Before I do so, however, I would like to offer a couple of different intuitive sketches that relate to cameras. Hopefully this will help those on either side of the debate see where the other is coming from.
Consider these newspaper lead-ins:
"WASHINGTON -- Community leaders and educators offered kind words as they recalled the short life of 9-year-old Donte Manning, who was shot and killed as he played near his home in March."
"MIAMI -- Investigators are searching for a man they said abducted and raped a woman. Police said a 26-year-old woman was abducted at knifepoint from the corner of Northwest 10th Avenue and 74th Street in Miami and was later raped"
When we are treated daily to such serious rights violations by our fellow citizens, surely we can empathize with the sentiment that "something must be done" to protect innocents -- i.e. their rights to life and voluntary sexual congress. Indeed, couldn't the horrible stories cited above have been about your son or your wife? Might cameras not have helped identify the perpetrators in these cases, especially since -- in both instances -- the criminals could strike again?
However, we can too easily imagine the following scenario sent to me by a concerned reader, Craig:
Driver - But I wasn't speeding
Driver - But, but! ...
Officer - (Consults Blackberry) Oh and here is another problem ... apparently you just had four rum drinks billed to your bank card not more than an hour ago. You will need to step out of your car in order for me to administer this digital alcohol screen.... it will only take a second. Otherwise, we can go downtown and make this much more trouble than it need be.
Officer - My database also shows the restroom urinal detected an unprescribed painkiller in your urine. Since your wife has a prescription for this type of painkiller, officers are being dispatched to question her on potential trafficking violations.
Officer - That's correct, and I will take that as an admission. If failing to follow the prescribed dosage caused you to run out of pills early, you may have a problem with addiction. Sir, if you have an addiction, the state can provide the necessary treatment -- but this may have to be undertaken after you settle your DWI. Either way, I'm going to have to take you in... Oh, and that restaurant will probably lose its liquor license for serving you too many drinks.
While this vignette is a bit hyperbolic, we can see how abuses of the state can creep, and are creeping, in this direction. The state already has too much power to meddle in our affairs and could erode more of our rights, slowly-but-surely. Do we really want to give the government any more power to observe, intrude or coerce? We've been down that road before, and in the worst cases, it leads to a Gulag.
So what's to be done if we are to protect both the rights of citizens from criminals and the rights of citizens against abuses by the state? This is the Big Question. We'll return to it in a moment, but first, let's consider some specific points from readers.
Cameras + Boredom = Lechery
One reader, Julian, made a number of good points. Among them he asked me to consider Britain's experience with bored, horny men in control booths. In the absence of minute-by-minute crimes, ennui invariably sets in among these roller-chair cops. Predictably, they start using the cameras to follow around young women in skimpy outfits. Such leering is not just occasional, but normal. This is a perverse, unintended consequence (in all senses of the phrase) of municipal cameras.
I'm willing to admit that such pecadillos, however small, constitute abuses. Control-booth onanism is neither a good use of tax dollars, nor an appropriate behavior for a public servant. Some even argue that such behavior could be considered a violation of stalking laws in some states. While I don't think bored men in control rooms are necessarily stalkers, I can see cause for concern.
But as with all crime-fighting tools (e.g. guns, cars, Tazers, night-sticks), proper training, oversight, and rules for appropriate use of cameras should be firmly in place. I would even question the efficacy of monitoring by a couple of bureaucrats (beyond maintenance checks). It seems to me that surveillance cameras should be designed to provide leads and evidence after a reported street crime, not to afford some dozing roller-chair cop the opportunity actually to observe a crime-in-progress (which I'm guessing is an infrequent occurrence, anyway) or to leer at women. If the process were automated, then the issue of lechery would be moot. Still, I admit the problem of separating the method from the abuse is difficult. I'll return to this point in a moment.
Bad Laws + Technology = the Nanny State Cam
One of the most serious concerns about cameras was brought to my attention by a reader, Courtney. She points out that it's not so much that cameras violate our civil rights per se, rather it
helps the Nanny State enforce ridiculous and
intrusive laws already on the books. What if a street camera were to catch you
sitting on your own porch smoking a joint? Courtney's right in saying that the
street camera, while legitimately enforcing the law, is enforcing an
illegitimate law. On this, she's absolutely right. The state should not have
one iota of a thing to say about what substances you want to put into your body
whilst sitting on your own porch. Cameras make it easier to discover these
victimless crimes. On this, I can only say that she is right. But rather than
objecting to street cameras as such, shouldn't we focus our energy on fighting
paternalistic laws like one's prohibiting the private and personal use of
illicit substances?
The
All-Seeing Eye and the Virtually Infinite VCR
This one
comes from Chris, as well as reader Julian, again. They find the notion of a
state-run panopticon more than a little troubling. The mingling of technologies
like face recognition software, searchable databases and ubiquitous,
interconnected cameras is a recipe for the government being able to find out
about your goings and doings anytime, anywhere.
