Being Watched 24:7

With little or no public debate, surveillance cameras have colonized public spaces in America. Sometimes in plain sight, sometimes hidden, these unblinking eyes are ubiquitous, and it's almost impossible to leave home without being taped. In stores, banks, offices, parking garages and the Statue of Liberty and on the Golden Gate Bridge, they are watching you. Some are controlled by a remote operator with a joystick. Others run automatically, recording loop after loop of film, which virtually no one ever sees. Never before has an entire population been under such observation constantly, not even in the heyday of Stasi, the notorious East German secret police. It's as if the entire U.S. were a casino or a prison, where constant visual surveillance has long been customary. Still, there is relatively little complaint about all the snooping. The cameras are part of the physical and cultural landscapes of 21st century America.

Is it only coincidence that "reality" television shows have become so popular? Perhaps television is just doing its job--providing a funhouse mirror, adding glamour and sex appeal to our growing habit of voyeurism.

In the wake of September 11, spy cameras have taken on a patriotic shimmer. "We have no choice but to accept greater use of this technology," said a Washington, D.C. law enforcement official, commenting on the profusion of cameras in the nation's capital. By this October, the National Park Service will install round-the-clock video surveillance at tourist attractions such as the Vietnam Memorial and memorials to George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln.

As if to preempt protest, the official stressed that the cameras will not be equipped with face-recognition technology, which can scan crowds and, in theory, spot a fugitive or terrorist. The official said cameras would operate "only in public areas where there is no expectation of privacy and only for valid law, enforcement purposes." Such assurances lend poignancy to one of Jefferson's more prophetic observations: "The natural progress of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground." Tourists pointing their cameras at the symbols of freedom will be filmed themselves.

Advocates say the cameras make us safer. To be sure, they have helped identify criminals. Who can forget the photographs of Patty Hearst and her erstwhile comrades toting guns during a 1976 bank robbery? More recently, surveillance tapes helped New York police collar two suspected murderers. But these success stories are rare, considering the amount of surveillance that takes place (see sidebar).

It remains to be seen if there will be a backlash. In England there have been complaints that law enforcement authorities ignore criminal conduct and instead aim cameras where they hope to see innocent people having sex, or where they can just peer at women. Meanwhile, violent crime is rising.

Cameras provide a cheap illusion of safety, a technological substitute for the real comfort of having a cop on the street. They're here to reassure us that if we watch ourselves closely enough, everything will be all right.

Watching

(1) The first time cameras were used for public surveillance: 1966, in Hoboken, New Jersey.

(2) Number of people arrested before cameras were dismantled five years later: 2.

(3) Number of cameras watching the streets of America today: 2 million.

(4) The percentage of cops who think those cameras fight crime: 2 out of 10.

(5) Total revenue of security equipment suppliers in 2000: $18 billion.

(6) Most frequent law enforcement application of cameras: inside squad cars, to protect officers against frivolous lawsuits.

(7) Growth rate of the camera market in the past 20 years: 589 percent.

(8) Combined lobbying dollars spent by security, retail and banking industries to fight pro-privacy legislation in 1996: $23 million.

(9) City with the most aggressive public surveillance program: Tampa.

(10) Number of suspects identified by face-recognition system on Tampa sidewalks over a four-day period: 14.

(11) The number of those that were false positives: 14.

(12) First group that Washington, D.C. police surveyed with their newly developed camera surveillance system: IMF protestors.

(13) According to a study by the National Institute of Standards and Technology, percentage of face-recognition technology that will incorrectly identify a person 18 months after the initial scan was taken: 43.

(14) The percentage of fans who were scanned at Super Bowl XXV by biometric cameras: 100.

(15) Number of fans told they were under surveillance: 0.

(16) Easiest ways to fool a biometric security camera: grow a beard, wear sunglasses, smile.

(17) The width, in millimeters, of the lens in a popular spy camera that is designed to be indistinguishable from a normal clock: 3.6.

(18) Amount of time, on average, that it took to find a dealer in Washington Square Park before surveillance cameras were installed along the park perimeter: 45 seconds.

(19) Amount of time it takes now: 2 minutes.

(20) Federal rules and procedures for storing and archiving visual surveillance tapes: None.

(21) The number of years after the invention of the telephone that it took before the Supreme Court acted to protect the privacy of phone conversations under the law: 91.

(22) Reason that video cameras do not violate privacy in public places, according to federal law: The cameras don't have any audio pickup devices.

(23) Single most common effect that criminologists say cameras have on crime: moving it to zones of no surveillance.

(24) Single most common effect that security cameras have on normal people, according to sociologists: inhibition.

(25) Number of websites that feature webcam sex, according to Google.com: more than 300,000.--M.B.