Politech: FC: Privacy villain of the week: Federal camera, surveillance junkies

[Declan McCullagh <declan () well com>]

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Date: Fri, 18 Jul 2003 15:16:28 -0400
To: info () mail consumeralert org
From: J Plummer <jplummer () consumeralert org>
Subject: NCP: Privacy Villain - Federal camera operators

Privacy Villain of the Week:
Federal camera operators

The federal government owns one-third of the land in the country and half 
of the land west of the Mississippi. And as far as the Beltway bureaucrats 
are concerned, we have "no reasonable expectation of privacy" on any of it. 
To prove they're serious, they've begun to piece together a 
near-all-encompassing surveillance dragnet in the Washington, DC area. And 
according to a report recently issued by the General Accounting Office (TXT 
- <http://www.gao.gov/atext/d03748.txt>, PDF - 
<http://www.gao.gov/new.items/d03748.pdf>) the federal agencies have failed 
to demonstrate their cameras do anything to stop evildoers and have been 
lax in responding to Congressional oversight concerns about the cameras' 
effect on privacy.
The GAO report focused on the use of cameras by two agencies, the National 
Park Service and the Metropolitan Police Department of the District of 
Columbia (MPDC) and the United States Park Police. MPDC told GAO that their 
cameras were geared to fight crime, particularly, but not solely, during 
demonstrations and whenever the Homeland declares CODE ORANGE. MPDC has 14 
cameras of their own, but can access real-time video from other DC agencies 
including the public schools as well as "certain private entities." MPDC 
has a written set of regulations that restrict camera operators from 
focusing in on faces or print, but GAO also pointed out that there is no 
clear training regimen for the camera operators to make sure these 
restrictions are followed. MPDC has yet to develop any evidence that the 
camera systems actually reduce crime.
The United States Park Police also have cameras in and around the nation's 
capital and they are far more secretive than MPDC about how, when and where 
they are used. Park Police claim that their cameras are chiefly to fight 
"terrorism" instead of "crime." The Park Police will not divulge where any 
of their cameras are, and has not yet issued final regulations on their use 
that were due a year ago. The Electronic Privacy Information Center, 
however has recently obtained the draft version of these regulations 
through a Freedom of Information Act request 
<http://www.epic.org/privacy/surveillance/uspp-cctv_policy-070903.pdf>). 
Those regulations call for the spycams to tape everything they see 
"twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week" and leave open the door to use 
of face-recognition software and the use of images from the cameras in 
civil as well as criminal proceedings.
This "no reasonable expectation of privacy" policy vis-à-vis government 
surveillance on public lands is unfortunately not limited to the monuments 
inside the District. Cameras and microphones can turn up in the oddest 
places -- for instance, one man in Nevada recently had a six carloads of a 
federal Joint Terrorism Task Force search his home after he pointed out 
military sensors on public land to some reporters 
<http://www.lasvegasmercury.com/2003/MERC-Jun-26-Thu-2003/21596133.html>. 
The number of cameras keep increasing despite GAO's finding that neither 
MPDC nor USPP can prove the cameras actually decrease crime. GAO also 
points out the spycam operators in the UK haven't proven such either -- but 
they're installing precrime software in the cameras there, so maybe that 
will "help" <http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99993918>. 
Indeed, "no reasonable expectation" is the lowest common denominator when 
it comes to privacy, especially when the information gathered could be 
dumped into the Pentagon's TIA computers. The more land controlled by the 
federal government -- from the middle of the forest to the municipal 
airport -- the less choice citizens, consumers, tourists and travelers have 
to make among competing privacy tradeoffs. That is a true tragedy of the 
commons -- and breeding ground for privacy villains.


By James Plummer

The Privacy Villain of the Week and Privacy Hero of the Month are projects 
of the National Consumer Coalition's Privacy Group. For more information on 
the NCC Privacy Group, see www.nccprivacy.org or contact James Plummer at 
202-467-5809 or via email .



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