-- JonathanGuerra - 30 Oct 2010

Security cameras are ubiquitous in big cities now, and this has created vast concerns about privacy. I live six blocks away from the law school, and once I leave the front door of my apartment every move I make is on videotape. Admittedly, there are more cameras here than in other neighborhoods in the city. This is Columbiaville after all, where the students are uncomfortably close to that park where those people hang out at. It is not as bad as it was ten years ago http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/news/park-7841-association-drinking.html but they are still concerned http://www.columbiaspectator.com/2006/02/17/walk-park. Fittingly, cameras lead the way to Jerome Green.

Closed Circuit Television took off in urban areas after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. Less than a year after the attacks, cameras began popping up everywhere DC. Adam Goodheart in his op-ed for USA Today, saw irony in the fact that Independence Day celebrators were assured of their safety because law enforcement through CCTV would be keeping an eye on spectators. http://www.usatoday.com/news/opinion/2002-07-22-ncguest11_x.htm He views the ubiquitous placement of cameras as an affront to privacy and the Constitution, but he deceptively notes that to do audiotaping a warrant is needed, but not so for videotape. The distinction is not audio surveillance versus video surveillance; it is public surveillance versus private surveillance.

In U.S. v Knotts, the court noted the distinct difference between surveying a person in public rather than in private. Without a warrant the authorities had placed a beeper inside a container of chloroform in order to monitor its transport. The beeper worked by omitting a periodic signal that could be detected by the authorities. Upon trial, Knott’s motion to suppress the evidence obtained by the beeper was denied and he was convicted. The Supreme Court upheld the conviction stating: Where visual surveillance from public places along driver's route to owner's cabin or from adjoining owner's premises would have sufficed to reveal driver's arrival with container of chemical used to manufacture illicit drugs, fact that police officers relied not only on visual surveillance, but on use of beeper to signal presence of driver's automobile to police receiver did not violate Fourth Amendment.

In other words, there is no reasonable expectation of privacy for what you do in public. Had the drum containing the beeper made its way inside Knotts’ cabin then there would have been grounds for suppression.

For me the logic of this is hard to deny—in as much as what it stands for is the basic proposition that what is public is not private. I allow anyone who is witness to observe what I do in public. Anyone is free to catalog my movements from when I leave my home to when I return. Therefore, it is difficult for me to grasp how widespread CCTV is a constitutional violation.

CCTV in general is idle surveillance. If an incident is reported then tapes are reviewed. Some surveillance is active though. For instance, New York City housing projects are subject to active surveillance under VIPER (Video Interactive Patrol Enhancement Response). Under VIPER, NYPD officers monitor a series of closed circuit televisions in order to look out for illegal activity. It was reported a few years back that many of these officers were actually under review for conduct violations. http://www.notbored.org/VIPER.html. The fact that officers stationed to observe the monitors had abused their previous positions of course heightens concern about active surveillance, but really what foul can come from it. So an officer decides that he would like to use the cameras to follow the derriere of a young female or use the cameras to exclusively follow young black men wearing sagging pants, the harm that comes from this seems minimal. Sure such activities would mean that city resources are being wasted, but there is no direct harm to a person or their privacy when they are simply being viewed in public.

That all being said. I do not like that every move I make in Columbiaville is on camera, but my discomfort does not stem from feeling that my privacy is violated. My discomfort stems from feeling that my autonomy is curtailed. I know that if I decided to do something illegal I would most likely be caught. It does not matter whether or not I actually wish to do something illegal, whatever it may be. What matters is that I feel as if there is less of a choice because performance of an act in view of the cameras likely means arrest. It is in this regard that I feel like I have less of a choice, and that I have unwittingly articulated the argument for surveillance.