan to continue increasing the scale.

Comments

The cameras do nothing

[Lord Byron II]

Christ, they put those cameras in several years ago in the most high crime parts of Chicago. And you know what? They're still the most high crime parts of Chicago.

If you want crime to drop, give people a decent education, a decent job, and decent opportunity not to join a gang. And if you really want to increase enforcement, then stick a cop, not a camera, on every corner.

This is nothing more than "security theater" on a city-wide scale.

Re:The cameras do nothing

[Anonymous Coward]

I've lived in London, the most camera carpeted place in the world, even more camera covered than anywhere in the old Soviet bloc.

They don't stop terrorism: the terrorists look just like the rest of London's multi-ethnic society. They don't stop muggers, because the muggers wear hoods and know where the cameras are, and the police *cannot be bothered* to investigate anything less than a huge crime, because they're swamped with standing useless guard duty and filling out paperwork. They don't stop drunken yobs, they don't stop shoplifting because they're limited and the police never can be bothered to pull the records or show them to the people who've been robbed.

No, they're useful for political monitoring. Getting pictures of protesters for monitoring. Hey, look kids in T-shirts insulting Gordon Brown near his speech? Send a squad over to disperse them. You're meeting with people from Greenpeace near the nuclear sub launching? Oh, my, we can't have that! Better check their Oyster card (subway pass) records and see where they live.

1984 was writting by a British man for very, very good reasons.

Re:The cameras do nothing

[IndustrialComplex]

"A" doesn't work.
"B" doesn't work.
Oh, I know! Let's try "A+B"!

Twit.

My tires won't get me to work, and my car won't work w/o tires.

I'm actually FOR cops with cameras, and streetcorners without cameras. I've never been arrested by a camera, and wish that when I was, there was one there.

Re:The cameras do nothing

[cyberguyd]

It's not that people don't have the opportunity. You have to change the culture. For those in the 'hood, if you study, do your homework, work hard, etc., you are trying to be "white". Most want to be a rapper or ball player. The role models that they had until this time is Jesse and Al who continue to preach that they are being put down. Even though I may not agree with everything that Obama is doing, more role models like him are needed.

On a note about surveillance, I am a civil engineer and every city and state building now you have to sign in, show ID, and/or go through a metal detector now. They do it slow, one building at a time. They put up "red light" and intersection cameras which may only have a limited resolution now, but all it would take is quiet change during the nights and then you have system in place. They need the backbone in place. Doing it in the name of public safety is the way they do it.

Re:The cameras do nothing

[onceuponatime]

I was hit by an uninsured driver that did an illegal U turn in front of my motorcycle in South London. After flying over the vehicle the driver took off around the corner and disappeared. The police were called immediately. There was a camera looking right at the place of the accident. The police could have followed where the driver went to, they didn't. Not that that was important anyway as before the driver got around the corner, I got the license plate number and called it in.

Some 4 weeks later I received a letter from the criminal investigation unit saying that they had written the address concerned and received a letter back stating that the person concerned didn't live there any more and so they were going to drop the case. I called the person from the criminal investigation unit and asked if they sent someone around to the place where the vechicle was registered. She said they didn't and said that they "never would" for a hit and run investigation unless someone was seriously injured. Then she repeated:

"And I mean seriously injured..."

So the cameras were not even consulted. But more to the point, the police wouldn't even investigate if they did, however I have been sent many a ticket in the post for trivial offences (Riding in a bus lane, after a radio advertising campaign started to encourage this for motorcycles).

On another occasion whilst travelling on the eurostar I accidentally left a camera bag will cameras and lens at the security scanners. I realised this within 20 minutes and from the train called and confirmed that they had it and were holding it for me. When I got the bag back a 300 pound lens was missing. I reported this to the railways police and was called back by a friendly railways police man confirming that he was investigating and would review the tapes. I described very carefully what I was wearing and I was easily identifyable as I had a motorcycle topbox with me. I thought maybe he would have difficulty identifying the lens so I described it carefully. I provided a time frame within a 10 minute period of when I passed through the security scanner. I was stunned that he closed the case saying that he could not identify me on the cameras, forget about the lens!

People who believe these cameras will help them out and reduce crime are deluding themselves, however they can be fairly sure they will be sent tickets for minor traffic offences (Not major ones) based on these cameras. Hey, I guess that's the crime they meant when they said that these cameras would help combat crime.

Frankly I'm perhaps glad that they don't follow up on all crime they see on these cameras or everyone would be receiving multiple tickets a week for trival crime and society would be horrible to live in, but it does make a complete mockery of the excuse for why they are there. It's the camera equivalent of weapons of mass destruction.

Re:The cameras do nothing

[Scrameustache]

Nobody should be worried about cameras on every corner unless they are a criminal worried about being caught in the act.

De Menezes, an electrician who had been in the country for three years, lived in a building that was under surveillance because it was believed to house a suspect wanted in connection with the unsuccessful bombings of July 21.
When de Menezes left his apartment, he was believed to be that man and subsequently tracked to the station. He rushed to board a waiting train car, where two officers pinned him to the floor and shot him seven times in the head and once in the shoulder.

Re:Sorry to break this to you.

[HEbGb]

There is not a CCTV camera on every street in London.

But, who am I to burst your hyperbole bubble.

London has the highest density of CCTV cameras of any city in the world, and it's ridiculous overkill. Technically they may not be on EVERY street, but damn near close.

But more importantly, it's been shown as completely ineffective. Chicago is going to make the same mistake. Security theater..

Re:Seems it's just elected officials with the "D"

[PopeRatzo]

It's OK. Here in Chicago, the surveillance cameras will be coin-op. You can pay your bribe up front, saving on manpower.

I'll say one thing for this idea: at least cctv cameras can't torture suspects*

(* for the full story. google "Chicago Police Torture".)

Open and democratic city camera systems

[macraig]

The correct use of those cameras is to wire them up to the Internet, and make it so that ANY concerned citizen can monitor the cameras in a Web browser, or perhaps a dedicated app. Leave it up to concerned citizens watching a camera to call the police and report what they have observed. Best of all, give them a tool - Firefox extension? - that lets them record what they're viewing, so they have some form of evidence to give police, not just hearsay.

In the United States we have Neighborhood Watch groups, many of which would no doubt find cameras on every street invaluable: they could sit home warm in their jammies and still help keep their neighborhood safe, instead of being out roaming the streets in the harsh cold with the crooks, risking being shot-at.

That approach would incur no additional municipal cost for monitoring, and any misuse of the cameras would be the responsibility of individual citizens, not Big Brother. Would citizens actually do it? I think they would, in high-crime areas or areas where crime is rising. That approach would be democratic, rather than autocratic.