First of all, I probably should explain a couple of things about how and why this otherwise mild mannered blog decided to post about an admittedly controversial subject such as surveillance cameras and why I allowed that post to be republished elsewhere.
I often look at the websites of the links on to the right, including that of the Downtown/Waterfront BID, for material to post here. News of upcoming events, that sort of thing. That’s how I noticed the original post about the cameras on the Downtown/Waterfront BID’s site. Checking around, I found that, a couple of professional surveillance websites aside, there had been no reporting and, apparently, no public discussion about these cameras prior to them being installed (the public discussion part I’m still working on - it’s possible I just haven’t found it yet). As I made pretty clear in my initial post on the subject, I’m strongly disinclined to view any type of surveillance cameras favorably; privacy, or rather the lack thereof, in our modern life is a growing problem, one with consequences much more serious than most folks realize.
So, after discovering these cameras, I tried phoning several different city offices to find out what, exactly, was going on. Getting nowhere, I called Hezi Aris, editor of the Yonkers Tribune. Now, Mr. Aris has a reputation as a bit of a firebrand and the Tribune skirts the polite edge of agitprop from time to time, but I respect his willingness to hold politicians’ feet to the fire. In any case, he was quite helpful, and pointed me toward a few city officials who might both have some of the information I wanted and be inclined to help me. What little I know about these cameras that I didn’t glean online came from these phone calls.
Finding this camera business interesting, Mr. Aris asked if he could republish my blog entry on his site to which I gave my assent. That’s how the piece found its way to the front page of the Tribune last week. The first step towards combating our loss of privacy is awareness; few people truly understand how little of it they have left. I allowed the piece to be republished to raise awareness of what was happening in our own back yard. Surveillance is not just for the alphabet soup of national intelligence agencies, and it’s negative consequences are borne mainly by regular citizens, not criminals.
That having been said, I am highly supportive of the work the local Yonker’s BIDs are doing, specifically the Downtown and Waterfront BID. We all want nice places to visit downtown, and we all want our property values to go up. One can reasonably ask if - in this context - there are other, legitimate business reasons for putting up the cameras.
One could make the case that installing surveillance cameras encourages development. Property owners and business managers may feel more secure about opening and running business downtown knowing the cameras are there. Additionally, cameras can help limit liability and forestall malicious law suits, e.g., if someone fakes a fall outside your building in the snow and then attempts to sue you. Finally, as a friend of mine with some experience with development in Yonkers reminded me, installing cameras, especially if paid for by a grant, is an easy way to “do something” - or at least appear to - for development. It may not have been any further thought out than that. He’s probably right as the simplest explanation is usually the correct one, and there’s seldom any need to ascribe nefariousness when ignorance will suffice.
In this spirit, I’ve written to the Downtown/Waterfront BID to give them the opportunity to ally some of my concerns about these cameras. Specifically, what I asked to know is:
*Who owns the cameras?
*Who operates them?
*Who provided the grant for them and to whom was the grant given?
*Is their data encrypted and are their signals modulated to prevent wardrving?
*Who owns the stored data (on DVD) and who can access it.
*What is the relationship between the BID to the folks in the Parking Department who run the cameras?
*Will, and if so under what circumstances, the data from the cameras be shared with law enforcement?
*Will the data be available to the public?
The BID, to their credit, immediately wrote me back informing me that my questions had been forwarded to the person whose attention I’d requested in the message. I’ll follow up with them if I haven’t received a reply by the end of this week.
Finally, for those of you curious about how these cameras look, here’s two photos.
First, a close up:
All the cameras I’ve seen in the downtown/waterfront area look identical to this one.
Next here’s how a typical camera is mounted:
Some are mounted lower, some much higher, but this distance from the ground appears to be typical.
Now, I hesitated to post these because once people know what they’re looking for, the cameras seem obvious, and if the cameras are obvious, they may have a deterrent effect on crime thus justifying their installation. As I said before, I don’t think this is the case in Yonkers.
Look again at the second picture. See how high above the woman walking on the street the camera is? Now, ask yourself: how often do you look up that high? How often do you look at the top of a lamp post? Not often, I’d bet. Moreover, the camera is very small and its color and shape match that of the regular light fixture quite closely, rendering it even less likely to call attention to itself. Plainly, you wouldn’t notice this unless you were specifically seeking it and knew what you were looking for.
Perhaps criminals are a lot smarter than I think, but my friends in law enforcement assure me that this is usually far from the case. These cameras are difficult to spot if you don’t know they’re there, and I doubt they’ll deter a jaywalker, much less a felon.