Admittedly,
when I wrote "Let's be Candid," I was thinking about a very narrow,
here-and-now application of surveillance technology -- that is, as a discrete
phenomenon in the absence of other technologies extant or in the pipeline. But
a camera infrastructure becomes a stepping stone to a much more nebulous and
invasive creature, the full nature of which we might not yet be able to
characterize, and one which may be poised to gobble up Constitutional rights.
While I don't want to fall onto any slippery-slopes, Julian and Chris are right
to point out that myopia can be dangerous and converging technologies,
monsters.
Having said
that, David Brin
via Arnold Kling at
TCS offers an interesting middle-ground solution:
"Brin
argues that if surveillance technology were treated as public property, like
city streets or national parks, then the potential for evil could be contained.
He envisions a world in which no one can avoid being watched, so that there is
'mutually assured surveillance.' Even if I were tempted to be a peeping tom or
a stalker, the ability of others to observe my behavior would act to deter and
constrain me.
"When
people argue that surveillance tools should be kept out of the hands of
government, Brin argues that this is unrealistic, because officials inevitably
view this as hampering their effectiveness. It is more realistic, in Brin's
view, that we could strike a deal in which government has access to the best
tools to do its job on the condition that the public has access to those same
tools."
Kling has
some concerns about this approach, as he realized the potential by governments
slowly to garner monopoly power over the technologies. Still, I'm reminded of
distributed computing, or the decentralized SETI model of watching the sky
for extra-terrestrial signals. Instead of paying five nerds to watch the stars,
put it on a screensaver and let 10,000 Trekkies do it. More eyes are likely to
find the needle in Drake's haystack. In the case of cameras, if the cops are
chasing skirts (virtually), people will be able to call them on it -- and the
probability of apprehending a rapist increases by an order of magnitude.
Speed
Cameras and Due Process
Reader Laura
pointed out that government speed cameras are already springing up around the
One of the
most distasteful aspects of traffic cameras is that they are cash cows -- not
only for municipalities, but for the private companies that supply them. Laura
is correct in pointing out first that we don't want to create any more
transfer-seeking relationships between business and government than necessary.
(For more on such problems, check out this book.)
But here's a
more serious problem: if the camera can't photograph the driver, then the
camera can't tell if the car's owner is at fault. After all, people drive other
people's cars all the time... Now, once you find your $50 fine in the mail for
an incident that occurred while you were off in the Bahamas, it is your job to
contest the ticket and prove that you were NOT the driver in the photo. But
when you have to prove your own innocence, we call that a violation of due
process -- for in America at least, the onus is on the government to prove your
guilt.
Laura is
right. The government should never be able to shoe-horn its way into violating
due process. In fact, there are numerous cases of people contesting these
tickets (an undue burden on people who make $25 per hour, but who have to take
half a day's work fighting for $50), and in many cases like the District of
Columbia, government officials aren't
listening to these complaints -- especially as they stand to gain from the
revenues. It should be said that more conscientious states are banning speed
cameras.
A week ago,
my argument might have been that street cameras should be considered separately
from due process considerations. After all, a law enforcement tool should not
be conflated with the way it is properly or improperly used. But as I reflected
on these points, I think my readers have something in the general assertion
that it is difficult to disentangle enforcement methods from legal processes,
especially in these kinds of cases -- especially since the cost of fighting the
state is often too small in the face of opportunity costs associated with lost
work time and intransigent judges. This is a good example of the way in which
our rights get taken away little by little.
Still, if one
were to argue, based on these cases, that all uses of municipal cameras are
illegitimate, then I think the burden is on her to show that the due process
disease infects all applications of the technology.
Back to
the Big Question
This is a
good place to return to the Big Question: How do we protect people from rights
violations by thugs and rapists, and keep citizens' rights against government
intact? It seems to me that -- while studies in Britain
and Australia have shown street cameras don't yet seem to be functioning as a
deterrent against violent crime -- they could certainly be useful in helping us
identify and capture street criminals, and should be considered appropriate as
evidence in court.
The question
thus becomes: if cameras are both useful in this way (and cost effective), can
we use them in more localized ways without introducing the opportunity for
abuses by government? This is the question I failed to address in "Let's
be Candid," and readers were right to call me on it. This week, my answer
to this question is simply I don't know. But I do know this: my gut tells me
that a naked anti-camera fetishism could result in a failure of security-a
responsibility currently charged to the state. In other words, the gray area
between rights and security is one that continues to demand further scrutiny,
and it should not readily be dichotomized by jerking knees on either side
(including my own).
When I think
about 9-year-old Donte Manning, I want to find a way to entrust the government
to use these tools properly. When I think about my wife or someone close to me
being hurt by some predator on the street, I want to ask civil libertarians
"what about their rights?" On the other hand, if -- in an effort to
thwart the most egregious rights violations -- we allow tiny, persistent,
virtually undetectable erosions of our rights by the government, we may find
ourselves in a world too frighteningly close to 1984 than I was prepared to
admit in my first piece. Therefore, I'd like to ask readers if they'll allow me
to step back from the tone of surety I had in "Let's be Candid," and
consider the conversation still open.
Max Borders is a writer in the Washington, D.C. who is known,
occasionally, to eat a little crow.
