IP Democracy: More Surveillance Cameras or More Cops?

A story in the Palm Beach Post talks about the plans of West Palm Beach, FL to test high-tech surveillance cameras and perhaps deploy up to 100 at a cost estimated to be $17,000 per device. According to the paper, “[t]he police department hopes to buy them with grant money or cash from drug seizures…Able to rotate 360 degrees and read a license plate a half-mile away, they will roll 24 hours a day and can be programmed to zoom in at the sound of gunfire.”

The cameras’ arrival will put West Palm Beach in the middle of a national debate about the use of police surveillance in public places. The cameras have been hailed as an innovative police tool and condemned as a dangerous infringement on privacy.

[C]ities that have used them on a large scale, including Chicago and Baltimore, credit them for significant reductions in crime…[but] the effectiveness of police surveillance cameras has been questioned…A drug dealer may not ply his trade before the lens, they say, but he won’t stop dealing. He’ll just move to the next block. Others question whether money for pricey cameras could be better spent on hiring more police officers.

Some organizations, including the American Civil Liberties Union, have complained that round-the-clock surveillance cameras infringe on citizens’ general expectation of privacy, but courts have ruled that people on streets or public property can be photographed or filmed against their wishes.

Posted by Mitch Shapiro on November 22, 2005 4:22 PM to IP Democracy