CAMERAS, from page 3 Big Blue Bus used cameras to dispute lawsuit
CITY HALL — Concerned about the potential threat to privacy rights, the American Civil Liberties Union has sent a public records request to the city regarding the video surveillance cameras that will soon come on line.
The city has been installing 123 surveillance cameras around the city, including on lightposts along the Santa Monica Pier and Third Street Promenade, over the past three to four months as part of a $1.3 million public safety project.
Peter Bibring, staff attorney for the ACLU, sent the public records request to more than 40 cities in the Los Angeles vicinity on Nov. 7. Assuming city officials received the letter on Nov. 8, they would have to comply with the request by Nov. 18, according to the California Public Records Act. Officials could ask for a 14-day extension beyond the deadline.
The ACLU is troubled by the increasing number of cities that are utilizing surveillance cameras — several of which were approved by city councils with almost no public participation — feeling they pose a threat to privacy rights, the letter states.
“Anytime personal information is being gathered, it raises a privacy concern,”Bibring said on Friday. “There has been an increase in the use of surveillance cameras in the United States recently and there is some question as to whether they are actually effective in deterring crime.”
The letter mentions that numerous studies show the presence of surveillance cameras actually shifts crimes from one neighborhood to another. The funds to purchase the cameras should instead be used on “more effective” crime preventive measures, such as improved street lighting, wrote Bibring.
The information requests itemized in the letter — 15 total — includes the number and locations of surveillance cameras installed in Santa Monica and complaints received about the cameras.
“At the moment, we’re trying to synthesize and figure out what practices cities in California currently engage in and how they treat surveillance videos,” Bibring said last week.
The letter was not intended to target specific cities that have or are in the process of implementing cameras, Bibring said. Instead, the ACLU wanted to survey which cities in the Los Angeles area are considering the cameras.
The Santa Monica Police Department has not received any complaints regarding the surveillance cameras, which are still not up and running, said Eric Uller, lead public safety system analyst for the SMPD.
City Council approved the cameras earli-er this year, drawing predictable concerns of a Big Brother-like presence in Santa Monica.
During discussions, City Councilman Kevin McKeown said he was concerned about the abuse by outside agencies in using the data collected by the cameras.
“Surveillance cameras in public places and on public transit may capture the occasional criminal act, but they also create a permanent record of ordinary citizens, documenting who went where, when and with whom,” he said on Wednesday.
In response to McKeown’s concerns, City Council staff drafted policy dictating how the footage will be used,“which I believe was the responsible way to assure maximum usefulness against crime and minimal impact on civil liberties,” he said.
The cameras will only be used for public safety and investigations, and not for any sort of profiling.
“As the cameras are proposed to be used, they do not pose any significant privacy rights issue,” said Assistant City Attorney Joe Lawrence on Thursday.
Surveillance cameras were installed on the Big Blue Bus in 2005 and have been used several times to dispute lawsuits filed against the city’s transit agency.
“There is at least one person who claimed some kind of injury on the bus, and we were able to pull the file and prove they didn’t,” said Dan Dawson, customer relations manager for the Big Blue Bus.
On the flip side, a camera can also show when the bus driver has been negligent.
“We’ve never had a whole lot of crimes on the bus to begin with,” said Dawson. “When people see the cameras, they immediately take a second thought before they do anything.”
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on November 21, 2006. Read the original PDF.